Define food security and explain its key parts, including availability, access and the consequences of food insecurity

What this dot point is asking

This outcome asks you to define food security and explain its main parts, especially the difference between food being available and people having access to it, and what happens when food security fails. The central idea is that food security is not just about growing enough food; it is about everyone being able to get enough safe, nutritious food all the time.

The answer

What food security means

Food security means that all people, at all times, have enough safe and nutritious food to live a healthy and active life. The key words are important: it must be enough, safe, nutritious, for everyone, and all the time, not just sometimes. When this is not the case, a place suffers food insecurity.

Availability and access

Food security has two important parts that are easy to confuse:

• Availability: there is enough food present in a country or area, whether grown locally or imported.
• Access: people are actually able to obtain that food, which means being able to afford it and to reach the shops or markets.

A place can have food available but some people may still go hungry if they cannot afford it. So both availability and access are needed for true food security.

Nutrition and safety

Food security is not only about quantity. The food must be nutritious (providing the right balance of nutrients for health) and safe (clean and free from harmful contamination). A diet that fills the stomach but lacks nutrients still leaves people unhealthy, which is a form of food insecurity.

Consequences of food insecurity

When people do not have food security, the results are serious:

• For people: hunger and malnutrition, leading to poor health, weakness and illness; children may not grow or develop properly, and learning and work suffer.
• For a country: a less healthy, less productive population, slower development, rising food prices, possible unrest, and reliance on food aid.

Examples in context

Example 1. Singapore's import-based food security. Singapore has very little farmland, so it imports most of its food from many different countries. It is food secure because food is available (through wide-ranging imports) and accessible (people can generally afford it), showing that a country does not need to grow its own food to be food secure, but does need reliable supply and affordability.

Example 2. Hunger amid plenty. In some countries that produce or import large amounts of food, the poorest people still suffer hunger because they cannot afford it. This shows that food insecurity is often a problem of access and poverty rather than a lack of food being available, a key distinction in the topic.

Try this

Q1. Define food security. [2 marks]

• Cue. When all people, at all times, have enough safe and nutritious food to live a healthy and active life.

Q2. Explain the difference between availability of food and access to food. [2 marks]

• Cue. Availability is food being present (grown or imported); access is people being able to obtain and afford it. Food can be available but not accessible to the poor.

Q3. State two consequences of food insecurity for people. [2 marks]

• Cue. Hunger and malnutrition leading to poor health and illness; children may not grow or develop properly (also harm to learning and work).