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Food security

Not to be confused with Food safety.

A woman selling produce at a market in Lilongwe, Malawi

Food security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. The availability of food for people of any class, gender or religion is another element of food security. Similarly, household food security is considered to exist when all the members of a family, at all times, have access to enough food for an active, healthy life.[1] Individuals who are food-secure do not live in hunger or fear of starvation.[2] Food security includes resilience to future disruption of food supply. Such a disruption could occur due to various risk factors such as droughts and floods, shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, economic instability, and wars.[3] Food insecurity is the opposite of food security: a state where there is only limited or uncertain availability of suitable food.

The concept of food security has evolved over time. The four pillars of food security include availability, access, utilization, and stability.[4] In addition, there are two more dimensions that are important: agency and sustainability. These six dimensions of food security are reinforced in conceptual and legal understandings of the right to food.[5][6] The World Food Summit in 1996 declared that "food should not be used as an instrument for political and economic pressure."[7][8]

There are many possible causes to food insecurity. The most important ones are high food prices and disruption in global food supplies for example due to war. There is also climate change, water scarcity, land degradation, agricultural diseases, pandemics and disease outbreaks that can all lead to food insecurity.

The effects of food insecurity can include hunger and even famines. Chronic food insecurity translates into a high degree of vulnerability to hunger and famine.[9] Human populations can respond to chronic hunger and malnutrition by decreasing body size of children, known in medical terms as stunting or stunted growth.[10] Once stunting has occurred, improved nutritional intake after the age of about two years is unable to reverse the damage. Severe malnutrition in early childhood often leads to defects in cognitive development.[11]

  1. ^ "Food Security in the United States: Measuring Household Food Security". USDA. Archived from the original on 22 November 2019. Retrieved 23 February 2008.
  2. ^ "Food Security". FAO Agricultural and Development Economics Division. June 2006. Archived from the original on 15 May 2012. Retrieved 8 June 2012.[failed verification]
  3. ^ "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2013. The multiple dimensions of food security" (PDF). FAO. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 December 2018. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  4. ^ FAO (2009). Declaration of the World Food Summit on Food Security (PDF). Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 October 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2021 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference HLPE 2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization (November 1996). "Rome Declaration on Food Security and World Food Summit Plan of Action". Archived from the original on 8 February 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
  8. ^ "1996 Summit on World Food Security Report". 1996 Summit on World Food Security Report.
  9. ^ Ayalew, Melaku. "Food Security and Famine and Hunger" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  10. ^ Das, Sumonkanti; Hossain, Zakir; Nesa, Mossamet Kamrun (25 April 2009). "Levels and trends in child malnutrition in Bangladesh". Asia-Pacific Population Journal. 24 (2): 51–78. doi:10.18356/6ef1e09a-en. ISSN 1564-4278.
  11. ^ Robert Fogel (2004). "chpt. 3". The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100: Europe, America, and the Third World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521004886.