Food Security: Definition, Causes, and Global Facts

Author: Disabled World (DW)
Updated/Revised Date: 4 Aug 2026

Table of Contents:
Synopsis - Definition - About This Section - FAQs - Publications - Subtopics

Synopsis

Understand what food security means, how climate change, water shortages, and poverty affect world food supplies, plus key global hunger facts and statistics.

At a Glance

• 1 - The United States has about 2,000,000 farmers, less than one percent of its population.
• 2 - Terminator seeds are modified to be sterile, preventing farmers from saving seed for the next season.
• 3 - Equal resource access for women farmers could reduce the number of hungry people by up to 150 million.
• 4 - Food security rests on three pillars - food availability, food access, and food stability over time.

Topic Definition

Food Security

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have both the physical and economic means to obtain enough safe and nutritious food to support an active, healthy life. It is not simply a question of having food on hand, but of steady availability, affordability, and the ability to acquire food in socially acceptable ways that also respect people's dietary needs and preferences. The idea covers households as well as nations, and it includes a measure of resilience against future disruptions such as droughts, wars, fuel shortages, and economic instability. Because it touches production, distribution, nutrition, and health all at once, food security is best understood as a whole-system concern that affects everyone rather than a matter of poverty alone.

Overview

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". Commonly, the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences. Household food security exists when all members, at all times, have access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security incorporates a measure of resilience to future disruption or unavailability of critical food supply due to various risk factors including droughts, shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, economic instability, and wars.

• Food stability: Refers to the ability to obtain food over time.
• Food access: Refers to the affordability and allocation of food, as well as the preferences of individuals and households.
• Food availability: Relates to the supply of food through production, distribution, and exchange.

What is Food Security?

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 overweight people has surpassed the number who are undernourished - the world had more than one billion overweight people, 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 malnutrition 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 over-pumping 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 (out-crossing), 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 fulfills 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.

Global Food Security Facts and Statistics

• Food insecurity is measured in the United States by questions in the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.
• Diseases affecting livestock or crops can have devastating effects on food availability, especially if there are no contingency plans in place.
• The approach known as food sovereignty views the business practices of multinational corporations as a form of neocolonialism.
• FAO reported that almost 870 million people were chronically undernourished in the years 2010-2012.
• The United States Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as "limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways."
• The 1996 World Summit on Food Security declared that "food should not be used as an instrument for political and economic pressure".
• 842 million people in the world do not have enough to eat. This number has fallen by 17 percent since 1990.
  Source: State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2013.
• One out of six children - roughly 100 million - in developing countries is underweight.
  Source: Global health Observatory, WHO, 2012.
• Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year.
  Source: Series on Maternal and Child Nutrition, The Lancet, 2013.
• The vast majority of hungry people (827 million) live in developing countries, where 14.3 percent of the population is undernourished.
  Source: State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2013.
• If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.
  Source: Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development, FAO, 2011.
• Asia has the largest number of hungry people (over 500 million) but Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence (24.8 percent of population).
  Source: State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2013.
• 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.
  Source: Two Minutes to Learn About School Meals, WFP, 2012.
• WFP calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.
  Source: Two Minutes to Learn About School Meals, WFP, 2012.
• One in four of the world's children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.
  Source: Prevalence and Trends of Stunting among Children, Public Health Nutrition, 2012.
• 80 percent of the world's stunted children live in just 20 countries.
  Source: Maternal and Child Under-nutrition: Effective Action at National Level, The Lancet, 2008.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the four pillars of food security

The four widely recognized pillars are availability, access, utilization, and stability, and together they describe whether enough safe food exists, whether people can obtain and use it well, and whether that supply holds steady over time.

What is the difference between food security and food insecurity

Food security means reliable access to enough safe and nutritious food, while food insecurity describes limited or uncertain access to adequate food or the inability to acquire it in socially acceptable ways.

How is food security different from food sovereignty

Food security focuses on whether people have access to enough safe food, while food sovereignty emphasizes the right of communities to control how their food is produced, distributed, and traded.

What is chronic hunger

Chronic hunger is a long-term, ongoing shortage of food that leaves people consistently unable to meet their basic dietary needs, often as a result of extreme and persistent poverty.

How does food security relate to disability

People with disabilities can face higher risks of food insecurity because of added living costs, employment barriers, and difficulty accessing or preparing food, which can affect both nutrition and overall health.

What role does food waste play in food security

Reducing food waste can improve food security by making better use of existing supplies, since food lost during production, storage, and consumption represents resources that could have fed more people.

Can individuals help improve food security

Individuals can support food security by reducing waste, backing local and sustainable farming, donating to food programs, and encouraging policies that address hunger, poverty, and fair access to resources.

Curated and edited by Ian C. Langtree, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Disabled World. This section is maintained by the Disabled World editorial team.

Last updated: 4 Aug 2026