emergencies, and factors such as traditional and subsistence agriculture, land and water resources, increased urbanization and globalization, technological constraints to agricultural production and private investment on agricultural production. Echoing the importance of looking at food importation, Gingrich, et al. (2001) showed in their study that foreign exchange availability greatly affects food security in food-importing countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. They argue that a combination of foreign exchange supplies, cereal prices and domestic cereal production determine the relative cost of food security imports. One implication, according to them, is that both countries should further diversify their export sectors to help stabilize export revenues. On the other hand, Hoddinott and Yohannes (2002) suggest an alternative measure of food security. Using data from India, the Philippines, Mozambique, Mexico, Bangladesh, Egypt, Mali, Malawi, Ghana, and Kenya, they suggested using dietary diversity as an alternative measure because of four reasons, “1) a more varied diet is a valid outcome in its own right; 2) a more varied diet, either directly or indirectly through improved acquisition of micronutrients, is associated with a number of improved outcomes in areas such as birth weight, child anthropometric status, improved hemoglobin concentrations, reduced incidence of hypertension, reduced risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease and cancer; 3) such questions can be asked at the household or individual level, making it possible to examine food security and the household and intra household levels and 4) obtaining these data is relatively straightforward”. They define dietary diversity as the number of unique foods – foods were divided into categories: basic staples, luxury staples, vitamin-A rich, other roots and tubers, other fruits, other vegetables, beverages, spices and others. This was included with four other indicators of food security (per capita expenditures, caloric availability, caloric availability from staples, and caloric availability from non-staples). They concluded that the use of dietary diversity as an alternative measure is feasible and has uses. Gittelson, et al. (1998) note that while “food security has long been used as an important macro-level indicator of agricultural stability and progress for both agricultural and economic researchers, little work has been done to operationalize the concept at the household level” (p.210). They argue that household food security as a concept should integrate “environmental, economic, and cultural factors” (p.210). Sanchez (2000) suggests an integrated natural resource management approach that aims to address issues of food security while addressing poverty reduction while satisfying societal objectives for environment protection. The approach includes “identifying and quantifying the extent of food insecurity, rural poverty and resource degradation problems to be addressed in a given region, enhancing the direct utilitarian functions of natural resources, which consist of food, raw materials and income in the case of agriculture, enhancing the ecosystem functions of natural resources, such as carbon, nutrient and water cycling, erosion control and biodiversity, assessment of trade-offs between the options that enhance the food and income functions of systems and those options that enhance the ecosystem functions” and dissemination. Webb, et al. (2006) expands the discussion on how to measure food security by suggesting a more qualitative approach. They suggest that measures for food insecurity should “1.) shift from using measures of food availability and utilization to measuring “inadequate access” (key to access is purchasing power and varies in relation to market integration, price policies and temporal market conditions) ; 2.) shift from a focus on objective to subjective measures; and 3.) emphasize fundamental measurement as opposed to reliance on distal, proxy measures”. Building on the FAO definition of food security Napoli (2010) notes that “an integral part of the multidimensional nature of food security is the nutritional dimension” (p.19) and that as mentioned earlier food security consists of four essential parts: food availability, food access, food utilization and stability. CBMS-FAO | 10