39 Food Security: Concept and Dimensions

Swati Rajput

The objectives of the chapter are to understand:

1. The concept of food security.

2. To measure food security

3. The spatial pattern of food security globally.

4. The spatial pattern of food security in India.

5. The causes of Food insecurity

6. The consequences of food insecurity

Food security is associated with food intake at the individual, household, subnational and national level. A food secure household should be defined as one, which has enough food available to ensure a minimum necessary intake, by all members. The minimum is related to, among other things, body size, weight, sex, nature of work and for women in pregnancy and lactation status (Alamgir and Arora, 1991). At an individual level, a food secure person does not live in fear of starvation and hunger. According to Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 1984, the basic concept of food security implied that “all people at all times have both physical and economic access to enough food for an active and healthy life”. It‘s essential elements are availability to acquire it. However, the most comprehensive and perhaps, largely acceptable definition came out of the World Food Summit at Rome in 1996, which states “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet the dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. This definition emphasizes three critical dimensions of food security: (i) physical supply of desired food in sufficient quantity (ii) an economic access indicating close link of purchasing power to food security (iii) stability in supply which include access to global food market (Bhattacharya, 2001).

     According to M. S. Swaminathan, the concept and views of food security has three different angles:

a) Food availability: which depends upon production and distribution .

b) Food accessibility: It means the access to food, which is determined by an individual’s purchasing power, and in turn purchasing power is affected by livelihood access, access to housing and caste and gender discrimination.

c) Food Intake: It is related to the absorption of food, which is affected by sanitation, clean drinking water and health care.

It is important to understand that food insecurity is assessed at any level to formulate policies and carry out plans in order to achieve social well- being. In fact food security is a social concept, which needs to be looked into from the point of view of well -being of society. Therefore, analyzing or calculating food security is just one step towards planning. It is very important to understand food system in the framework of society. It means that the causes and consequences of food insecurity need to be studied. This is because social security has its close association with food security. Socially and economically well off people have access to nutritious diet but the ‘have not’ section of society is deprived of it. Therefore, deprivation, dissatisfaction and inequality generally lead to social tension.

Food insecurity will always remain an issue for deprived people. People who have an easy access to it might exploit the deprived for various things. To obtain a complete picture of development it is not sufficient to realize the amount of resources brought about by economic growth rather it is necessary to examine the impact of these resources in the life of people. Food security cannot be detached from:

More and more better life, sustaining goods for all

Respect and self esteem

Freedom from exploitation

Community life, which gives the sense of belonging.

Food insecurity is the inverse of food security, a condition in which a population does not have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food over a given period to meet dietary needs and preferences for an active life. Possible causes are insufficient food availability, insufficient food access and inadequate food utilization. The United States Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as “limited or uncertain availability of adequate and safe food or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”

FAO recognizes four essential pillars of food security i.e availability, access, utilization and stability.

1. Food availability: It is a measure of the food that is, and will be, physically available in the relevant vicinity of a population during the given consumption period through a combination of domestic production, stocks, trade and transfers.

2. Food accessibility is a measure of population’s ability to acquire available food during the given consumption period through a combination of its own production and stocks, market transactions or transfers.

3. Food utilization: It is a measure of whether a population will be able to derive sufficient nutrition during the given consumption period from available and accessible food to meet its dietary needs.

4. Food stability: It is related to regular intake of food. Even if ones food intake is adequate today, one is still considered to be food insecure if one has inadequate access to food on a periodic basis, risking a deterioration of one’s nutritional status. Adverse weather conditions, political instability, or economic factors (unemployment, rising food prices) may have an impact on one’s food security status.

Global Initiatives:

In Rome (1996) at the World Summit on Food Security, the countries aimed at fighting against hunger. This summit was an outcome to a response to widespread hunger and malnutrition prevalent in the world, especially in under developed countries and backward areas of developed countries too. The conference came out with two documents:

1. The Rome declaration on World Food Security: Organized in 1996, its main objective was to analyse and assess food security situation in the world. It focussed on food for all and easy access to safe and nutritious food.

  2. World Food Summit Plan of Action: It was formed to attain the food security at individual, household, national, regional and global level. It was decided that the moral principles shall become the basis of the plan of action. It focussed on:

• Ensuring and enabling social and economic environment.
• Implementing policies aimed at eradicating poverty and inequality.
• Pursuing participatory and sustainable development practices
• Fostering a world trade system that is both fair and market oriented Anticipating natural disasters and crises
• Encouraging the optimal application and use of public and private investments Implementing, monitoring and following up the plan of Action

(www.fao.org)

Measuring Food Security: Food security is basic aspect of well-being. Monitoring food insecurity can help to understand the subgroups or regions with unusually severe conditions. Accurate measurement of such an essential aspect can help the policymakers and the officials to look into the causes and remedial measures of it. It is very difficult to measure food insecurity as it is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon. To measure food insecurity at household level, NFS and USDA (National Food Security and United States Department of Agriculture) made 18 item core modules with the help of set of indicators. The task was ultimately to develop standard measures of food insecurity and hunger for United States at Household level. Based on household conditions, events, behaviour and subjective reactions, the data was clubbed as per degree of severity of food insecurity/ hunger experienced by a household in terms of single numerical value. They defined four categories:

1. Food secure.
2. Food insecure without hunger
3. Food insecure with Hunger
4. Food insecure with hunger (Severe)

     According to World Bank linking hunger and sub-nutrition with inadequate food intake allows the measurement of food insecurity in terms of the availability and apparent consumption of staple food and energy intake (World Bank, 1986). It is also at times measured by food availability or consumption. To compare various countries forfood security level food balance sheet is created. As per a study by FAO, the two main driving forces in food production system are environmental capacity and Human capacity. Where environmental capacity is influenced by climate, soil and water availability; human capacity refers to population size and skills. The study shows that though China and India have agricultural output value in excess of 100 billion dollar but are food insecure regions. Hunger and famine are recurrent phenomena which are accompanied by civil wars and epidemics in Africa. This makes Africa one of the most food insecure regions of the world. The FAO estimates that a total of 925 million people were under nourished in 2010, compared with 1023 billion in 2009.

figure 1: Source: Hungerreport.org

The figure 1 shows that according to world hunger report, nearly 4 per cent of world’s food insecure people live in North East and North Africa, 25.81 per cent in Sub Saharan and around 62.42 per cent in Asia and 5.7 percent in Latin America. Developed countries have only 2 per cent of world’s food insecure population.

Global Food security Index has been formulated by considering the concepts of affordability, availability and quality across 113 countries. It has 28 unique indicators that manage to give both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Let us see the indicators in detail:

Affordability: Measures the ability of consumers to purchase food, their vulnerability to price shocks and the presence of programmes and policies to support customers when shocks occur. This includes

1.      Food consumption as a share of household consumption

2.      Proportion of population under global poverty line

3.      Gross Domestic Product percapita

4.      Agricultural import tariffs

5.      Access to financing for farmers

6.      Presence of food security network programmes

Availability: Measures the sufficiency of the national food supply, the risk of supply disruption, national capacity to disseminate food and research efforts to expand agricultural output. This includes:

1.      Sufficiency of Supply

2.      Public Expenditure on agricultural R&D

3.      Agricultural infrastructure

4.      Volatility of agricultural production

5.      Political Instability

6.      Corruption

7.      Urban absorption capacity

8.      Food Loss

Quality and safety: Measures the variety and nutritional quality of average diets, as well as the safety of food. This includes:

1.      Diet diversification

2.      Nutritional standards

3.      Micronutrient availability

4.      Protein Quality

5.      Food safety

Spatial Pattern of Food Insecurity in World:

Judging the food security pattern at global level has various hindrances especially the paucity of reliable data. According to the Global Food Security Index (2015) the High income economies dominate the top ranking positions. Saharan and Sub-Saharan countries are still struggling to fight for hunger but eventually show a slight improvement of 2.5 % from their previous performance since past two years. Though many Asian countries are still struggling with the production, storage and distribution of the agricultural products but their manufacturing sector is doing better than before. As a result the score gap between Asia and Pacific and top scoring regions is shrinking.

Table 1: Countries with total score in Global Food Security Index

S.No	Total Score	Number of countries	Percent to total
1.	>80	16	14.67
2.	80- 60	37	33.96
3.	60-40	33	30.27
4.	<40	23	21.10
	Total	109	100

Source: compiled by author. Data source: GFSI, 2015

     The table 1 shows that nearly 14.67 per cent of the nations of the world score more than 80 in GFSI. These countries are all developed nations mostly located in North America and Europe. The countries included are USA, Singapore, Iceland, Austria, New Zealand , Germany etc. Some of the nations with the score of 60-80 are Finland, Poland, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Malasiya, Mexica etc. They account for 34 per cent of the total nations. Between the score of 60-40 are mostly South American and Asian countries. They account for nearly 30 percent of the total. Around 21percent of the nations are below 40 score in GFSI. These nations are Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Syria, Zambia, Cameroon etc. Burundi is the lowest with 25.1 score. Countries below 60 score are basically under developed nations either going through political turmoil, wars or are severely prone to natural hazards.

The Global food security index 2016, (Table2) shows that United States of America scores 86.6 percent i.e the highest followed by Ireland, Singapore Australia, Netherland, France Germany Canada. India stands at 75th rank with 49.4 score. Other South Asian countries like Srilanka is at 65th rank with 54.8 score, Pakistan 78th with 47.8 score and so on.

Table 2: Global Food Security Index Rankings, 2016

Rank	Country	Score out of/100
1	United States	86.6
2	Ireland	84.3
3	Singapore	83.9
4	Australia	82.6
5	Netherland	82.6
6	France	82.5
7	Germany	82.5

Source: GFSI, 2016

Food Security Status in India

The International Food Policy Research Institute calculated a Hunger Index for India in 2008. This is based on three indicators, calorie undernourishment (i.e 1632 kcals per person per day), proportion of underweight children below 5 years of age and under five mortality rate. The result is based on the assumption that the states with high score are the ones where the situation of food availability is not good.

The ISHI is constructed in the same criterea as the Global Hunger Index. The index follows a multidimensional approach to measuring hunger and malnutrition. It combines three equally weighted indicators:

the proportion of undernourished as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient dietary intake);

    the prevalence of underweight children under the age of five (indicating the proportion of children suffering from weight loss and / or reduced growth); and

the mortality rate of children under the age of five (partially reflecting the fatal synergy between dietary intake and unhealthy environments).

The ISHI uses two data sources for the estimation of the Indian state level:

the first rounds of the National Family Health Survey (2005–2006) for India and

The National Sample Survey data from 2004 to 2005.

It is calculated and presented for 17 major states, covering 95 percent of the country’s population.

Table 2 shows the hunger index of India, prevalence of under nourishment is more than 20 percent in the states of Kerela, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh etc. while in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh it is less than equal to 15 percent. Proportion of underweight children below 5 years of age is very high in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand i.e above 50%. If we look at the ranking of Hunger Index we see that not a single

state in India is either low or moderate in terms of its index score; most states have a “serious” hunger problem, and one state, Madhya Pradesh, has an “extremely alarming” hunger problem. Even the best-performing Indian state, Punjab, lies below 33 other developing countries ranked by GHI. Even more alarming is the fact that the worst-performing states in India-Bihar, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh-have index scores similar to countries that are precariously positioned on the GHI 2008 rankings. For instance, Bihar and Jharkhand rank lower than Zimbabwe and Haiti, whereas Madhya Pradesh falls between Ethiopia and Chad (IFPRI,2008).

M.S Swaminathan and Indian Council of Agriculture Research ranked the states as per their food security status in urban as well as rural India separately. Cumulative ranking system has been used to find the food security status. The states of Punjab, Delhi, Jammu, Assam and Kerela have higher ranks in the food security Index.

These states have better urban infrastructure. Punjab is comparatively a prosperous state and has higher level of production and availability of food grains.

M.S Swaminathan: Indian Father of Green Revolution.

Prof. Swaminathan is known for his several works in the field of agriculture and food security. He is credited with two main publications on Food Security: Food Insecurity Atlas of Rural India and Food Insecurity Atlas of Uraban India.

The states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar have very low ranks because people living below poverty line are higher in these states. These states are very poor in urban infrastructure, literacy level is low and the parts of states lack basic household amenities.

In rural Atlas, Haryana recorded the highest level of energy intake per consumer unit per day at 3109 Kcal, followed by Rajasthan at 3090 Kcal and Punjab at 3007 Kcal respectively. There are five states showing a relatively low average calorie intake. Tamil Nadu with 2347 Kcal, Assam with 2406 Kcal, Maharashtra with 2427 Kcal, Kerala with 2451 Kcal and Gujarat with 2470 Kcal are at the bottom of the list. Cereals contribute the most to calorie intake compared to other foods. A higher level of cereal consumption is associated with higher levels of calorie intake in most states except Punjab. Here again Bihar is a little off the mark. Even though the cereal consumption is high, the consumption of other foods is very  low and hence, the average calorie consumption is below the national average. The states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Assam, Karnataka and Gujarat show moderate levels of average calorie consumption but are below the national average. At the level of state averages, we find that all the states consume adequate calories per consumer unit as per the norm set by India for rural areas. Only Tamil Nadu shows a slight shortfall, which is negligible (Swaminathan, 2001).

   The Rural Atlas’ food security map clearly shows that Himachal Pradesh and Punjab are the two most food secure states of India. The states of Gujarat, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are severely food insecure states of India.

National Food Security Act in India

    According to National Food Security Act, 2013, around 1.2 billion people i.e two-third of India’s population shall get subsidised food grains. It is upto 75 percent of rural and 50 per cent of urban population has been covered under TPDS (Targeted Public Distribution System). As per this Act, the beneficiaries of Public Distribution System can acquire rice at Rs. 3 per kg and wheat Rs. 2 per kg. The Act also envisages the Nutrition and Health Care of mothers and children.

 The Coverage and entitlement under Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) is up to 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population will be covered under TPDS,

with uniform entitlement of However, since Antyodaya Yojana (AAY) households poor, and are presently household per month, households will be household per month. 5 kg per person per month.

 (अअअअअअअअ) Anna constitute poorest of the entitled to 35 kg per entitlement of existing AAY protected at 35 kg per

Causes of Food Insecurity: It is said that world food production is sufficient to meet the needs of the global population still there is hunger prevalent in some regions of the world. This shows that food insecurity is not just a function of production rather it has lot to do with many other factors.

1. Location and Physiography: Location, climate and physical settings of an area affects the agricultural production. The countries those are prone to natural disasters, floods and droughts are considered to be food insecure. For example in 2011 in Ethopia, Somalia and Kenya the sudden drought led to crop failure and death of livestock. The regions with good drainage network and fertile soil have fairly good amount of agricultural production as compare to dry or infertile areas. The climate and soil of Australia and New Zealand is suitable for rich pasture lands, therefore, dairy farming is very popular and production is in bulk.

2. Poverty: Many areas in this world are in web of poverty and malnourishment. Infact, poverty or unstable economic conditions are considered to be the major factor of food insecurity. The term poverty comprises of an economic condition with very low income and money available for basic necessities. The World Bank data shows that many countries of Africa and Asia are having more than 40 percent of their population below poverty line. Some countries like Congo, Guniea, Liberia, Lesotho, Togo, Zambia etc have more than 50 percent of population below poverty line. People below poverty line are prone to have low nutritive and insufficient diet. This causes high malnutrition and hunger deaths in such areas.

3. Lack of investment in Production: The lack of investment in production reflects the supply side. Less of investment means lack of financial assistance to farmers. Investment is also needed in high quality seeds, irrigation facilities, fertilizers, land management etc. Low investment in this section can lead to less production. A research done by FAO shows that investment in agriculture is five times more effective in reducing poverty and hunger than investment in any other sector.

4. Wars and Political unrest: The regions that face political unrest or wars generally are prone to food insecurity. The wars and displacement disrupts the continuous supply of agricultural produce. This also makes people poor and inaccessible to foodgrains. In recent times, Syria is an example of this. Nearly 50,000 causalities were reported and more than 4lakh people got displaced. The refugees struggled for food and safe water. They lack basic amenities and health facilities.

5. Public Distribution System: Production and distribution go hand in hand. The Public Distribution System has to be strong, so that food is evenly distributed among all and everyone should have uninterrupted access to sufficient and safe food.. It helps in managing the food economy. Through PDS government distributes food at marginal cost so that it can reach masses especially the urban poor. In any country where PDS is not strong and does not cater to the poor, it can lead to uncertainty of food. In India there are 4,62,000 fair price shops still people do not have access to sufficient food.

6. Wastage of Food and faulty Food habits: According to the study by FAO, nearly one-third of the food produced in the world remains unutilized. Besides not consumed it is even wasted in many parts of the world. Moreover, faulty eating habits and over eating further complicates the problem. More than 35 per cent of US adults are obese. According to National Centre for Health Statistics US, higher income group people are more prone to obesity due to overeating than middle or low income group. Whereas, in developing countries or poor income group people lack of sufficient nutrients, due to unavailability of food lead to malnourishment.

    Consequences of food insecurity: Food insecurity web captures in itself various social and economic consequences like land use change, migration, conflicts, social and economic depreciation etc. The areas, which are food insecure, people there are dependent upon outside help in terms of money and food. Corrupt bureaucrats and officials tend to mislead them. Besides this the society gets divided into haves and have-nots. Have-nots have comparatively less command on resources and weak purchasing power. Deprivation both socially and economically leads to unrest in society, which further leads to conflicts, migration and other social tensions. All this further worsens the problem of food security in the area.

1. Conflicts, Crime and violence: Conflicts lead to hunger and reduced food production and economic growth in developing and transition countries. Reciprocally, food and economic insecurity and natural resource scarcity- real or perceived- often precipitate violence. In “food wars” hunger is deliberately used as a weapon (Messer, 1990).

Most of today’s conflicts, whether domestic or international, are concentrated in regions heavily dependent on agriculture. Links between hunger and violence emanating from the denial or loss of entitlement to food are both the result and a cause of conflicts in the poorest countries. Fundamental grievances that motivate violent collective action arise from the same political processes that generate food shortages, as well as being a consequence of conflict. Very few new conflicts start in food secure environments. (Guiton, 2001)For eg: In sub-Saharan Africa, hunger is considered the result of the combined effect of conflict, natural disaster such as floods and droughts, & bad governance. According to Aziz, A. Admittedly unethical public behaviour of officials & politician has a bearing on the slow pace of progress in the fight against poverty and hunger. He also generalized that all extremely poor and badly governed countries share a common failure or deficiency i.e. of not having the necessary resources to put in place properly functioning institutions. This leaves them highly vulnerable to corruption of one kind or other.

Food insecurity can also lead to conflict in most of the countries currently experiencing conflicts are classified by FAO as “low income food deficit and have high proportions of food, insecure households. (Messer,Cohen, Marchiore, 2003)

In a study conducted in Nepal in remote mountainous areas it is seen that the growing recognition of conflict affected areas are those most in need of development assistance but there is evidence to suggest that there has been high levels of conflict in those areas where poverty and deprivation are prevalent … The internal displacement is causing food insecurity in same areas, in other regions, such as Upper Karnali, food insecurity is even causing migration. (Conflict & food security in Nepal – A preliminary Analysis, 2003).

2. Migration: There is Rural – Urban migration and even inter- state migration due to food insecurity. The FAO director General, Grazino in one of his study talks about clear relation between war, food insecurity and migration. He said that conflicts in Syria led to mass migration of people. As people lost their agricultural land and also further the economic and social security. They have moved to cities to find alternate jobs. In 2014, due to crop failure the government declared 35 per cent of the land under severe drought. It was mentioned that such frequent droughts in California year after year can lead to mass migration of people from this region.

3. Malnourishment and Health issues: Food and nutrition should be considered as a system composed of production, importation, processing, storing, distribution and consumption. Food goes through all these stages in all societies. Infact food system takes shape within the social system. Therefore, elements of social system affect components of the food and nutrition system. It is very important to understand and link food insecurity with nutrition deficiency diseases, for planning purposes. As per an evaluation done by Lupin, Director of FAO food & Nutrition Division, access to sufficient supplies of a variety of safe, good quality foods is a serious problem in many countries, even where food supplies are adequate at the national level. It is supposed that even if progress in meeting the food needs and food demands of the world population continues at the current rate, more than 600 million people will still be under nourished and food insecure in the first quarter of the new millennium.

A study conducted by FAO in 1999 shows that globally, 30% children under five years of age are underweight, 199 million children suffer from Vitamin A deficiency, 2 billion people are affected by or at risk from iodine deficiency disorders and around 2 billion are affected by or at risk from iron deficiency anaemia. The overwhelming majority of undernourished people live in Asia and the Pacific. This region, which is home to 70% of the total population of the developing world, accounts for almost two- third (526 million) of undernourished people. India alone has 204 million under – nourished people, and South Asia region accounts for more than one- third (284 million) of the world total (Lupien & Menza, 1999).

Students, the chapter has briefly explained the concept of food security, its distribution pattern at national and international level and causes and consequences of food security. Hope you find the chapter to be interesting and simple to understand. Thank you

References

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