The term food security is a combination of two words, “food and security”. Food is no doubt one of the most important basic needs of life for a man to survive, while security is the state of not being threatened or liberty from potential harm. Hence food security can be referred to as having adequate access to sufficient and nutritious food at all times. A nation is food secured when there is food sufficiency in the country enough to feed her population and sustain them in the future. Food Security is a global challenge, but prevalent in the developing countries of the world.
Apparently South Asia harbor approximately 280 million of these food insecure people, with 240 million in East Asia; 180 million in Sub-Saharan Africa; and the rest in North Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.
According to World Food Summit (WFS) in November 1996, “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. This definition covers and describes the four major pillars of food security which are; availability, accessibility, stability, and utilization.
Availability; refers to the physical presence of abundant nutritious food, sufficient enough to meet the peoples need. Food availability is influenced by the level of local production. Availability can be ensured through local production and importation.
Accessibility; refers to the physical and economic ability to acquire food at the needed quantity and quality. Most times food items are not affordable to the masses who are not financially buoyant.
Utilization; refers to the ways the food is converted and transformed to meet the needs of the body system, this is dependent on food quality, preparation, and diet intake.
Stability; refers to consistency in food availability, accessibility, utilization at all times. Variation in the aforementioned components will lead to food insecurity, hence continuity is paramount.
Diverse factors have influenced global food insecurity over time such as changing climate, insects and pest infestations, natural disasters, poverty, population growth, migration, and war. The changing climates is one of the leading causes of food security, caused by natural events (i.e volcanoes) and human activities (i.e burning of fossil fuel and emission of greenhouse gases-CO2, CH4, N2O, and deforestation) on the earth.
Changing climates is the origin of diverse extreme weather events such as drought, flooding, sea level rises etc., leading to loss of farmers’ lives, destruction of crops and livestock, displacement of farming communities which contribute immensely to global food insecurity. A lot of research had been done and still ongoing to reduce the effect of climate change on food security, researchers have gone ahead to develop diverse coping and adaptation strategies to combat the trend of climate change and to ensure farmers resilience to its occurrence.
Food insecurity is closely associated with poverty, people with low earnings have been found to spend a greater proportion of their income on food items with nothing left to survive with approximately 1.2 billion people residing in the developing world are very poor, living on less than USD$ 1.25 a day. Economic meltdown and recessions affect the poor people the most, which limits local food production.
Importance of Food Security
First and foremost, food is a basic human right. “Every man, woman, and child has the right to be free from hunger and malnutrition at all times”. A food secured nation will experience a few cases of undernourishment in her country. A reduction in undernourishment of the populace can be associated with improvements in people’s access to sufficient and quality food. Food security rescues the children and youths from being stunted and improves their wellbeing.
Secondly, food security is the basis of a booming economy, as jobs are created along the agricultural value chain (i.e production, processing, distribution, and marketing), contributing immensely to the GDP of the nation and as well building an enhanced culture of self-reliance and confidence. Hence food security plays a major role in achieving sustainable development.
Thirdly, food security is the way out of slavery under the jurisdiction of whoever can provide sufficient food. More often than not, a food insecure nation is indebted to its food suppliers. The use of food as a weapon to achieve personal interest is common, an example is the Nazi “Hunger Plan” developed by Germany during World War II.
In addition, a food secured society is a healthy society, like nutrition and balanced diet is associated with healthiness. A good number of adult, youths and children death and deformity can be linked to hunger and malnutrition, a mother who is malnourished will give birth to an unhealthy baby, the body immune system becomes weaker and useless against the attack of diseases. Food security will bring about effective learning, productivity and rapid growth in the society.
Food security plays a major role in transforming the world into a better place, One of the greatest challenges of the two largest continents (Asia and Africa) of the world currently is Food security. The need to be food secured necessitates its inclusion in the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will continue until 2030.
Food security is a necessity. Agricultural development is no doubt the key to sustained food security, hence there is need to engage every stakeholder in the related areas towards finding a sustainable solution to the challenge of food insecurity in the world.
Comments
Post a Comment