Achieving Food Security: Challenges and Issues

Food security

a situation in which 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 healthy life

Factors affecting food security• unstable social and

political environments that preclude sustainable economic growth

• war and civil strife• macroeconomic

imbalances in trade• natural resource

constraints

• poor human resource base• gender inequality• inadequate education• poor health• natural disasters, such as

floods and locust infestation

• absence of good governance

Root cause of food insecurity:poverty

70%+ live in the rural areas

Food security has three aspects

• food availability

• food access

• food adequacy

Underdeveloped Agricultural Sector

• over-reliance on primary agriculture

• low fertility soils

• minimal use of external farm inputs

• environmental degradation

• significant food crop loss

• minimal value addition and product differentiation

• inadequate food storage

Barriers to Market Access

• poor infrastructure

• limited resource base,

• lack of information

• lack of or inadequate support institutions

• poor policies factors

Effects of Globalization

• dumping of heavily subsidized produce

• premature exposure of upcoming industries to genuine competition from producers in developing and developed countries

Disease and Infection

Handicapping policies

Food Security Interventions

• Nutritional interventions• Facilitating market access• Capacity building• Gender sensitive

development• Building on coping

strategies• Creating off- farm

opportunities• Good governance