Many of the recent concerns about food security relate to perceived threats to current levels of food security, such as those due to price shocks or natural disasters. These threats concern the risk of food insecurity. This publication develops a risk-management tool to examine the robustness of policy responses to managing risks and uncertainty across a variety of different threats to food security, and applies the framework to an Indonesia case study.

Five risk scenarios were selected as major threats to food security in Indonesia, following a consultation process among stakeholders and policy makers, and assessed in terms of existing and alternative agricultural and social policies. The risk assessment shows that domestic economic and natural disaster scenarios are more important than global price hikes and that a policy strategy that concentrates on addressing a single source of risk, such as a price spike in international markets, may increase vulnerability to other sources of risk such as domestic crop failure. The analysis yields a number of specific policy recommendations, including targeting of social assistance programme using food vouchers or cash transfers.