Food Security; Improving Food Security and Livelihoods
Tope Dada (DADA TEMITOPE JOSEPH)
Co-Founder, Hope Alive
Foundation
E-mail: thetopedada@gmail.com
Abstract
Food security, as defined by the United Nations' Committee
on World Food Security, means that all people, at all
times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and
nutritious food that
meets their food preferences
and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.
Food
security exists when “all people, at all times have physical and economic
access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs
and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. Close to 800 million
individuals do not have access to enough food, 2 billion individuals experience
key micronutrient deficiencies, and; 60% of individuals in low-income countries
are food insecure.
Food
security relates directly to nutrition and health. Typically, food security is
thought of as being related to availability and access of foodstuffs. Yet, the
threat to food security also lies with urbanization, income disparity,
overpopulation, ecosystem degradation, animal health, and food wholesomeness.
Food wholesomeness is also an important aspect of nutrition. Wholesomeness is
monitored via food safety and food defence programmes, making them critical
components of a food security programme as well. This article discusses these
interrelations and concepts for future scientific and humanitarian development
programmes.
Food
insecurity negatively affects human physical, social, emotional, and cognitive
development throughout the life course and is a major social and environmental
disruptor with serious repercussions for planetary health (i.e., the health of
human civilization and the state of the natural systems on which it depends).
Food security is related to all of the United Nations Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs). Improved food security governance based on sound, equitable, and
sustainable food systems that benefit from modern information and sustainable
and equitable agricultural technologies is essential for countries to meet the
SDGs.
Definition of Food
Security
Food
security is a flexible concept as reflected by the many attempts to define it
in research and policy usage. The concept of food security originated some 50
years ago, at a time of global food crises in the early 1970s. Even two decades
ago, there were about 200 definitions for food security in published writings
(Maxwell and Smith, 1992), showing the contextual dependent features of the
definition. The current widely accepted definition of food security came from
the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) annual report on food security “The
State of Food Insecurity in the World 2001”: Food security [is] a situation
that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic
access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs
and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO, 2002). The last
revision to this definition happened at the 2009 World Summit on Food Security
which added a fourth dimension – stability – as the short-term time indicator
of the ability of food systems to withstand shocks, whether natural or man-made
(FAO, 2009). Encyclopedia of Food Security and Sustainability, Volume 2
Introduction
Food is our
energy source and limited access to food impacts health in multiple ways.
Approximately one billion individuals in the world lack adequate amounts of
food to meet their nutritional needs and are malnourished (Barrett, 2010).
Malnourished individuals are unable to consume adequate amounts of
macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients include protein, fat and
caloric content (Michaelsen et al., 2009), and micronutrients are the essential
minerals and vitamins (Benoist, 2007). The consequences to macronutrient
malnutrition are poor immune response, stunted physical and mental growth,
lethargy and emaciation (Stephenson et al. 2000; Merriam-Webster Medical
Dictionary, 2010b; Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary, 2010a). Malnutrition of
micronutrients such as iron, vitamin A and iodine result in anaemia, decreased
immune system function, cretinism, blindness and cognitive impairment
(Stephenson et al., 2000). Twenty countries in Africa, Asia, the Western
Pacific and the Middle East account for four-fifths of global macro- and
micronutrient malnutrition. In these areas, approximately 3.5 million deaths
occur per year in children under five, and the deaths are attributed to illness
related to undernutrition (Horton, 2008; Black et al., 2008). The World Health
Organization (WHO) map for “Children aged under-five stunted, 2000–2008” (World
Health Organization, 2010) indicates that the countries where greater than 40%
of their children experience nutrition-related growth stunting are concentrated
in Africa, South Asia and the South Pacific islands. The purpose of this paper
is to discuss the need for improving our preparations and approaches to food
security.
Dimensions of Food
Security
Four dimensions of food security have been
identified according to the definition (FAO, 2008).
1) Availability of food produced locally and
imported from abroad.
2)
Accessibility. The food can reach the consumer (transportation infrastructure)
and the latter has enough money for purchase. To such physical and economic
accessibility is added socio-cultural access to ensure that the food is
culturally acceptable and that social protection nets exist to help the less
fortunate.
3)
Utilization. The individual must be able to eat adequate amounts both in
quantity and in quality in order to live a healthy and full life to realize his
or her potential. Food and water must be safe and clean, and thus adequate
water and sanitation are involved at this level. A person must also be
physically healthy to be able to digest and utilize the food consumed.
4) The
fourth domain of Stability, deals with the ability of the nation/ community/
(household) person to withstand shocks to the food chain system whether caused
by natural disasters (climate, earthquakes) or those that are man-made (wars, economic
crises). Thus, it may be seen that food security exists at a number of levels.
Availability
- National; Accessibility – Household; Utilization – Individual; Stability –
may be considered as a time dimension that affects all the levels. All four of
these dimensions must be intact for full food security. More recent
developments emphasize the importance of sustainability, which may be
considered as the long-term time (fifth) dimension to food security.
Sustainability involves indicators at a supra-national/regional level of
ecology, biodiversity and climate change, as well as socio-cultural and
economic factors (Berry et al., 2015). These will affect the food security of
future generations.
Causes of Food
Insecurity
Household
food insecurity (HFI) is the result of poverty, poor health of the household
member or members, and suboptimal livelihood and household management
strategies (Food security is closely related to, but not synonymous with,
nutrition security and health. Nutrition security is attained by individuals
when the body tissues are exposed to optimal amounts of nutrients and other
essential substances. Nutrition security results from the combination of
household food security, health care access security, and access to other basic
human needs including adequate sanitation. Food security and the other
determinants of nutrition security are linked with each other. For example, a
household with limited economic access to food may decide to not seek medical
care for a child or to not purchase prescribed medications. For food security
to be a reality, households need to have unrestricted access to a healthy and
nutritious diet. Access to healthy diets, in turn, depends on having adequate
economic resources and for foods to be readily available in the country,
region, and communities in which the households are located. National food
availability is a function of the balance between foods grown in the country
plus foods imported minus foods exported, spoiled, or fed to animals.
Therefore, the maintenance of an affordable and sustainable healthy food supply
at the global level is paramount for achieving household food security and
nutrition security worldwide. For this reason, it is crucial to understand and
address climate change, agricultural commodity price policies, armed conflicts,
and ultimately, the health of our planet from a household food security
perspective in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
which specifically call for ending hunger, achieving food security and improved
nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture globally (8).
Improving food
security and livelihoods
The first
issues of food security are availability and accessibility. These are
exacerbated by the overuse of resources and poor distribution due to income
inequity or social disturbance. Encouraging growth in agricultural sectors that
focus on locally consumed crops rather than export markets may stimulate an
influx of rural and community-based development funds and create a national
market. Such projects would need to be based on local structure, knowledge and
priorities and operate within the capacity of the ecosystem. Education is also
a key as it increases literacy, making it easier to standardize and implement
programmes during development. In addition, the education of women has been
shown to lead to a reduction in family size as well as a reduction in poverty,
and this results in an improved nutritional status for the family (Mishra and
Retherford, 2000; Lomperis, 1991; Tyer-Viola and Cesario, 2010). A combination
of these efforts can reduce the stress on the environment and increase local
food distribution and availability. Food safety increases with knowledge and
better infrastructure, but foodborne illness never disappears. However, several
things can be done to mitigate this problem. Fortunately, better nutrition
decreases susceptibility to illness, so addressing availability and
accessibility of food is an important task. Education on the identification of
illness in animals, proper slaughtering, food storage, food handling, food
preparation and threats from food can also help.
Components
that have proven effective in other countries can be modified and utilized in
another country that desires to address these food-related issues. The creation
of mirror organizations may not be completely appropriate, and flexibility
during the process will be critical. Addressing macronutrient and micronutrient
deficiencies as well as animal management, food storage and preparation
methods, which increase food security, will really only bring superficial
results. The greater issues lie in the global population growth,
industrial-based change such as globalization, and environmental stewardship
that will address sustainability and climate change.
Many of the
changes needed to improve livelihoods and food security would be of general
benefit. These include the need for family planning to reduce the anticipated
50 percent increase in population by 2030, increased and better education and
employment, improvements in governance at all levels, and action to mitigate
the impact of climate change.
As for
strategies pertaining more specifically to food security, nutrition and rural
livelihoods, they should build on the following five pillars:
1. Improved
governance for food security
2. Enhanced
food production and improved livelihoods.
3.
Strengthened safety nets.
4. Reduced
exposure to market volatility.
5.
Strengthened farmer institutions and increased knowledge relevant to food
security.
6. Food
security monitoring and early warning systems. This is vital as climate change
plays havoc with weather patterns and regional turmoil yields socio-economic
unrest.
Conclusion
Food
security is a multi-dimensional topic. It does not just address the
availability of food, but it also addresses its cost, cultural appropriateness,
the balanced nature of its protein, fat, carbohydrate and micro-nutrient
make-up, its source and the production practices used to cultivate and harvest
food products, as well as freedom from contamination after harvest. This
relates to both animal and plant based foods and is an issue across the globe.
Food must not only meet our macro- and micronutrient needs, but it also must not cause disease in those who consume it. Efforts to address these topics must take into consideration community-based approaches and well-rounded interventions.
References
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