Food security and sustainability: can one exist without the other? (original) (raw)

Review Article Food security and sustainability: can one exist without the other

Public Health Nutrition, 2015

Objective: To position the concept of sustainability within the context of food security. Design: An overview of the interrelationships between food security and sustainability based on a non-systematic literature review and informed discussions based principally on a quasi-historical approach from meetings and reports. Setting: International and global food security and nutrition.

Food system sustainability and food security: connecting the dots

Food security exists when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. Food security is built on four pillars: availability, access, utilization and stability. Food and nutrition security embraces meeting energy, protein and nutrient needs for healthy life. Food systems overlap with agricultural systems in the area of food production, but also comprise the diverse set of institutions, technologies and practices that govern the way food is marketed, processed, transported, accessed and consumed. The food system activities are grouped into four categories: producing food, processing and packaging food, distributing and retailing food, and consuming food. The review paper aims at highlighting the connections and linkages between food sustainability and food security. There are very strong linkages between food and nutrition security, responsible environmental stewardship and greater fairness in food management. They intersec...

Food Security and the Environment

Human Security and the Environment: International …, 2002

The 1994 Human Development Report lists seven main threats to human security: economic, health, environmental, personal, community, political and food security (UNDP 1994). Food security touches on all the dimensions of human security: economics, social relations, health, community development and structures of political power, and the environment. Consequently, food security has to be approached in a holistic way that recognises the complexity of intersecting multidimensional processes operating at all ...

Sustainable Food Security in the Era of Local and Global Environmental Change

2013

This volume discusses a broad range of vital issues encompassing the production and consumption of food in the current period of climate change. All of these add up to looming, momentous challenges to food security, especially for people in regions where malnutrition and famine have been the norm during numerous decades. Furthermore, threats to food security do not stop at the borders of more affluent countries – governance of food systems and changes in eating patterns will have worldwide consequences. The book is arranged in four broad sections. Part I, Combating Food Insecurity: A Global Responsibility opens with a chapter describing the urgent necessity for new paradigm and policy set to meet the food security challenges of climate change. Also in this section are chapters on meat and the dimensions of animal welfare, climate change and sustainability; on dietary options for mitigating climate change; and the linkage of forest and food production in the context of the REDD+ approach to valuation of forests. Part II, Managing Linkages Between Climate Change and Food Security offers a South Asian perspective on Gender, Climate Change and Household Food Security; a chapter on food crisis in sub-Saharan Africa; and separate chapters on critical issues of food supply and production in Nigeria, far-Western Nepal and the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Cameroon. Part III examines Food Security and patterns of production and consumption, with chapters focused on Morocco, Thailand, Bahrain, Kenya and elsewhere. The final section discusses successful, innovative practices, with chapters on Food Security in Knowledge-Based Economy; Biosaline Agriculture in the Gulf States; Rice production in a cotton zone of Benin; palm oil in the production of biofuel; and experiments in raised-bed wheat production. The editors argue that technical prescriptions are insufficient to manage the food security challenge. They propose and explain a holistic approach for adapting food systems to global environmental change, which demands the engagement of many disciplines – a new, sustainable food security paradigm.

Sustainable Food Security, A Paradigm for Local and Regional Food Systems

In this paper, in the light of sustainability, we analyze the current dominant industrial agriculture and food system. The system was developed successfully regarding production, output and profitability, but social inequality and environmental problems increased and the system did not succeed in bringing the world food problem closer to a solution. Since elimination of hunger is top priority among world’s leading institutions it is justified and not out of proportion to exacerbate the definition of sustainability to food and take food security into accountexplicitly. We define a new paradigm – called sustainable food security – that is urgently required to provide sufficient and healthy food for all people, without exhausting our planet. This paradigm of sustainable food security requires a focus on local resources. We argue that the best way to achieve this is by means of the local and regional food systems that we see springing up globally. We discuss opportunities and challenges of the re-emerging local food systems in the light of the new paradigm of sustainable food security. To proceed we propose the development and ratification of a new global treaty based on the concept of sustainable food security.

A Review of the Critical Gaps in the Food Security Literature: Addressing Key Issues for Sustainable Development

Information Management and Business Review

This review paper covers important gaps in the knowledge base on food security, which have an impact on world development and cause an estimated 820 million people to suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition. Food waste, climate change, socioeconomic considerations, agricultural policy, access to wholesome foods, food sovereignty, and food security are some of the major topics covered in the literature. Because of this, ensuring food security is not a straightforward issue that can be resolved by changing a single variable; rather, it necessitates the combination of numerous multidisciplinary approaches. Therefore, the goal of this study is to pinpoint the major gaps in the literature, such as a lack of attention to the perspectives of marginalized groups and a lack of investigation into the connections between food security and other global issues. The article offers suggestions for future work, including how to prioritize understudied subjects, incorporate other points of view,...

Food security and the Sustainable Development Goals

OECD Insights, 2016

This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of OECD member countries. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgment of

Evolution and Development of Food Security Concept: A Historical Overview

Journal Article, 2020

Food security is a multifarious concept that includes production, distribution, consumption, health, infrastructure, and many other issues. It is essential for the sustainable social and economic growth of a country. The food security concept has evolved in a sequential manner through the processes of defining, redefining, and reunderstanding in line with the time context. This paper attempts to understand the chronological development of the food security concept over the last five decades based on secondary sources and information. It analyses the major dimensions, i.e., availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability, and indicators of food security, along with policy initiatives taken by global bodies and international governance. It reveals that food availability does not always ensure the accessibility of food to all due to poor socioeconomic and physical conditions and malfunctions of the food distribution system. Food security is also a part of food utilization that covers food quality, nutritional aspects, and food choice. Finally, food security is determined by the stability of food availability, access, and utilization. From macro to micro levels (global, regional, national, and community), food security has been categorized by different sorts of indicators, assessments, and instruments, and it has drawn global attention to fight against famine, starvation, hunger, malnutrition, and food poverty. The paper concludes that is time to review conceptual understanding of food security to encompass the broader dynamics that affect food stability.