Food Security in Argentina: A Production or Distribution Problem?

This paper focuses on the question whether Argentina is capable of guaranteeing food security to its population while increasing its role as a food exporter to the rest of the world. The results of this study show that Argentina has no major problems simultaneously serving as a local food provider and exporter—from a food availability perspective. However, Argentina has problems ensuring food access to all its population. In order to improve food access while exploiting the food export opportunity, the authors propose eliminating the export tax and its substitution for a food consumption subsidy in the form of a conditional income transfer to the population under food insecurity. This would also open new opportunities for agribusiness companies selling products in local and external markets