What is food security? And what can be done to help people become food secure? Case Study Click on the following links for further information about this case study: Teacher's Notes Student Activities   What is food security? Food security 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 lifestyle. In other words, food security exists when you know what your next meal will be, that it will be one you like and it will be healthy, and it will be on time. The opposite of food security is food insecurity, when you do not know what and when your next meal will be, and you are often (even permanently) hungry as a consequence. Do you know where your next meal is coming from? Not everyone in the world has food security. In fact, over 800 million people are chronically under nourished in a world that can produce sufficient food for everyone. Most of these hungry people are found in the developing world, but 34 million are also found in the developed world. These 820 million people suffer from "food insecurity". They simply cannot get enough food for regular, suitable, healthy meals each day. Instead, they experience ill health and they will almost certainly have a shorter life span that you can expect to have. Children who suffered from food insecurity, especially when they were very young, will be less developed than children the same age in the food secure world. They will most likely be shorter and weigh less, and have less physical and intellectual abilities, because of the poor nutrition they have experienced. How can we understand this problem? There can be many causes of food insecurity. Some causes are short term and are brought about by nature being destructive, eg, when floods, cyclones, droughts, or locust plagues destroy crops and food stores. Food insecurity is also caused by humans being destructive and fighting wars. A war usually means that many will go hungry. Bombs, bullets and land mines make it impossible to plough, plant and harvest. Sometimes the problem is in the environment. If there is not enough fresh water for all the crops the people need to irrigate; if soil erosion has been extensive; if the local rivers and seas have been overfished … then the people will suffer long term food insecurity. Sometimes the causes of food insecurity are social and economic. This can happen if farmers have very small farms, or uncertain tenure, or use poor farming techniques, and cannot grow enough food for themselves and to sell to others. It can also happen when women and girls - who in some regions produce more than 50% of their household's food supply - are treated as second class citizens. Many young girls do not go to school (but their brothers do), many women cannot borrow money to invest in farms and cottage industries (but the men can), and many women and girls often go hungry (so that the men can eat).   In many developing countries, women produce more food for the household than do men but often have less access to it.   Often the causes of food insecurity lie in the health of the people. If hygiene standards are poor because people are poor, then people will be sick, and if they are sick they cannot work hard enough to get enough good food and improve their hygiene standards etc. What is being done to help? What can be done to help? Australia helps some of those who suffer from food insecurity. If the problem is a short term one, then food is donated. In 1997 and 1998, for example, Papua New Guinea suffered a huge drought and Australia spent $30 million to deliver rice, flour, oil and fresh water to thousands and thousands of people. When rain eventually fell, Australia spent more money to supply the people of PNG with seeds.   Once the drought had broken in PNG, different kinds of seeds were delivered to the people so they could start growing food again.   Australia provides more than 250,000 tonnes of food each year to the World Food Program, which operates like a 'food bank' that can be used in humanitarian emergencies for immediate relief, and development situations to help households shift towards more sustainable livelihoods. The Australian Government has pledged to spend at least $1 billion (ie, $1,000,000,000) over four years, to improve food security for those in need. This money will will go towards: helping people improve their farms and their herds and therefore have more control of their lives; constructing food stores and improving roads so that food can be moved to where is it needed, or where it can be sold; encouraging national and international trade so that food and other agricultural products can be more easily bought and sold; improving the status of women and girls so it is easier for them to play a more productive role; ensuring that adults, and especially children, receive food in emergency situation; preparing databases that will allow the developed world to map and understand where food insecurity is poor and the people vulnerable.   In 1998-99, most assistance for food security focused on Asia, with 57% of total funding, Africa received 8%; 5% was directed to Papua New Guinea and a smaller proportion went to the rest of the Pacific. What sort of world do we want? We want a world in which we all live in an environment that is sustainable, and that provides food security for every one of us. "Sustainable" means that we are looking after the soil, air, water, forests, animals and so on, so that we can pass on to our children a healthy environment that will be able to sustain them, ie feed them. If we look at what Australia is doing to help people become food secure, and we add the contribution of other developed nations, you might think that the world is doing enough already but there are still many challenges. In 1996 the countries at the World Food Summit made a promise that we would halve the number of hungry people in the world (from around 820 million to 410 million) by the year 2015. But many challenges remain to reach that goal. One hungry person is one too many, and all the people of the world must be committed to this goal if we are ever going to be able to say with pride, "Everyone in the world knows they will have a next meal, that it will suit their dietary preferences, that it will be healthy, and that it will be on time."   Top © Commonwealth of Australia