Organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), and Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR)

South Asian countries as a group exhibit several similarities in terms of the indicators of food security. These countries are poor and have historically recorded only modest growth rates, especially when compared with the growth performance of some of the East Asian countries. As per the World Bank classification, all these countries are low-income countries except for Sri Lanka, which is a middle-income country. Historically, international trade has been a relatively insignificant economic activity except in Sri Lanka and the countries are insignificant players in global trade, accounting for a very small share in world trade.

Traditionally food scarce, the decade of the 1970s was a period of momentous change for the region with the advent of Green Revolution hybrid technologies. By the 1990s, India had not only become self-sufficient in cereals but had turned into a net-exporter. Pakistan has also become a net exporter since the beginning of this century. However, having achieved national level sufficiency, the household level food insecurity for a sizable chunk of the population continues to haunt these countries.

Moreover, in the South Asian countries, there was a high degree of commonality in the economic policies as most of them came out of colonial rule in proximity to each other. Central planning, a dominant role for the public sector, controls on private enterprise and the functioning of markets and inward looking trade policies were the common elements in the policies up to the 1970s. Specifically with regard to agriculture, though production was largely left in private hands, the governments intervened in different ways to restrict the markets primarily with a view to keep the food prices low to protect the interests of poor consumers.

Starting from a similar policy base, overtime the countries have divulged in their policy landscape. All countries in the region have witnessed economic reforms, including with regard to international trade. However, the timing, scope, extent and speed of reforms have varied across them. The outcome of these reform measures within each country has also been quite varied and their experiences are likely to throw up important lessons for each other and for other developing countries. The lessons leant from the policy experiments of these countries where starting from similar bases, the divergence in policies has resulted in diverse outcomes on food security forms the central theme for this conference.

The papers presented at the conference on trade liberalization and food security issues form part of a project under the South Asia Initiative (SAI) of IFPRI that has been supported by ADB, Ford Foundation and USAID. The feedback from the discussion in the workshop was extremely helpful in strengthening the papers before they are to be released as international public goods. More importantly, the workshop provided opportunities for researchers, policy advisors, analysts and policy makers from the region to share knowledge and learn from each other's experiences. This workshop intended also as a meeting point for a network of researchers from the region who working in collaboration are expected to carry forward the work on trade and food security issues in future.