Food Security Fall 2012, Lecture 3

Food Security Definition The World Health Organization defines food security as having three facets:  food availability - having available sufficient quantities of food on a consistent basis  food access - having sufficient resources, both economic and physical, to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet  food use - appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation 2

Food Stability The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations adds a fourth facet, Food Stability  A population, household or individual must have access to adequate food at all times  They should not risk losing access to food as a consequence of sudden shocks (e.g. an economic or climatic crisis) or cyclical events (e.g. seasonal food insecurity)  The concept of stability can therefore refer to both the availability and access dimensions of food security 3

Food Insecurity Any failure to meet any of the four facets of food security results in food insecurity The FAO wrote a report in 2002 called “World Agriculture: Towards ” in which they painted a semi-optimist picture of decreasing food insecurity “In recent years the growth rates of world agricultural production and crop yields have slowed… the slowdown has occurred not because of shortages of land or water but rather because demand for agricultural products has also slowed” 4

World Agriculture: Towards “The proportion of people living in developing countries with average food intakes below 2,200 kcal per day fell from 57 percent in to just 10 percent in Yet 776 million people in developing countries remain undernourished — about one person in six “The incidence of undernourishment should fall from 17 percent of the population of developing countries at present to 11 percent in 2015 and just 6 percent in 2030” This was the view in

Current Hunger Situation In September, 2010 the FAO published an estimate of the world’s hungry – 925,000,000 FAO methods have been criticized, so they are revamping the way data is collected and analyzed As a result, no new figure was released in 2011, nor in 2012 to date Still, it is clear that real progress on hunger eradication is slow to non-existent Indeed, the minimum FAO estimate was reached during the period, at 792,000,000, so the situation is deteriorating 6

Undernourishment

Early Childhood Mortality “The tragic fact is that, although our planet produces enough food for every one, one person in seven still goes to bed hungry each night people die every day—including one child every 5 seconds—from hunger-related causes.” Source: “The challenge of hunger”, Josette Sheeran, The Lancet, Volume 371, Issue 9608, 19–25 January 2008, Pages

_id= Food Distribution Animation 9

Future Threats to Food Security Diversion of food to biofuel production Climate change Land degradation and decreasing availability  Fertilizer cost increases  Higher costs for food  Water 10

Future Improvements in Food Production Use of technology  No-till agriculture  Lower-input approaches of integrated pest or nutrient management and organic agriculture 11