Why food systems?

Our food systems directly impact our health, as well as the health of the environment, our economies and livelihoods. However, when they fail, the resulting disorder disproportionately threatens those who are already poor or marginalized. Given that food systems involve everything from the farm to transport, purchase, and finally to fork, transforming them provides many opportunities for progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

What is food security and what challenges does it face?

According to the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security, food security is defined as follows:

"Food security means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life”.

The 2009 World Summit on Food Security outlined four pillars of food security: availability, access, utilization, and stability.

Food availability regards the supply of food through production, distribution, and exchange. There are numerous factors that affect food production, including land rights/ownership, soil management, crop selection and breeding, and weather variability exacerbated by climate change. Food production often competes with other needs in the use of limited resources such as land, water, and energy. Where resources lack for self-sufficient production, availability can be increased through food distribution and trade. However, discrepancies in infrastructure, storage, and transport technologies can also affect food waste.

Food access refers to the affordability and allocation of food, with a specific focus on the barriers to access, such as poverty. Households which produce food have direct access whereas households that purchase food produced elsewhere have economic access. However, the economic ability to purchase food, may not necessarily lead to its intake. Households have other goods to choose between, and the demographic structure of a household may not assure adequate access by all members.

Once food is obtained by a household, a variety of factors affect its utilization by household members. Nutritional values of the household, for example, determine food choice, while food safety and sanitation can also decrease the risk of diseases that can affect food utilization.

Finally, food stability refers to the continued ability to obtain food which is challenged by transitory, seasonal, or chronic barriers. Transitory food insecurity refers to the unavailability of food at specific times such as after natural disasters and drought, civil conflicts, or food-price spikes. Seasonal food insecurity is similar but it results in a predictable lack of availability following regular patterns of growing seasons in food production. Chronic food insecurity involves a long-term and constant risk of being unable to access food for all members of a household.

Transitory food insecurity is linked to chronic food insecurity as it can cause households to become more vulnerable for long-term instability. The drivers behind the four pillars of food security are cross-cutting, hence the importance of a systems approach.