Food Security Definition and Information
What is Food Security?
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The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”.
Two common definitions of food security come from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):
* Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. (FAO)
* Food security for a household means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum, (USDA):
(1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods
(2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).
In 2006 it was reported that globally, the number of people who are overweight has surpassed the number who are undernourished - the world had more than one billion people who were overweight, and an estimated 800 million who were undernourished. Worldwide around 852 million people are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty, while up to 2 billion people lack food security intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty. 17,000 children die of hunger and malnutrrition related diseases every day, which equals 6 million children who die of hunger every year.
In the United States of America there are approximately 2,000,000 farmers, less than 1% of the population. A direct relationship exists between food consumption levels and poverty. Families with the financial resources to escape extreme poverty rarely suffer from chronic hunger; while poor families not only suffer the most from chronic hunger, but are also the segment of the population most at risk during food shortages and famines.
Things affecting food security today include:
Global Water Crisis - Water table reserves are falling in many countries (including Northern China, the US, and India) due to widespread overpumping and irrigation.
Climate Change - Rising global temperatures are beginning to have a ripple effect on crop yields, forest resources, water supplies and altering the balance of nature.
Land Degradation - Intensive farming leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil fertility and decline of agricultural yields.
Greedy Land Deals - Corporations and Governments buying rights to millions of acres of agricultural land in developing countries to secure their own long-term food supplies.
Genetically Modified (GM) Food and Food Security
Will genetically modified foods be the answer to a crisis in food security? At present little is known on the consequences and future safety aspects of GM foods. The movement of genes from GM plants into conventional crops in the wild (outcrossing), as well as the mixing of crops derived from conventional seeds with those grown using GM crops, may have an indirect effect on food safety and food security. This risk is real, as was shown when traces of a maize type which was only approved for feed use appeared in maize products for human consumption in the United States of America.
Far from focusing on the needs of the poor in developing countries, GM crop development is driven by the commercial interests of US and European companies. The major GM crops currently grown - soya, oilseed rape, cotton and maize – are designed to support the food and textile industries of the developed world. There is currently little GM research and development by private companies on staple food crops vital to developing countries.
"Terminator" seeds are modified to produce sterile seeds. This prevents farmers from saving seeds to plant the following season. 1.4 billion people, mainly poor farmers in developing countries, depend on saved seed. Farmers are then forced to buy new seeds every year from the biotech companies. Despite universal condemnation from farmers’ movements all over the world, the technology is still being developed today.
Food security is not just a poverty issue; it is a much larger issue that involves the whole food system and affects every one of us in some way. Issues such as whether households get enough food, how it is distributed within the household and whether that food fulfils the nutrition needs of all members of the household show that food security is clearly linked to health.
Global Food Security must exist to meet the challenge of providing the world’s growing population with a sustainable, secure supply of good quality food.
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