16
iv.
the food sellers.
deficient
group
are
primarily
food
Therefore the policy 1nstruments that a country chooses and the program intervention that it wants to implement must be caretully considered and should balance both of the above options. The literature is replete with alternative suggestions, but Reutlinger et al., (1986) reconunends three intervention options to improve food security: i.
influencing the food supply through changes in domestic production, imports or exports. Such a change, he suggests, may not affect domestic food prices, and if it does, it will benefit all consumers and producers of food:
i i.
reducing the pr ices of speci f ic foods sold to some or all consumers without altering the prices paid to producers, and
iii.
augmenting incomes by means other than changing food prices, such as subsidizing the unemployed, subsidizing non-food conunodities or providing transfers of income in cash or kind.
In essence, interventions that increase incomes or reduce consumer pr 1ces without reducing producer pr ices will clearly improve food security. Such interventions should be targeted to the specific disadvantaged group. Such an action could increase the real income and food consumpt10n of the target group without shiftlng the cost of doing so on the rest of th e population who do not have tnis speclIlc problem. The attalnment o f food securlty by any nation would require that natlon's willingness and ability to produce in sufficient quantitles those conunodities that it is best able to produce. F'or Nigeria and most of Africa the solution may lie in increasing production of roots and tubers, especially cassava. Roots and tubers, particularly cassava, have a higher calorie yield per hectare than the main cereal crops, and can potentially supply calories at a considerably lower resource cost. For instance, it is reported by FAO (1986) that on the basis of current average yields in the region, cassava produces 2.2 times as many calories per hectare as maize, 2.7 times as much as yam and 1.5 times as much as sweet potatoes.