Measuring Food (in)Security

Today's issue of Science features an invited piece by Chris Barrett of Cornell,

calls for "a global network of sentinel sites," stations around the world to gather consistent long-term, internationally comparable data on such physical measurements as heights, weights and ages; standard household and socio-economic data; and people's perceptions of their own sense of food security. [quote from the Cornell Chronicle and sent around via department email]

The anthropometric data would be readily comparable across countries and easily measurable. Having stations in areas of interest around the world would permit much more rapid data collection as well so we could identify problems as they were occurring instead of much later.