Why is food insecurity a problem? Who is most affected by it?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights expresses that everyone who was born in this world,
regardless of their race or nationality and social category, has a right to access safe and nutritious food,
consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger;
this is called food security. But this hasn’t been experienced by many people nowadays, and the root of it
all is poverty. It can be depicted that a country that is experiencing food insecurity is associated with a
variety of problems that mainly point out one root: the economic situation. It reflects a lack of employment
opportunities and an inflation rate that affects food prices, but the people’s incomes remain the same in
low rate, removing their option of having access to a nutritious food supply every time. It is an alarmingly
huge problem that is not exclusive to the individual who is experiencing it, but is also considered a
national problem since it is linked to issues of food production, malnutrition leading to an increasing
mortality rate in a country, and economic collapse.

When food production is at stake because of the factors that there is no sufficient agricultural land
to cultivate, no one is cultivating the land due to low compensation to farmers, or natural calamities such
as storms combined with the effects of climate change whip out the agricultural product that decreases
the food supply, resulting in a hike in food prices that have triggered a national crisis that is driving
millions more into extreme poverty and magnifying hunger and malnutrition, it is no surprise that
malnutrition is the leading cause of mortality in the world. This was portrayed in the study of the London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where data shows that the combination of a high incidence of
infectious diseases, food insecurity, and a breakdown of caring practices both increase malnutrition and
mortality.

In addition, when an individual does not have access to nutritious food, they may face greater
health risks. In the article Healthy People 2030, clinical evidence of disease suggests that adults living in
food-insecure households may be more likely to underreport a diagnosis of heart disease or cancer since
their body systems cannot function well with the poor nutrition intake in their diet due to poverty.

Thus, when the citizen or the so-called future generation “youth” of a country is suffering from
malnutrition, undernourishment, and health relying risk because of food insecurity they weren’t able to
competently fulfill their role in the society, Erik Erikson emphasis this in his theory, he states that healthy
children are more competent and therefore, will become more capable of acquiring complex skills than
children who are undernourished and sickly. Without the component citizen and youth, the future of the
country is at stake and might cause economic collapse.

All these underlying effects of food insecurity, where most of the affected households have
incomes below the federal poverty line, were substantially higher than the national average for single-
parent households and were more common in both large cities and rural areas than in suburban areas. In
the Philippines, the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Northern Samar, Occidental Mindoro, and Sulu have
been classified as having high risk of food insecurity, estimated to affect 658,000 people, as shown in the
report of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. These regions are abundant with agricultural
lands where nutritious food wasn’t supposed to be a problem, but due to the lack of support for the
farmers and food crops that is always brought down by the effects of climate change, people are left
without the option of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.
http://conflict.lshtm.ac.uk/page_139.htm

https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health/literature-summaries/food-
insecurity

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-
nutrition-assistance/#:~:text=Food%20insecurity%20rates%20are%20highest,and%20very%20low
%20food%20security.

https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1044577/

https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/07/13/why-philippines-is-so-vulnerable-to-food-inflation-pub-
87467

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

https://www.ifpri.org/blog/food-security-brings-economic-growth-not-other-way-around

https://www.theglobalist.com/global-food-security-10-challenges/

http://agri.ckcest.cn/ass/5dfe6de6-ce16-43bd-aa89-c8ce0d73e4fa.pdf
2. What are economic, political, cultural, and environmental barriers for households and
communities to attain food security? Explain and give a good example.

The United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security defines food security as " all people, at all
times, having physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets
their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life." Many have pursued this goal for
every household, but economic, political, cultural, and environmental barriers continually set communities
back from attaining food security. The economic problem of low economic growth in a country that often
results in a small allotted budget for agricultural food production is the political barrier. In terms of cultural
interaction, the family and decision-making power play a critical role in interacting with culture and its
impact as a food security barrier. In addition, the state of environmental issues that we are having at this
time makes it much harder for a community to attain food security.

Economic and political issues are interlocking barriers that directly challenge food security in a
country. The government mainly holds the highest role in taking actions in finance, agriculture, health and
nutrition, and infrastructure, but if there is a lack of support on their part, attaining food security becomes
much more difficult to attain. For example, our economy is under threat as a result of the Russia-Ukraine
conflict, which has impacted the agricultural sector and farm input prices, resulting in food price inflation.
But if there is no better plan for managing this inflation, it will continue to inflate, and it might even result in
the farmers not having the ability to provide crops anymore since they do not have the means to maintain
their agricultural products and lands, leading to food insecurity in the country.

For cultural barriers, the culture of having only one provider in a family, which is mostly the
societal norm given to the role of the father, wasn’t unfamiliar to us. But in these trying times, where food
prices are at their peak, this culture or setup does not help a household attain food security. The
overpopulation in the country is also a barrier. We grew up in a culture where having a big family is a
blessing, but it is not a blessing for a child who is experiencing hunger or malnutrition since their family
does not have access to nutritious food every time due to their financial constraints. Thus, overpopulation
is one of the leading causes of environmental challenges in this generation. The cause of climate change
is overpopulation, which increases man's carbon footprint, resulting in global warming. Because of this,
we are challenged by extreme drought or sometimes floods that destroy the agricultural lands, making it
harder for the community to attain food security.

that it will mostly hurts the citizen in the lower class, though everyone is aff

high inflation rate and the strong sentiment on the need to better
manage inflation is expected because inflation hurts the poor most,
though everyone is adversely affected by it.