Food Security

Food security involves ensuring all individuals have access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food at all times. The World Food Summit (1996) defines food security as existing "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"[1][2].

The four key dimensions of food security are:

  1. Availability: Physical presence of food through production, distribution, and exchange.
  2. Access: Economic and physical ability to obtain food.
  3. Utilization: Proper use of food to meet nutritional needs.
  4. Stability: Consistent access to adequate food over time.

Food insecurity, on the other hand, occurs when people lack regular access to enough safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active, healthy life. This can result from several factors, including economic, environmental, and social conditions.

  1. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-update/what-is-food-security ↩︎

  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_security ↩︎

This page is also known as:
Food Insecurity