Full name: Doan Yen Ngoc

Student code: TA46C-078-1923

Class: Speaking English for Specific Purpose

Topic: Food security

POSITION PAPER

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, food security can be

defined as when “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to
sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food
preferences for an active and healthy life.” In other words, food security is
having consistent, reliable access to safe, nutritious food. Food security is
determined by four components, namely availability, access, utilization and
stability. When any one of these components are stressed or unmet, it’s
considered food insecurity.

Technically, we are producing enough food to feed the world’s entire

population, yet millions are undernourished. Food security is strongly
influenced by intricate social, cultural, political, economic and environmental
factors. Food security can be disrupted by many things such as climate change,
disempowerment, poverty, natural disasters and conflict.

Access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food is a basic need and should
be treated as a human right, with priority given to the most vulnerable. Apart
from basic nutrition, food security is linked to economic stability, long-term
health, women’s empowerment and the environment.
Research reveals that food insecurity can result in ongoing short and long-term
health problems. The first 1000 days (from conception to age two) of a child’s
life are of critical importance for their healthy growth and development. For
children, severe food insecurity has been linked to chronic health conditions like
asthma and depression. A diet lacking in proper substance – enough calories,
protein, vitamins and minerals – will impede a child’s growth and development
from before they’re born up until adolescence.

A pregnant mother’s malnutrition can lead to a higher risk of low birthweight,

infant mortality, preterm delivery and slow cognitive development for her baby.
The stress alone of living without secure access to food can have a negative
effect on the health of pregnant mothers. This then impacts their infants by
affecting milk supply while breastfeeding.

Because of its problematic effects on health, household food insecurity places a

big burden on health care systems. Adults in food-insecure households have
higher rates of developing chronic diseases – mental health issues, arthritis,
asthma, diabetes – and are more likely to die early. In fact, food-insecure
Canadian adults are likely to die up to nine years sooner than the rest of the
population.

Food security depends on agriculture. With education and support, farmers,

forestry and fishery workers can provide nutritious food for themselves and
their communities. This can be a way for local farmers to generate income while
supporting people-centred rural development and safeguarding the environment.

Organic agricultural practices that have access to proper resources and learn
best practises are more likely to generate much higher crop yields. This allows
farmers to not only secure enough for their own needs, but also to sell in local
markets. In turn, this enhances the family’s livelihood, strengthens community
resilience and furthers the local economy.

New evidence in a 2018 report highlights that, aside from a country’s conflict,

climate irregularity is a key driving force behind the recent rise in global
hunger. It’s also one of the leading causes of severe food crises.

Right now, our soils, freshwater, oceans, forests and biodiversity around the
world is experiencing rapid damage. Climate change is putting even more
pressure on the ecosystems and resources we depend on, increasing the risk of
natural disasters like droughts, floods and even infestations. Many rural women
and men can no longer make ends meet on their land, forcing them to migrate to
cities in search of opportunity.

The number of climate-related disasters, including extreme heat, droughts,

floods and storms, has doubled since the early 1990s, with an average of 213 of
these events occurring every year from 1990–2016. These disasters harm
agricultural productivity, which means food availability suffers. With this
comes a domino effect, causing food prices to skyrocket and income losses that
prevent people from being able to afford food.

Climate change – whether brought on by human activities or natural disasters –

puts all aspects of food security at risk: the amount of food produced, our access
to it, our resilience in the face of disease, how we absorb nutrients and the
safety of the food itself.

Food security empowers women, families and future generations. Women tend
to start with fewer advantages than men, especially when it comes to nutrition,
money and resources. This translates to a delayed start to good health and
independence in early life and less food security as they build families and
communities of their own. But when they are provided with resources and
opportunities, women are more likely to direct most of what they have toward
helping others.

For example, female-headed families are likely to eat more, or have a higher
quality diet, than male-headed households with a similar income. When a crisis
hits (famine, war, drought, pandemic), women tend to have self-sacrificial
coping strategies that benefit their families. A number of studies have shown
that one of the most common mechanisms women adopt in a food shortage is to
first reduce their food consumption, and then skip meals in order to ensure
larger portions for the men and children.

An FAO study estimates that closing the gender gap when it comes to access to
resources like land, credit, machinery or chemicals could close gaps in crop
yields of 20% to 30% and increase domestic agricultural production by 2.5% to
4%. This means up to 100 million fewer people living with hunger.

If we give women the tools and support they need to take the lead on providing
food for their households, everyone benefits. Feeding a mother and teaching her
how to grow her own food means feeding her family, which is wisdom she can
pass on to future generations.

According to a report from the International Institute for Sustainable

Development, we can nurture production practices for diverse nutrition and
female labour. In many areas of agriculture, men and women are responsible for
different crops, and this division of labour is often gendered. “Development
organizations working on the ground can promote food security and women’s
empowerment by promoting the use of female-grown crops,” says Cristina
Larrea, Head of the Sustainability Standards for the Economic Law and Policy
Program. “This includes new, nutrient-dense crops, such as bananas.”

We can also promote women’s independence, especially in financial decisions.

Organizations working with farmers can take a gender-transformative approach
to improve food security in households by promoting women’s decision-
making. Economic empowerment for women ultimately boosts the entire
family’s food security, health and wellbeing. We should seek opportunities to
address gender bias in agricultural settings as well.

In conclusion, food security is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. National and

international political action seems to require the identification of simple
deficits that can be the basis for setting of targets, thus necessitating the
adoption of single, simplistic indicators for policy analysis. Something like the
“State of global food insecurity” analysis has to be undertaken. Since food
insecurity is about risks and uncertainty, the formal analysis should include both
chronic sub-nutrition and transitory, acute insecurity that reflects economic and
food system volatility.

Such formal exploration is usefully complemented by multi-criteria analysis

(MCA) of food security. This should lead to qualitative, if not quantitative,
comparisons. Where the focus of investigation is on sub-nutrition, then the
linkages between sub-nutrition and inadequate food intake need to be carefully
explored. Some elements that need to be considered are: sources of dietary
energy supply - taking account, for example, of different foods, trends in the
acquisition of food from subsistence to marketing; climatic variability as a
source of volatility and short-term nutritional stress; health status, especially
changes in the incidence of communicable diseases, most obviously HIV/AIDS;
spatial distribution within countries of poverty and forms of food insecurity,
drawing on evidence from vulnerability assessment and mapping supported by
the Food Information and Vulnerability Mapping Systems (FIVIMS), the FAO
and the World Food Programme (WFP) interagency initiative.

It is sometimes suggested that there should be more practical use of Sen’s

entitlement theory (see Chapter 1). If this were to involve the re-labelling of
indicators of food needs as entitlements, it would be less useful than, for
example, reflecting entitlement failure in a formal MCA.

Entitlement as a construct introduces an ethical and human rights dimension

into the discussion of food security. There has been a tendency to give food
security a too narrow definition, little more than a proxy for chronic poverty.
The opposite tendency is international committees negotiating an all-
encompassing definition, which ensures that the concept is morally
unimpeachable and politically acceptable, but unrealistically broad. 

Reference:

https://www.worldvision.ca/stories/food/the-basics-of-food-security

http://www.fao.org/3/y4671e/y4671e06.htm

http://www.fao.org/vietnam/programmes-and-projects/success-stories/nutrition-
and-food-security/en/

https://www.ifpri.org/topic/food-security