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Food Crisis or Chronic Poverty: Metanarratives of Food Insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article examines different depictions of the challenges presented by food insecurity and how these depictions influence programming and policy. Using a content analysis methodology, we contrast 3 distinct bodies of food security literature: (1) recently published scientific papers; (2) international development agencies project documents; and (3) reports and policy documents produced by Sub-Saharan African governments. Analysis reveals 2 main narratives: a “crisis narrative” that views food insecurity as a “production” crisis, common in the scientific and aid agency documents, and a “chronic poverty narrative” that views food insecurity as fundamentally linked to poverty and low economic development, predominantly in the African policy documents. By identifying and describing these 2 distinct narratives, our goal is to initiate a debate around the hegemony of narratives, especially the production crisis narrative. In particular, we are concerned that the notion that we are facing a “food production crisis” overwhelms the description of food insecurity as an issue linked to chronic poverty and in doing so fails to lead to meaningful change in Africa.