Food Insecurity. Definition, Reasons, Causes and Status - Essay Example

? Food Insecurity Definition, Reasons, Causes and Status Contents Outline Contents Outline 2 Introduction 3 Defining and Contextualizing Food Insecurity 3 The Context of Food Security 3 Definition of Food Insecurity 4 Linking Food Insecurity to Predisposing Factors 5 Reasons and Causes of Food Insecurity 6 Complex Array of Factors 6 Poverty and Economic Limitations in Developing Countries 7 Geographical Constraints 9 Environmental Conditions 10 The Policy Framework 11 Conclusion 12 References 13 Food Insecurity: Definition, Reasons, Causes and Status Introduction What is food insecurity? What are the main reasons for food insecurity in the developing world? This brief paper will review the phenomenon of food insecurity as a critical global problem today (Grigg, 1993, p. 18), and as a crisis as argued by Bernstein, Crow and Johnson (1992) or as a potential silent holocaust as argued by Kent (1984). In the discussion, the focus will remain on reviewing what food insecurity denotes, what causes it and the consequences that accrue thereof. The discussion is based on a critical evaluation of peer-reviewed literature beginning with the definition and then discussing what causes it, and how it emerges in the developing world. Defining and Contextualizing Food Insecurity The Context of Food Security Since the 1970s, the term food insecurity has been differently used to refer to numerous related but often diverse concepts. Yu, You, and Fan (2010) argue, “there are various descriptions of food security plus the concepts of food security that have evolved, in the previous 30 years, to reflect the transformation in official policy thinking” (p. 30). This variant understanding of food security and insecurity has been explored by Clay (2002) since the World Food Conference initiated a discussion of food security in the early 1970s, both at the national and international level. As shall emerge hereunder, food security encompasses questions of food supply, food availability, food price stability, geographical locations and typology of available food (Bernstein, Crow and Johnson, 1992, pp. 34 - 71). However, to understand the term food insecurity, it is essential to first contextualize the term food security. According to the United Nations, food security should be defined as “all people at all times having both physical and economic access to the basic food they need” (Clay, 2002, p. 4). According to UN figures, nearly 1 billion people in the world today are not guaranteed that they can access, afford and always find adequate food. For these 2 billion people, they may not be hungry and in critical need of food, but they cannot guarantee that they will have anything to eat tomorrow to sufficiently sustain their health. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (2013), “a total of 842 million people in 2011–2013, or about one in eight individuals globally, were anticipated to be suffering from chronic hunger, regularly not getting enough food to conduct an active life” (¶7). While this figure is relatively lower when compared to the 868 million people reported between 2010 and 2012, and while the number of undernourished people has reduced with 17% from what was recorded between 1990 and 1992, food insecurity is still a major global problem. As such, they are insecure about the source of their requisite diets, where to find food, when and whether such food would be affordable when accessed (Curtis, Hubbard and Shepherd, 1988, 37). This context thus introduces the dynamics of food security, a complicated process determined by numerous factors from poverty levels to climatic conditions, from geography to governance, from education and awareness to culture (Grigg, 1993, p. 21; Curtis, Hubbard and Shepherd, 1988, p. 61; Bernstein, Crow and Johnson, 1992, p. 69; Kent, 1984, p. 23). The key question, therefore, is about guarantee that food will be available when needed, as well as which type of food will be available and its nutritional value. Definition of Food Insecurity It is critical to denote food insecurity as the risk to experiencing hunger, but not as hunger itself or starvation. Bickel et al. (2000) defines food insecurity as the “limited or uncertain accessibility of nutritionally sufficient and safe foods or limited or uncertain capability to obtain acceptable foods in socially tolerable ways” (p. 6). This definition captures not just the availability of food, but of nutritionally sufficient food. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, food insecurity is defined as the “consistent access to adequate food is limited by a lack of money and other resources at times during the year”, which explains why while very few if any people have been recorded as starving in Texas, the state has 18.4% of its households recorded critical food insecurity between 2010 and 2012 (Texas Food Bank Network, 2013, ¶1). Texas ranks among the top 12 states in the US on food insecurity, and number 2 among food insecure households in the country (Texas Food Bank Network, 2013, ¶2). This helps exemplify that food security of insecurity does not denote hunger, but a risk for hunger. Based on this background, therefore, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) describes food security as a situation which exists “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” (Food and Agriculture Organization, 1996, ¶6). If that does not happen (food security), then these people experience food insecurity, where they are short of physical and economic access to sufficient and nutritious food for their dietary needs and a healthy life, for both individuals and households (Clay, 2002, p. 9). Linking Food Insecurity to Predisposing Factors The scholars thus conclude, “households normally demonstrate a high degree of commonality in their patterns of perception and response to experienced food inadequacy across these several levels or ranges of severity” (p. 15 - 16). If this accrues in the world’s single superpower, the most economically advanced nation on earth, then the scenario is even worse in developing countries where the economic capacities and abilities of households is extremely limited at times. Indeed, Smith, Obeid and Jensen (2000), argues that, “the group of countries that exhibit the highest severity of food insecurity are those with high poverty and food surpluses, consistent with the view that poverty is the most widespread cause of food insecurity in the 1990s” (p. 199). This link was established by Gentilini and Webb (2008) who proposed composite indicators of measuring food security using hunger and poverty status defined by the UN in 135 countries of the world. According to the scholars, Hunger and Poverty Indicators (PHIs) are distinct but related concepts that define food security, such that for the 28 countries with lowest PHIs registered were in the Lowest Food Security nations, and out of 15 critically food insecure nations, 13 of them had the lowest PHIs globally (Gentilini and Webb, 2008, p. 521). As such, the World Food Summit defined food security upon four dynamics of availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability, for both households and individuals (Clay, 2002, p. 4; Bernstein, Crow and Johnson, 1992, p. 18). In the next section, therefore, this discussion will focus on the reasons, causes and predisposing situations for food insecurity. Reasons and Causes of Food Insecurity Complex Array of Factors So what really triggers, propels, and maintains food insecurity? The foregoing discussion, while defining and contextualizing food insecurity, has highlighted how poverty directly triggers the level of food insecurity, to a level that becomes a world problem (Grigg, 1993, p. 9). However, as mentioned, food insecurity converges numerous factors that predispose it. Rather than just the poverty levels, there are also questions as defined by the World Food Summit, of availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability, for both households and individuals (Clay, 2002, p. 4). Focusing on Africa for instance, where food insecurity has been most dominant and aggressive, a complex array of factors from population to governance, from agricultural policies to poverty, from geographical location to cultural practices, have all been linked to the sustainability of food production and access (Curtis, Hubbard and Shepherd, 1988, p. 8). Some mining villages in Africa have access to sustainable incomes, but they are almost always hungry because they do not produce or import sufficient foods while others produce food, but the social, geographical, and economical constraints jeopardize their food security (Curtis, Hubbard and Shepherd, 1988, 37; Madely, 2000, p. 37). Grigg (1993) also traces food insecurity to poverty, agricultural geography and third-world development (p. 46). Food insecurity is a crisis that incorporates numerous factors for most societies as noted by Bernstein, Crow and Johnson (1992), beginning with poverty. In the sections that follow hereafter, the discussion will highlight this predisposing factors beginning with the most significant one, poverty. Poverty and Economic Limitations in Developing Countries Food and Agriculture Organization (1996) reported that poverty in the developing world is the major cause of food insecurity. Minimal economic means only sustained the progress inability to access quality food. By 1996, world leaders had already committed to eradication as part of the Millennium Development Goals, but the failure in poverty eradication was marked by critical lack and access to basic food. Poverty had made some communities unable to invest anything or sufficient resources to food production, to food importation, or to the change of basic foods to those with adequate nutritional value. As such, “both economic stagnation and economic growth are translated into suffering for those who live in the countryside” citing people in sub-Saharan Africa (Bernstein, Crow and Johnson 1992, p. 34). It is, however, critical that poverty be understood from the perspective of not just making it economically unfeasible to buy food, but from the myriad of factors that originated from poverty (Kent, 1984, p. 25). To capture the significance of poverty, The World Bank one argued, “the problem of food security is not caused by an insufficient supply of food as has been commonly believed, but by the lack of purchasing power on the part of nations and households” (p. 1). For instance, poverty is easily linked to phenomenal and unsustainable rise in the population across the globe, minimal developments and industrialization and untenable economic priorities of such communities to making essential foods easily available (Food and Agriculture Organization, 1996, ¶6). Bernstein, Crow and Johnson (1992) argue that the developing world rural areas have been in the food insecurity crisis because “even in those parts of the third world where there has been growth of food output, that growth has rarely been translated into a commensurate expansion of livelihoods” and unsustainable polutraiuon growth (p. 58). To resolve the effects of poverty on food production, the Food and Agriculture Organization recommended a “framework of sustainable management of natural resources, elimination of unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized countries, and early stabilization of the world population” (¶7). The Food and Agriculture Organization (1996) also linked poverty levels excessive rural-urban migration rates confronting developing economies, which enhanced the inability of communities to provide vital food access to the urban communities, and improve production from rural areas. In this process, the World Food Summit brought together over 186 nations of the world to commit to reducing the rates of “chronically undernourished people” by 50% within a few years prior to 2015 (Smith, Obeid and Jensen, 2000, p. 199). One of the ways of doing this was fighting against increased poverty levels of most needy communities across the globe (Kent, 1984, p. 16). This means that the world recognized that food insecurity and its consequence of mal-nourishing and under-nourishing was linked to poverty levels of an underdeveloped or developing country (Smith, Obeid and Jensen, 2000, p. 200). Sampling a total of 58 developing countries in the world, Smith, Obeid and Jensen, (2000) selected countries with the highest prevalence of food insecurity and thereafter examined how two basic causes of food insecurity, poverty in affording food and national food availability, affected each country. The scholars employed child malnutrition as an indicator of food insecurity consequences, and malnutrition. However, the study did not establish a significant correlation between food insecurity and national food availability rates. What the study did establish, with an astounding emphasis, was that food insecurity is almost always predictable from poverty levels. According to the scholars, “countries exhibiting the highest severity of food insecurity are those with high poverty, (such that) … poverty is the most widespread cause of food insecurity in the 1990s” (p. 199). Geographical Constraints Grigg (1993) argues that the location of any society in any map determines their ability to sustain and access basic foods. Communities living close to regions that are highly productive in food rarely if ever experience inability to access or afford food as compared to communities whose access to food are complicated by unavailability and expensiveness of the food that makes it to such communities. The location factor is very important as argued by Smith, Obeid and Jensen (2000) when highlighting one of the strategic measures against food insecurity is formulating “effective policies for … a thorough understanding of the location and its related causes of food insecurity (p. 200). The constraints of geographical location often emerge as economic factors in food security, in the developing nations. According to Bernstein, Crow, and Johnson (1992), “throughout large parts of the developing world rural livelihoods are in crisis”, where such rural areas are negatively affected by their location and thus economic levels of food production and sustainability (p. 22). It is almost impossible to resolve food insecurity without contextualizing the geographical factors of a region and their implications on the economic tenacity of people, the environmental conditions and the agricultural methods available for use in food production (Madely, 2002, p. 40). In their conclusion, the scholars consider “the implications of the analysis for appropriate geographical and policy targeting to improve food security for the greatest numbers of people at the fastest pace, now and into the 21st century” (Smith, Obeid and Jensen, 2000, p. 199). The Sub-Saharan Africa region, South Eastern Asia nations, sections of Latin America and the Western India are geographical areas where food insecurity has been most critical in the world. The regions are marked by the highest prevalence of food production, food availability and undernourishment, and there has been no, or at least very modest progress for the last few years towards food security (Bernstein, Crow and Johnson, 1992; Grigg, 1993). Part of these regions being as critical in food insecurity due to economic definition, environmental conditions, poor policy frameworks and non-productive agricultural methods, all accumulating to the condition of geographical regions as food insecure (Curtis, Hubbard and Shepherd, 1988; Bernstein, Crow and Johnson, 1992; Grigg, 1993). Environmental Conditions In the words of Bernstein, Crow and Johnson (1992), the food insecurity crisis “rarely transcends simple conceptions of environmental crisis” where the environment almost always predicates inadequacy of food production and sustainability of a state and the “ubiquity of crisis is rarely comprehended” when environmental conditions are linked to food insecurity (p. 48). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (1906), “conflict, terrorism, corruption and environmental degradation also contribute significantly to food insecurity” because they interrupted communities that would otherwise be engaged in increased food production, or frustrated the ability of such communities to produce food. Ideal agricultural practices can help improve agricultural practices despite environmental limitations, and with a keen environmental balance either in livestock or crop farming (Madely, 2002, p. 130). Environmental pollution has also led to decreasing potential of regions to fight food insecurity. A good example is dumping mechanisms, pollution levels and environmental exploitations that endanger agricultural production of food, thus enhancing food scarcity and consequent malnutrition (Madely, 2002, p. 83). Optimizing on the environmental conditions and protecting such natural provisions is among the capital ways of overcoming food insecurity. The Policy Framework When a region appreciates the fact that food insecurity is the indicator that hunger may soon become a silent holocaust, then it becomes crucial to investigate the policy dynamics of a region, as well as of the globe in facing potential hunger problems (Kent, 1984, p. 53). Food production and availability by itself does not overcome the challenges of food security since, at times, the poor choose to trade their produced food with rich corporations, making it impossible for them to overcome hungers just because they are producing (Madely, 2000, 18). According to Madely (2000), there needs to some policy that promote food security even with free trade offers between the poor and the rich since, without such policy constraints, trade might actually directly initiate starvation among the poor (p. 78). In Madely (2002), sufficient policy regulation even at the global level can enable the poor to have sufficient land for production, affordability of available foods, use of agricultural equipments, inputs and technologies, adoption of new agricultural methods and proper environmental protection (p. 31). Food insecurity transcends the problem of poverty into the dynamics that define poverty and the level of poverty. In a report, the World Bank (1986) outlined the very extent and nature food insecurity in developing countries, and in so doing, explored “the policy options obtainable to these countries in addressing these problems, and indicates what international institutions such as the World Bank should do to help countries solve their food security problems” (p. 4). This was the initial reality ion world governance that conceptualized the link between policy and food insecurity because only goo “policies to achieve the desired goal in cost-effective ways” when fighting food insecurity (p. 4). Some policies identified by the report for instance, enhanced wasteful use of economic resources, allowed disintegration of environmental and geographical potential in a way that disappointed the fight against food insecurity. Food and Agriculture Organization (2013) understand that only strategic policy in developing economies can avert food insecurity such that “hunger and poverty reduction are achieved with growth that is not only sustained, but also broadly shared” (¶8). This agrees with the Consensus of the OECD where 40 nations agreed that (Gurria, 2012, p. 3). The first of the key policy recommendations made by the OECD was for governments in developing countries to “avoid policies with detrimental spill-over effects, such as mandates for bio-fuel production or trade restrictions on both exports and imports that undermine the smooth functioning of the world trading system” and to complement existing “agricultural, trade and aid policies” towards optimization (p. 5). Conclusion In conclusion, therefore, this brief discussion has focused on the phenomenon of food insecurity as a critical global problem and crises defining and contextualizing it before highlighting its causes and reasons. Based on the literature-based discussion, paper has shown that while food insecurity does not include hunger and starvation, it incorporates numerous factors that make a society not to have a guaranteed access and availability of nutritionally adequate food. These factors that trigger, propel and sustain food insecurity include among many others an array of combined factors, poverty and economic limitations in developing countries, geographical constraints, environmental conditions, as well as the policy framework. References Bernstein, H., Crow, B. and Johnson, H., 1992, Rural Livelihoods: Crises and Responses, Oxford: Open University Press. Bickel, G., Nord, M., Price, C., Hamilton, W. and Cook, J. 2000, Guide to Measuring Household Food Security. Office of Analysis, Nutrition, and Evaluation, Food and Nutrition Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Revised Edition of Report Number 3 of Number 6 in the Series, Measuring Food Security in the United States: Reports of the Federal Interagency Food Security Measurement Project. Clay, E., 2002. Food Security: Concepts and measurement, In Trade reforms and food security: Conceptualizing the linkages, Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Curtis, D., Hubbard, M. and Shepherd, A., 1988, Preventing Famine: Policies and Prospects for Africa, New York: Routledge Food and Agriculture Organization. 2013, The multiple dimensions of food security. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Available at Food and Agriculture Organization. 1996, Rome Declaration on Food Security - Plan of Action. Deputy Director General, World Food Summit, Accessed from . Gentilini, U. and Webb, P., 2008, How are we doing on poverty and hunger reduction? A new measure of country performance, Food Policy, 33 (6), 521 – 532. Grigg, D., 1993, The World Food Problem, London: Blackwell. Gurria, A., 2012, Greater Policy Coherence for Greater Food Security: Policy Coherence for Food Security in Developing Countries. Introductory remarks by OECD Secretary-General at the OECD Global Forum on Agriculture 2012. Kent, G., 1984, The Political Economy of Hunger: The Silent Holocaust. New York: Praeger Leathers, H. and Foster, P., 2004. The World Food Problem: Tackling the Causes of Under-Nutrition in the Third World, Rienner. Madely, J., 2000, Hungry for Trade: How the Poor Pay for Free Trade, New York: Zed Press. Madely, J., 2002, Food for All: The Need for a New Agriculture, New York: Zed Press. Smith, L., Obeid, A. and Jensen, H., 2000, The Geography and Causes of Food Insecurity in Developing Countries, Agricultural Economics, 22 (2), 199 – 215. Texas Food Bank Network., 2013, What is Food Insecurity? Texas Food Bank Network. Accessed on 4 December 2013, From World Bank, 1986, Poverty and hunger: Issues and options for food security in developing countries, Policy Paper, Report Number 9275, A World Bank policy study. Washington DC: World Bank, Available at Yu, B., You, L. and Fan, S., 2010, Toward a Typology of Food Security in Developing Countries, Development Strategy and Governance Division, International Food Policy Research Institute, IFPRI Discussion Paper 00945. Read More