  Discriminatory trade liberalization policies are becoming more popular among
world economies. Countries are motivated to enter for regional trade agreements
to capture faster economic growth for alleviating poverty. In developing
economies like most of the member countries of the Association of South East
Asian Nations (ASEAN), a sizeable portion of people are suffering from poverty
by exposing them to food insecurity. Low level of income and low productivity
of agricultural sector have augmented the severity of food insecurity of those
people. Discriminatory trade liberalization policies are expected to reduce
poverty and strengthen the food security. The objective of this paper is to
examine the effect of ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) on food security of its
member countries. The multiple regression analysis in panel data was employed
to disentangle the impacts of trade liberalization on food securit y with use
of regional trade agreement dummy variable. The finding of the study supports
that AFTA has influenced positively on food security of its member nations.
After the formation of AFTA, the level of per-capita daily dietary energy
supply of the member countries has been increased moderately over time.
