Summary Food security has been one of the major concerns of the European Community’s development cooperation policy. Over the past decade, the approach has evolved from a focus on projects to expand agricultural production towards a more general emphasis on food policies and rural development programmes. In relation to food security, the EC has underlined the essential comlementarity in the roles of the public and the private sectors. In a parallel evolution, the food aid instrument has been adapted to make it a better resource for development, more integrated with financial and technical assistance.
