Food Security and Global Hunger

Feeding the world and the world consistently having access to safe, nutritious food is a topic that has been discussed for decades if not centuries and continues to be a common topic as the world’s population continues to increase. Food security is defined as “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life” according to the World Health Summit of 1996.  It is based on three pillars availability, access, and use.



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The first pillar, food availability, consists of availability to a sufficient quantity of food on a consistent basis. The second pillar, food access, is defined as having adequate resources to nutritious foods that meet dietary standards. The last pillar, food use, is defined as the appropriate use of food and clean water based on dietary needs and nutrition, all according to the World Health Organization.

Food insecurity varies by location, economic status, agricultural production and more. In each location of the world the level of food insecurity is different, in fact, there is the Global Food Security Index which ranks each country based on their food security scores. The United States is ranked as number one with an overall score of 89.3, an affordability score of 94.8, availability score of 85.5, and quality and safety score of 85.7.

Despite the United States ranking number one among all countries and having fairly high scores, there is still a decent amount of Americans that experience food insecurity. In 2012, 14.5% of American households experienced food insecurity, meaning that the household was not able to feed all it members due to inadequate resources. This statistic, unfortunately, has been “relatively unchanged” since 2008 according to the USDA. Also in 2012, 5.7% of American households, approximately 7 million households, experienced very low food security which means that the household had very limited resources which created a lower intake of food and changes in eating patterns.

 

 

Video from Feeding America regarding results from their Hunger in America 2014 report

 

Since this class compares agriculture and food systems of the United States and France, when comparing food security, France is ranked slightly lower at number ten. France’s overall score is 83.7, the affordability score is 85.9, the availability score is 79.7, and the quality and safety score is 87.6. The overall score of France is only slightly lower than the U.S.’s but the quality and safety score of France is slightly higher. In both the U.S. and France the availability score is the lowest when comparing all scores for each country.

As the world’s population continues to grow there will be more and more people that will need safe, nutritious food. One concern that many people have raised is that it will not be possible to produce enough food to support the population based on the food production practices of today. Another concern is that the amount of food needed is being made now but there is no means of getting the food to those who need it. It is evident that food security and global hunger will unfortunately be an issue for years to come unless some more action and problem solving is taken.