Food security

Food security is a term used in development and humanitarian aid. It does not have one agreed definition, and is often used broadly to mean a situation in which people have continuity of food supply, or the methods by which this is achieved.

A commonly used definition is that a community enjoys food security when all people, at all times, have access to nutritious, safe, personally acceptable and culturally appropriate foods, produced in ways that are environmentally sound and socially just.

The term (in a development context) grew out of a reaction to the problems associated with food aid, a development paradigm in which the solution to hunger is seen as being the donation of surplus food commodities by (usually) rich developed nations. The focus of food security interventions is usually the development of indegenous coping mechanism to fight hunger and malnutrition.