Lecture 1: Introduction I (Maja Slingerland)
- Food security: all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to
sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences
for an active and healthy life.
- Food and nutrition security: all people, at all times, have physical, social and
economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs
and food preferences, and is supported by an environment of adequate sanitation,
health services anc care, allowing for a healthy and active life.
● The four pillars of Food Security:
○ Availability.
○ Access.
○ Utilisation.
○ Stability/sustainability.
● Availability:
Availability is about production and distribution.
- Production: how much and which types of food are available through local
production.
- Distribution: how food is made available (physically moved, trade), in what form,
when and whom.
- Quantity is expressed in energy (Kcal/joules) or in grain equivalent (200 kg
cereals/person/year).
- Currently there is enough food produced in the world when we look at calories
needed/person or in grain equivalent.
● Access:
- Affordability: the purchasing power of households or communities relative to the
price of food.
- Allocation: the economic, social and political mechanisms governing when, where
and how food can be accessed by consumers.
- Physical access → through own production.
- Economic access → through purchasing.
- Social access → through networks, exchange, gifts, social security.
- There is enough food available, yet there are about 800 million people hungry.
● Utilisation:
- Nutritional value: how much of the daily requirements of calories, vitamins, protein,
and micronutrients are provided by the food people consume
- Food safety 1: free from toxic contamination introduced during production,
processing and packaging, distribution or marketing of food.
- Food safety 2: free from food-borne diseases such as salmonella and CJD related to
hygiene, access to clean water and food preservation technologies.
- Social value: the social, religious and cultural functions and benefits food provides.
- Having an adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach a state of
nutritional well-being where all physiological needs are met (HLPE).
,● Stability:
- Having the ability to ensure food security in the event of sudden shocks (e.g. an
economic, health, conflict or climatic crisis) or cyclical events (e.g. seasonal food
insecurity). (HLPE).
- There are effective coping strategies (both in the short term and in the longer term) to
deal with risks and shocks:
- Short term: less meals/day, borrow money, sales of (non-productive) assets
(selling of your car or motor, etc.), social capital (you have relations with
people and you ask them to help you).
- Longer term: diversified sources of income, seasonal migration, insurance
systems, national food reserves, social security system.
● Sustainability:
- Food system practices that contribute to long-term regeneration of natural, social and
economic systems, ensuring the food needs of the present generations are met
without compromising the food needs of future generations. (HLPE).
a. No long-term adverse effects of food production and processing on the planten → no
effect on the:
i. Resource base through pollution, degradation & depletion (e.g. soils, water,
air).
ii. Climate through GHG emissions.
b. Food production, access and utilisation for all are maintained in view of longer term
trends such as:
i. Population growth.
ii. Climate change.
● There are food security questions at several levels:
○ International:
■ Is there enough food produced to feed the world? Population growth!
■ Multilateral agreements on trade (WTO) and aid (WFP)?
○ National:
■ Many food security goals (SDG) and indicators are determined at the
national level.
○ Household:
■ Knowledge & skills about:
● Acquisition, preparation and consumption of nutritionally
adequate diets?
● Producing sustainably enough nutritious and safe food?
○ Individual:
■ Distribution among family members:
● Who gets what and when?
● Food security at one level/scale does not define food security at another level/scale.
, Lecture 1: Introduction II - Food Systems & SDG (Maja Slingerland)
● There are three concepts associated to the four
pillars of food security:
○ Food systems.
○ Nutrition sensitive agriculture.
○ Sustainable diet.
● One goal: SDG 2 → a specific Sustainable
Development Goal aimed at getting rid of hunger.
● Food systems are more than food security and its
four pillars.
- Food system: a food system gathers all the
elements (environment, people, inputs, processes,
infrastructures, institutions, etc.) and activities that
relate to the production, processing, distribution,
preparation & consumption of food, and the
outputs of these activities, including
socioeconomic and environmental outcomes.
(HLPE, 2017).
● A simple food system can be pictured as a supply
chain.
○ The figure of Woodhill et al. does not
include any drivers or explicit
outcomes.
○ Another figure of Woodhill et al. does
include the drivers, but no explicit
outcomes.
○ The figure of van Berkum has a way of
mapping the relationships of the food
system to its drivers and outcomes.
○ The figure of HLPE (2020) focuses
more on the consumer.
● Most food system frameworks (figures, definitions)
have the following elements:
○ Supply chain →
production-processing-consumption.
○ Drivers affecting them → social,
environmental, policies.
○ Multiple outcomes →
- Nutrition sensitive agriculture: linking agricultural production choices with the
ultimate destiny of the product (diets).
- It’s an approach that seeks to ensure the production of a variety of affordable,
nutritious, culturally appropriate and safe foods in adequate quantity and
quality to meet the dietary requirements of populations in a sustainable
manner.
