FOOD SECURITY |4 Dimensions of food security |

Muhammed Alhassan

INTRODUCTION

The definition of food security is that all people always have physical and financial access to an adequate supply of safe, nourishing food that satisfies their dietary needs and food choices for an active and healthy life.

Food security

Food has undoubtedly evolved into a tool of national power since it is essential to existence. The imperative need for food is the context in which this essay examines the problem in all of its manifestations. The article that provided a thorough analysis of Nigeria’s agriculture policy stated that a lot still has to be done if the crisis in the sector is to not worsen, especially in a supposedly democratic system that is intended to support welfare capitalism.

Food security

According to the study, Nigeria has to develop a food policy, which it now lacks. What public policy makers essentially pursue is an agriculture policy that continues to suffer greatly from a large discrepancy between intended practices and real ones.

THE FOUR MAIN DIMENSIONS OF FOOD SECURITY:

Food security

  • Physical accessibility of food: The quantity of food produced, stock levels, and net trade all factor into the “supply side” of food security.
  • Economic and physical access to food: Food security at the household level is not always guaranteed by a sufficient supply of food at the national or international level. As a result of worries about inadequate food access, policies now place a larger emphasis on incomes, spending, markets, and prices in order to achieve food security goals.
  • Food utilization: Generally speaking, usage refers to how the body utilizes the various nutrients in food to their fullest potential. Good care and feeding habits, food preparation, a varied diet, and intra-household food distribution all contribute to people consuming enough energy and nutrients. This influences a person’s nutritional status together with how well their body processes the food they eat.
  • Long-term stability of the other three dimensions: If you regularly lack access to food, risking a decline in your nutritional status even if your current intake is appropriate, you are still regarded as having a food insecurity. Your level of food security may be impacted by unfavorable weather, unstable political events, or economic issues (such as unemployment and increased food prices).

All four dimensions must be met at once for the goals of food security to be achieved. 

STRATEGY

The World Bank Group collaborates with partners to strengthen food security, encourage “nutrition-sensitive agriculture,” and enhance food safety in order to create food systems that can feed everyone, everywhere, every day. The Bank is a major provider of funding for food systems. Agriculture and associated industries received new IBRD/IDA commitments totaling $9.6 billion in the fiscal year 2022.

ACTIVITIES INCLUDE:

  • Strengthening safety nets to guarantee that low-income families have access to food, water, and money in their pockets to make essential purchases. Providing quick emergency assistance by accelerating funding through ongoing programs to address emergency situations.
  • Working with nations and development partners to address issues relating to food security. Rapid country diagnostics, data-based monitoring tools, and collaborations with organizations like the Famine Action Mechanism and the Agriculture Observatory are just a few examples of the available tools.
  • Supporting farming systems that employ climate-smart practices and produce a wider variety of foods in order to raise farm incomes, strengthen food systems’ resilience, and make nutrient-dense foods more widely available and more reasonably priced.
  • Improving food distribution networks’ hygiene, reducing post-harvest food losses, and connecting production and consumption hubs more effectively
  • Supporting investments in research and development that enable raising the micronutrient content of foods and raw materials; • Using an integrated “One Health” strategy to manage hazards connected with animal, human, and environmental health;
  • Promoting legislative and regulatory changes to lower trade barriers and increase the efficiency and integration of domestic food markets.
  • Working with the private sector, government, scientists, and others to strengthen capacities to assess and manage food safety risks in low and middle-income countries
  • Supporting long-term global food security programs: The Bank houses the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), a global financing instrument that pools donor funds and targets additional, complementary financing to agricultural development across the entire value chain.  Since its launch in 2010 by the G20 in response to the 2007-2008 food price crisis, GAFSP has reached over 13 million smallholder farmers and their families with over $1.3 billion in grant funding to 64 projects in 39 countries, $330 million to 66 agribusiness investment projects in 27 countries, and $13.2 million in small-scale grants to support producer organizations. Most recently, in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, GAFSP allocated over $55 million of additional grant funding to on-going public sector and producer organization-led projects to support COVID-19 response and recovery.   
  • The Bank also supports the CGIAR which advances agriculture science and innovation to boost food and nutrition security globally.

CONCLUSION

Food security is undoubtedly one of the main goals that the Nigerian government must work toward in this new democratic era. It may be challenging for a nation to employ its inhabitants as a catalyst for long-term democracy if its agriculture and food policies cannot be developed and put into practice efficiently. More importantly, the state’s ability to provide the material needs of both its citizens and its government depends on its economy. “Welfare represents a third objective of modern governance,” according to Daniel Wit (1953:9). Any administration, democratic or authoritarian, that allows its people to go hungry will undoubtedly experience problems. To learn more, one needs look to the feudalistic and hence medieval states of the Arab world or parts of South-east Asia.

Like their shared pursuit of national economic health, modern nation states all have welfare as one of their primary goals.
People all throughout the world demand that their governments engage in welfare action. In essence, welfarism depends on food in some way.
The most important recommendation of this paper is that public policy makers urgently recognize food as a component of welfare and as a result must muster enough political will to accomplish (i) increased food production; (ii) the evolution of food policy; and (iii) eventually achieving food security for all.

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Muhammed Alhassan