Navigating Hunger Through Street Food: A Comparative Analysis of Food Security Policies and the Role of Informal Street Food Vending in Indonesia and the Philippines

Abstract

Hunger remains a key issue among developing countries, especially in Southeast Asia. The phenomenon of hunger makes itself felt in many ways: undernutrition, decreased labor efficiency, social degeneration, and recession in physical and mental fitness on the part of the youth, among others. This article traces food insecurity issues in the region, particularly in two select cases: Indonesia and the Philippines. Although the two archipelagic countries have deep-seated similarities in terms of history, culture, economics, politics, and geography—both, notably, enjoy the geographical blessing of fertile land area that spans millions of kilometers—Indonesia and the Philippines are now charting different developmental trajectories as evident in their food security levels indicated by Global Hunger Index. Through a comparative look into their state-level policies, findings reveal that both countries emphasize the importance of food self-sufficiency albeit in varying degrees of implementation, which has led to different results in terms of food security. This article thus argues that the emphasis on mitigating the issue of hunger through trade and self-sufficiency policies tends to overlook the big role poverty plays in determining food access, to begin with. Thus, this paper, using a universalist approach, looks into the role informal economies such as street food vending play as a hyperlocal symptom (or response) to hunger.