SINGAPORE, Sept. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the Rice Bowl Index Advisory Board issued the 2015 Full Year Report for the Rice Bowl Index (RBI). The 2015 Report analyses the movement of RBI scores and introduces a new food security threshold analysis to provide governments and other key stakeholders with more actionable insights.
A first for the Index, the threshold analysis acknowledges there are significant interdependencies in what contributes to a country's overall food security robustness. The improved methodology determines a standard food security robustness benchmark. This aims to support more active comparisons by rubric across countries by identifying what thresholds need to be bridged in order to highlight where policy makers may choose to focus their efforts.
"The threshold analysis is a useful and visual tool that allows for a more accurate look at a country that may appear to be robust in composite but falls below the threshold in an individual rubric," said Andrew McConville, member of the Rice Bowl Index Advisory Board and Head of Corporate Affairs, Syngenta Asia Pacific. "By defining a threshold relative to the top performers either in aggregate or by rubric, it provides an aspirational point to cross the threshold to become more food security robust."
In 2015, the RBI scores of the 15 countries covered continued to improve at 2.0%, though less significantly than the previous year's 3.6%. Some of the key findings include:
1. Lower fuel and commodity prices are having a positive impact on food security. A fall in the price of oil and other commodities has caused inflation to fall in many countries in the RBI, improving their scores in the Demand and Price rubric. Myanmar was the only country to experience an increase in the inflation rate from 2014 to 2015, causing its Demand and Price rubric score to fall 10.0% from 2014.
2. Pakistan saw the largest improvement in its RBI score, while Thailand saw the largest decline. A fall in inflation drove Pakistan's improvement of 8.8% over last year, as it did for many other countries. Pakistan also improved considerably within the Farm-Level rubric as a result of falling labor costs and improvements in the percentage of rural population with access to water. The fall in Thailand's RBI score on the other hand was driven by an increase its 'Unit Labor Cost' indicator, which contributed to a 1.7% decline in the country's score.
3. The Demand and Price rubric saw the largest increase of 7.9% from last year, compared to 2.2% in the Farm-Level rubric, 1.2% in Policy and Trade, and no change in the Environmental rubric.
"Food security continues to be at the top of many government agendas in Asia-Pacific and the purpose of the RBI remains as an important tool to inform the discourse and provide a roadmap for translating complexity into an opportunity for action," commented Paul Teng, RBI board member, Adjunct Senior Fellow (Food Security), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, and Principal Officer, National Institute of Education. "In the near future, we will continue to review our methodology and leverage data from the RBI to tailor focused reports to better inform key stakeholders in the food security ecosystem."
For more information on the Rice Bowl Index and the 2015 report, please visit www.ricebowlindex.com or @RiceBowlIndex.
Download the 2015 Full Year Report for the Rice Bowl Index here.
About the Rice Bowl Index
Launched in 2012, the Rice Bowl Index is a diagnostic tool and white paper that provides insight and information on the robustness of the food security system across Asia-Pacific. The Rice Bowl Index is designed to facilitate productive dialogue, collaboration and action between governments, NGOs and the private sector, moving from simply identifying problems to finding solutions.
For media enquiries, please contact:
Andrew McConville
Head of Corporate Affairs
Syngenta Asia Pacific
Tel: +65 9729 6009
andrew.mcconville@syngenta.com
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