Alleviation: An International Journal of Nutrition, Gender & Social Development, ISSN 2348-9340, Volume 10, Number 10 (2023): 1-7
© Arya PG College (College with Potential for Excellence Status by UGC) & Business Press India Publication, Delhi
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Food Security and Sustainable Development – Dimensions and Challenges
Anjali Dewan
Formerly Associate Professor and Head
Department of Home Science
St. Bede’s College, Shimla
(Himachal Pradesh), India
Email: dewananjali2014@gmail.com
Abstract
Food security is defined as a condition that 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. Food security plays a central role in human development and thus is recognized as a universal human right that is currently not met for many people across the world. Sustainable development is a strategic development that concerns all goods, natural and human resources and financial resources which bring long term prosperity. A state has food security and sustainable development only when it has enough available food and agricultural products to provide nutrition for all its inhabitants, while ensuring fodder for animals and water in case of natural disasters, crises, war etc. All these factors must be analyzed based on three concepts of regional growth, sustainability and globalization. Innovation, structural change and access to natural resources are key components of productivity growth and sustainable use of resources. This paper tries to emphasize on the relationship between food security and sustainable development. In our country, there is a need for comprehensive national food security for sustainable development strategies that take into account the country’s specificities and characteristics that address both the food supply and access to its good quality as well as quantity. Such strategies should include policies that reduce rise in food prices and measures that enhance its impact on the sustainability of the development in all spheres.
Keywords: Food Security, Sustainable, Development, Strategies, Resources, Environment.
Introduction
Food security plays a very important role in human development and thus is recognized as a universal human right that is currently not met for many people across the world. Sustainable development is a strategic development that deals with all goods, natural and human resources and financial capital which bring long term prosperity. A state has food security and sustainable development only when it has enough available food and agricultural products to provide nutrition for all its inhabitants, while ensuring fodder for animals and water in case of natural disasters, crises, war etc. The domestic food price rise remains high around the world in the present time. The countries affected most are in Africa, North America, Latin America, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia. According to the Global Report on Food Crisis 2022 Mid – year Update, up to 205 million people are expected to face acute food insecurity. Food security is closely related to nutrition security and health. Nutrition security is obtained by individuals when the body tissues are exposed to optimal amounts of nutrients and other essential substances. It is a combination of household food security, health care access security, and access to other basic human needs including adequate sanitation. A household with limited economic access to food may decide to not seek medical care for a child or to not purchase prescribed medications. For food security to be a reality, households need to have unrestricted access to a healthy and nutritious diet. Access to healthy diets, in turn, depends on having adequate financial resources and for foods to be readily available in the country, region, and communities in which the households are located. Therefore, the maintenance of an affordable and sustainable healthy food supply at the global level is very important for achieving household food security and nutrition security worldwide. For this reason, it is crucial to understand and address climate change, agricultural commodity price policies, and ultimately, the health of our planet from a household food security perspective in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which call for ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture globally.
Food Insecurity represents a strong biological and psychosocial stressor that may increase the risk of poor mental, social, and psycho-emotional development of individuals across their life span through different pathways. The diets consist of less amount of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and fish. This indeed is a dietary pattern that has been linked to an enhanced risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome, chronic diseases such as diabetes, and premature death. A psycho-emotional pathway involves the worry and anxiety, feeling of exclusion, deprivation, and alienation, distress and adverse family and social interactions among individuals experiencing food insecurity.
Consequences of Food Insecurity
The consequences of Food insecurity are many and affect the heath and overall development of children and adolescents:
Poor Child Development
Food insecurity is a powerful stressor that has a direct and indirect effect on the psycho-emotional, social, behavioral, and intellectual development of children, including problem internalization (e.g., depression) and externalization (e.g., aggressive behaviours). The impact of food insecurity on child development is likely to be influenced by nutritional indicators as well as by psycho-emotional factors affecting how the family functions.
Infectious Diseases
Food insecurity has been linked with an increased risk of childhood malaria, diarrhea, upper respiratory infections, and hospitalizations due to severe infectious diseases in countries as diverse as Brazil and Haiti, perhaps as a result of inflammation as well as a weak immune system.
Stunting, Obesity and Chronic Diseases
Food insecurity has been found to be related with the double burden of malnutrition (i.e., the simultaneous presence of stunted children and obese mothers living in the same household) in Brazil, Mexico, and other Latin American countries and world regions. It has been associated with non-communicable diseases, including Type 2 Diabetes and Hypertension in Mexico, Ecuador, and other countries which is likely to be connected to poor dietary quality and stress resulting from less availability of food.
Poor Mental Health Among Children, Youth and Adults
Food insecurity has been linked with depression and suicidal thoughts among youth in and has been confirmed to be a major source of maternal depression globally. Maternal depression, in turn, is a major risk factor for poor child psychosocial, emotional, and behavioural development. Poor sleep adversely affects physical and mental health.
Social Disruption
Food insecurity has been identified as a major source of social unrest and internal strive globally as shown by the massive riots and social unrest resulting from the economic crisis and major food inflation observed in the year 2008. The food shortages are so disruptive to societies that they are considered to be a major factor in the disintegration of nations. One can see what is happening in our neighbour country Pakistan these days due to lack of finances and food shortage.
Dimensions of Food Security
Food security is the outcome of food system operating efficiently. The efficient food system contributes positively to all the dimensions of food security. Following are the dimensions of food security:
Food Availability
This dimension deals with supply side of the food security and expects sufficient quantities of quality food from domestic agriculture production or import. This is simple mathematical calculation whether the food available in certain territory/country is enough to feed the total population in that particular territory and calculated from the level of local agriculture production at that territory, stock levels and net import/export. This dimension of food security at different levels can be calculated various methods like by precipitation record, food balance sheet, food market survey, agricultural production etc. The indicators of food security for this dimension at different levels are fertility rate, food production, population flows, harvesting time, staple food production, food storage, consumption of wild foods etc.
Food Access
Food access is another dimension of food security which consists of income, expenditure and buying capacity of households or individuals. Food access is concerned with whether the households or individuals have enough resources to acquire optimum quantity of quality foods. Some of the indicators of this dimension at different levels are food price, wage rate, per capita food consumption, meal frequency, employment rate etc. and the dimension can be assessed by Vulnerability Analysis and mapping (VAM), Food Access Survey, Food Focus Group Discussion, Intra- household food frequency questionnaire etc. Interventions to create awareness among people about this dimension of food security are school-feeding program, breast –feeding campaign, organizing workshops for poor people in the villages, slum areas etc.
Food Utilization
Food utilization is another dimension of food security which addresses not only how much food the people consume but also what and how they eat. It also covers the food preparation, intra-household food distribution, water and sanitation and health care practices. The nutritional outcome of the food eaten by an individual will be appropriate and optimum only when food is prepared and cooked properly. The diet should be balanced and proper feeding and caring practices should be practiced. The stunting rate of growth, wasting rate, prevention of diarrheal diseases, latrine usage, weight-for-age, goitre, anaemia, night blindness etc. are the indicators at different level for this dimension. This can be assessed by demographic and health survey, immunization chart etc.
Stability
This dimension addresses the stability of the other three dimensions over time. People cannot be considered food secure until they feel so and they do not feel food secure until there is stability of availability, accessibility and proper utilization condition. Instability of market price of staple food and inadequate risk bearing capacity of the people in the case of adverse condition (e.g. natural disaster, unexpected weather etc.), political instability and unemployment are the major factors affecting stability of the dimensions of food security. This dimension of food security can be assessed by Global Information Early Warning System, Anthropometric survey, weighing chart of pregnant women etc. of certain indicators like food price fluctuation, women's BMI, pre-harvest food practice, migration etc. Interventions to address this dimension are saving and loan policy, inter-household food exchange, grain bank, food storage etc.
Environmental Sustainability
The breakdown and destruction of natural ecosystems has been identified as a major threat to crop diversity and thus the stability of food systems globally. Climate change, in particular, has been found to be a major determinant of damage to or destruction of ecosystems globally. Thus, maintaining environmental sustainability is a big challenge. These actions include ‘nonfood’ (i.e., alternatives to fossil fuels), as well as ‘food-related’ strategies (reducing the raising of cattle and consumption of meats, encouraging affordable sustainable agriculture technologies) as consumers demand and this in turn, affects decisions by the industry. It is crucial for citizens to be educated on knowing the importance of the individual lifestyle choices on the future sustainability and food security of the planet. It is very important for the governments to implement sustainability policies that provide the conditions needed for consumers to use these decisions.
Magnitude of the Problem
Approximately 800 million individuals do not have access to enough food. More than two billion individuals experience major micronutrient deficiencies (e.g., iron, Vitamin A, iodine, and zinc) and poor dietary quality in the context of the obesity epidemic has now become a major determinant of the global burden of disease. The recent application of the FAO's Food Insecurity Experience Scale, which considers both the amount of food and dietary quality that individuals have access to, in 134 countries has documented that the percentage of individuals living under overall food-insecure conditions ranged from 10.8 percent in high-income countries to 56.5 percent in low-income countries. The corresponding values for severe food insecurity were 3.1 percent and 29.5 percent, respectively. Many food-insecure individuals consume excessive amounts of calories as part of dietary patterns that are heavily based on starches and a high amount of added sugars as part of processed food products, including sugar-sweetened beverages, which explains why both undernutrition and infectious diseases and obesity and chronic diseases coexist in low and developing countries, a phenomenon known as the double burden of malnutrition.
Food Security Governance in a Globalized World
A well planned food security governance is the key for ensuring the right of food security for all citizens. This is essential for the stability of nations. According to FAO ‘Food security governance’ relates to formal and informal rules and processes through which the interests are discussed and decisions important to food security in a country are made, implemented, and followed by the members of the society. Adequate food security governance depends on the multi-sectoral participatory decision making, transparency and accountability, equity in resource allocation and service delivery, and multilevel policies corresponding programs. Brazil is highlighted in this perspective because it has been identified as an exemplary country when it comes to food security governance, because it has strived to meet all of the criteria and at the same time, it has shown major reductions in severe Household Food Insecurity. Specifically, between 2004 and 2013, severe food insecurity declined in all states (except for one), with rates of decline ranging from −2.5 per cent to −75.2 per cent.
Monitoring of Food Insecurity
Different indicators can and should be used for monitoring food insecurity at different system levels like global, national, state, local, household, and at individual levels. Experience-based household food security scales assess the perceptions or experience about different dimensions of food insecurity including worries about not having access to food and lack of access to sufficient food or to a high-quality diet due to a lack of economic resources. Questions can be asked with regard to the whole household and adults or children and youth living in the household
Agricultural Productivity
Food shortages can be caused by a lack of farming skills such as crop rotation, or by a lack of technology or resources needed for the higher yields found in modern agriculture, such as nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation. As a result of widespread poverty, farmers cannot afford or governments cannot provide the technology. The World Bank and some wealthy donor countries also pressurize nations that depend on financial aid to cut or eliminate subsidized agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, in the name of free market policies even as the United States and Europe extensively subsidized their own farmers. Many, if not most, farmers cannot afford fertilizers at market prices, leading to low agricultural production. Strong interdependence exists between food security and many other parts of a broad sustainable development agenda that addresses issues related to inclusive economic growth, population dynamics, employment, social protection, access to clean water, energy, health, sanitation, natural resource management and the protection of ecosystems. The broad environment that and encompasses food systems and their production and consumption components has changed considerably in recent years. The environment for food and agricultural production is increasingly challenging for the small holders due to natural resource degradation, more frequent and severe weather events, globalisation, urbanization and market concentration. Food prices are likely to remain relatively high and price volatility is expected to become more common in future.
A sustainable food system (SFS) is a food system that delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised. Sustainable agriculture and food systems such as organic agriculture and agro ecology improve food security, eradicate hunger and are economically viable while conserving land, water, plant and animal genetic resources, biodiversity and ecosystems and enhancing resilience to climate change and natural disasters. The major goal for sustainable agriculture development (SAD) is to ensure food security and nutrition (FSN) for all now and in the future in the context of climate change and increasing scarcity of natural resources. The growing and rapidly evolving demand for food creates huge opportunities for agricultural development including livestock. However, the expected growth in production to meet this demand will also raise challenges if agricultural development is to become more sustainable.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that food insecurity is affected by and strongly affects both the health of human beings and also the health and survival of our planet for future generations. Considering the enormous magnitude of the problem of food insecurity globally, it is important that policy makers and society at large consider reducing income inequality, promote sustainable agriculture and minimize food waste. All governments should make a commitment to guide their agriculture, food, and nutrition policies through evidence-based dietary guidelines that are mostly plant based and that lay emphasis on variety and the consumption of sustainable animal protein sources. The governments should provide financial incentives for the development of a food supply and the consumption of foods in accordance with a rich diversity of vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. While current and future challenges differ from those of the past, responses to the new challenges can build on lessons learned. Experience tells us that there is an urgent need for a universal agenda, for country and context-specific strategies, and for people benefitting approaches. Given the complex challenge of eradicating hunger and food insecurity, progress will depend on effective governance systems and the involvement of many stakeholders across sectors, with empowered participation, transparency, equity and accountability as key principles.
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