Ok here goes… are you ready? I’m not sure anybody is ready for the definition of food security. And no.. it isn’t standing there with a gun to the fridge…
Food Security to me is the availability and accessibility of nutritious and sustainably grown food that is affordable, culturally appropriate and obtained with dignity. Sigh. Such a mouthful… However.. there are many many more mouthfuls of different variations.. all of which deserve credit. Food Sovereignty is often a term that is now heard as well and speaks to some of the power issues about food. This is more of a focus on Community Food Security but ties in a little bit of everything.
Ok.. so I will get a bit more technical now. But really – food security is about feeling safe that you have enough food of the food you want and all of personal, community and global concepts that impact how and what you eat. This may mean making sure that you have enough to eat tomorrow, or it may mean making sure that if imports stopped or there was a natural disaster (earthquake, flood, hurricane, drought etc.) that there would be food available. I`m interesting in exploring these questions further and love comments about this concept.
The things is, if our neighbour is hungry – it means we are failing as a society. And there is the “math” economic argument for this as well including the cost of poverty video at the very bottom (not the green one).
As much as it may seem funny to start with definitions, sometime it is a good idea to make sure we are all talking about the same thing. Sometimes because food security is so big – it can be complicated so it has been broken down into sections now over time.
So.. as promised… here are a couple more mouthfuls of definitions. Let’s start by saying that most researchers now agree to separate out the following terms:
Household Food Insecurity: the inadequate or insecure access to food because of financial constraints. Food insecure households struggle to afford a healthy diet and household food insecurity affects physical health, mental health and social well-being of individuals and increases the
incidence of hospitalization.
To find out more about Household Food Insecurity
– FoodARC defines it further in 2 minutes here Household food security
– Dietitians of Canada’s includes Household Food Insecurity has a priority issue including a 2016 Executive Summary (15 min read)
– PROOF from University of Toronto has some great infographics/fact sheets for the visual and research
– Check out more resources on my page for provincial reports
Community Food Security is still a bit fuzzier but it does include the big picture first mentioned. FoodARC also defines Community Food Security here and completed a report on Community Food Security in Nova Scotia – which is older now but quite comprehensive.
I also quite enjoy this powerful 1 minute video from FoodARC of a spoken word poem by Tim Merry:
WHO Food Security Definition:
“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.” WHO (2014). Food Security page under section -Trade, foreign policy, diplomacy and health, under section – “Programmes”. Retrieved from here
There isn’t an easy solution to a complex problem. So I always remind myself it is about questions about food – even now, although I know a fair amount, there is always more to learn. Food Security involves many jobs and many areas of knowledge. It also affects the individual level, the community level, the population level and the broad worldwide level. Dietitians, Chefs, Farmers, farmers markets, retail stores and business, food marketers, urban and land planners, soil scientists, policy makers (and local, regional and global policies), politicians, truck drivers and many MANY more…