“The world now produces enough food to feed its population.
The problem is not simply technical. It is a political and social problem.
It is a problem of access to food supplies, of distribution, and of entitlement.
Above all it is a problem of political will.”
Boutros-Ghali, November 1993
925 million people were food insecure in 2011. It is easy to assume that this travesty is the result of a production gap since much of the modern literature focuses on how much more food will need to be produced by 2050 to feed the burgeoning global population. This is, however, not the case.
There is currently enough food produced for all of the world’s inhabitants. In fact, there is enough produced to feed even more people.
Instead, there are a myriad of other factors that result in logistical issues and inequitable distribution of output, including:
- A wide range of research challenges
- Issues related to the political economy
- Political inertia
- Poor funding decisions
- Misunderstanding/wrong explanations of the issues
The notion that food security is exclusively a developing world problem contributes to a strong misfocus of energy. Grounded in a false premise, little effort to address the root causes of food insecurity. Moreover, the majority of effort towards the alleviation of global hunger has been the work of 1) development agencies who are limited in the scope of their efforts and 2) scientists who focus exclusively on production and agronomic factors [many of which have high social and environmental costs].
However, the gradual shifts in the social and environmental construction of the world has resulted in a shift of focus and a reluctant acceptance that the actions of the developed world have consequences on food security throughout the world.
Moreover, there is a growing number of people residing in developed lands that lack access to appropriate sources of nutrition. This has led to a new discussion surrounding food and a new approach – a food systems approach. The food systems approach is a tool for better understanding the complex interactions between the diverse actors in a food production system.
A food system is a type of system that relates to all activities to food:
- Production: how the food is grown
- Processing: how the food is transformed from raw materials to other products
- Distribution: how the food is dispersed and appropriated
- Preparation: how the food is handled to prepare for the consumption phase
- Consumption: how the final food product is (or is not) ingested
The outcomes of which contribute to food security AND:
- Access: who can obtain the food and how it can be obtained
- Affordability: who can purchase the food
- Allocation: who will receive the food
- Preference: whether the preferences for food
- Use: how and if the food will be used
- Value: nutrition, safety and social
- Security: environmental and other, e.g. income
By using the concept of a food system which addresses not only the economic, but also the social component of food production, a more complete and holistic picture of the circumstances at hand can be developed, which can be used to:
- Provide a framework for structuring dialogs
- Integrate food systems analyses with analyses of food security outcomes
- Assess the impact of climate change on food systems
- Identify feedbacks
- Identify intervention points for the enhancement of food security
- Analyse trade-offs between food security, ecosystem services and social welfare outcomes
- Highlight research gaps
source and image credit:
Ingram, J. (2011). A food systems approach to researching food security and its interactions with global environmental change. Food Security, 3(4), 417-431.