The Institute for Public Policy Research has published a new report on food security - the second report in its series on food. It looks at the causes of the recent food crisis and then examines the policy proposals that have been put forward to address the situation. The report identifies these as falling under the following broad headings:

• Increasing social protection (eg. voucher-for-work programmes)
• Changes in the types of aid offered and levels of investment (ie. more on agriculture and a Global Fund for Agriculture)
• Need for more policy coherence: within UN bodies and among all international development agencies
• Increasing the importance of food as a political issue
• Increasing the role of the private sector - eg. the MDG Call for Action to the corporate world; Foreign Direct Investment; Aid for Trade

The report makes the vital point that the UK government's perspective on food security must be to consider what role the UK can play in achieving a food secure future for the world rather than just looking to its own national food security concerns. It also makes the important (and often overlooked point) that food security is about access and equitable distribution as much as about sheer volume of food output.