Food Security ( খাদ্য নিরাপত্তা )
Food Security: Food Security indicates a
safe situation in respect of food, its uninterrupted supply, and availability
of adequate food materials throughout the year. Food security has primarily two
aspects, namely family or household food security and national food security.
- Household food security depends on the ability of the household
wage earns to secure enough food to ensure an adequate dietary intake of
all its members at all times for a healthy and active life.
- National food security depends on the ability of the government to
secure to secure enough food for the whole nation.
To achieve food security three things need to be
highlighted-
- Availability of adequate food for the family and the nation
- Reasonable stability in the supply of food spatially and
seasonally; and
- Physical, social and economic access of a household to sufficient
safe and good quality food.
Widely
Accepted Definition:
“Food security exists when all people, at all times,
have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that
meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”
(World Food Summit-1996)
Food
Availability:
The availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality,
supplied through domestic production or imports (including food aid).
Food Access: Access by individuals to
adequate resources (entitlements) for acquiring appropriate foods for a
nutritious diet.
Entitlements are defined as the set of all commodity
bundles over which a person can establish command given the legal, political,
economic and social arrangements of the community in which they live (including
traditional rights such as access to common resources)
Utilization: Utilization of food through
adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach a state of
nutritional well-being where all physiological needs are met. This brings out
the importance of non-food inputs in food security.
Stability: To be food secures a
population, HH or individual must have access to adequate food at all times.
They should not risk losing access to food as a consequence of sudden shocks
(e.g. an economic or climatic crisis) or cyclical events (e.g. seasonal food
insecurity). The concept of stability can therefore refer to both the
availability and access dimensions of food security.
Food Security:
Food Security refers to the availability of food and
one’s access to it. A household is considered food secure when its occupants do
not live in hunger or fear of starvation.
Worldwide around 852 million people are chronically
hungry due to extreme poverty, while up to 2 billion people lake food security
intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty (Source: FOU,03)
Definition of food security, as of USDA (United
States Department of Agriculture): 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-
1) The ready availability of
nutritionally adequate and safe foods. and
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).
[USDA]
Food
Insecurity:
Food insecurity has been described as “ A condition
in which people lack basic food intake to provide them with the energy and
nutrients for fully productive lives.”
The stages of food insecurity range from food secure
situations to full-scale famine. Famine and hunger are both rooted in food
insecurity.
Types of Food
Insecurity:
Food insecurity can be categorized as either
- Chronic Food Insecurity or
- Transitory Food Insecurity
Chronic Food
Insecurity:
When individuals or group of people suffer from food insecurity all the time,
then they can be said to suffer from chronic food insecurity. In other words,
chronic food insecurity is a continuous inadequacy of diet caused by the
persistently lack the either to buy or produce enough food. Hence poverty is
considered the root cause of chronic food insecurity.
Transitory
Food Insecurity: Transitory food insecurity occurs when households face a temporary
decline in access to enough food. Transitory food insecurity can be further
divide into-
o Temporary Food Insecurity
o Cyclical of Seasonal Food
Insecurity
Temporary Food Insecurity: Temporary food insecurity occurs when sudden and
unpredictable shocks, such as drought or flood, affect a household’s
entitlements. Famine is the worst form of transitory food insecurity, which can
result from one or more causes like, flood, drought, crop failure, market
failure, loss of real purchasing power by group of households etc. Sudden
unemployment may also be a cause of transitory food insecurity.
Seasonal Food Insecurity: Seasonal food insecurity occurs when there is a
regular pattern of inadequate access to food.
Transitory food insecurity may lead to chronic food
insecurity, depending on severe it is and how frequently it occurs. If a HH
suffers two-drought year in a row, and is forced to sell some of its assets to
survive, then it may move from a situation of transitory food insecurity to one
of chronic food insecurity.
In order to understand better the nature and extent
of the food security situation and the possible ways to improving it, it is
important to distinguish between food security at the national, local,
household and intro-household level. The ultimate goal is to meet the food
requirements of the people at all levels.
Measuring Food Security at different level:
National Level: Food Security at the national is
determined by the availability of enough resources for the whole population.
The most widely used indicators are quantities of available food compared with
needs, as well as import requirements compared with the country’s capacity to
import.
Regional/ Local Level: At the regional levels, food
security can be measured by comparing regional nutritional requirements with
availability of dietary calories per head.
Household Level: At the household level, food
security is dependent on a household’s access to enough food. Thus it is
closely linked with the issue of poverty, access, sufficiency, vulnerability
and sustainability. At the household level, food security is measured by actual
dietary intake of all household members using household income and expenditure
surveys.
In Bangladesh population groups who are most
vulnerable to household food insecurity include landless farmers, day laborers,
households headed by destitute women and people living in disaster prone areas
like chars, islands and refugee camps.
Food security at the family level is affected by a
number of socio-economic and socio-cultural factors such as family income,
amount of cultivable land, family education and culture, family size, knowledge
of food and nutrition, practice of public health and nut ration methods etc.
Components of Food Security:
Ø Domestic Production
Ø Commercial import
Ø Food aid and
Ø Stock adjustment
I.
Increase household food production and trading
II.
Improve income generation and job creation opportunities
III.
Improve nutrition and food safety
IV.
Increase safety nets and food emergency management systems
V.
Improve analysis and information management system
VI.
Provide capacity building
VII.
Hold stakeholder dialogue
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