Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture

Running head: ECONOMICS
Economics
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

ECONOMICS
Food security and nutrition and sustainable agriculture
Introduction
The Food Security is the condition where all the people have social, physical and
economic access for sufficient nutritious and safe food that will be meeting the dietary needs
and food preference in order to live an active and healthy life. Since the population is
growing, huge amount of effort along with innovation is needed for increasing the
agricultural production, improving the global supply chain and it should be also ensured that
people who are known to suffer from either malnutrition or hunger have access to the
nutritious food. Most of the international community also accepted the fact the it is possible
for eradicating hunger within the next generation.
Food security and nutrition to all
The 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development is known to work on the
eradication of poverty and hunger and will also work to ensure that poverty and hunger ends
within 15 years. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World have been launched in
2017 which work in the achievement of world without the framework of
malnutritionSustainable Development (Goals Ruel, Garrett and Yosef 2017). In the year
2017, the number of undernourished people had been reached 821 million. The
undernourishment and severe food insecurity is known to take place in almost all the sub
regions of Africa as well as in South America.
Measurement of hunger and food security
The prevalence of undernourishment
The prevalence of undernourishment is used by the Food and Agricultural
Organization which is used for monitoring hunger at the global as well as regional level. The

ECONOMICS
prevalence of undernourishment is estimated by using the various statistical model. The PoU
is known as the estimate of the proportion of the population whose consumption of food is
insufficient for providing the dietary energy levels which is required to maintain a normal as
well as healthy life (McLaughlin and Kinzelbach 2015). When the levels of PoU is already
low in nature, it cannot further help in reduction of hunger.
Pillars of food security
According to the World Health Organization, here are presence of three pillars which
are known to determine the food security (Sibhatu, . and Qaim 2017)However, in the year
2009, the World Summit is known to introduce another pillar of food security
Availability
One of the pillar of food security is the food availability which relates to the food
supply through exchange, distribution and production. The production of food is known to be
determine by various factors which includes land ownership, crop selection, livestock
breeding and harvesting. The crop production is known to get affected by the changes in the
temperature and rainfall. The food distribution which comprised of the storage, transport,
processing and marketing of food (Ruel, Garrett, and Yosef 2017). The poor transport
infrastructures will be increasing the price of water supply and fertilizers. The land that is
used for agriculture can be used for urbanization. It can also lose to desertification and can
either result to soil erosion because of the unsustainable agricultural practice.Since food
consumers are known to outnumber producers in every country and therefore food must be
distributed to various nations. The exchange of food is known to require various trading
systems which are known to affect the food security. The per capita world food supply are
more than adequate for providing the food security to all and for this reason, food
accessibility is known to be great barrier for achieving the food security.

ECONOMICS
Access
The food access refer to the affordability and food allocation along with preferences
households and preferences. Poverty is known to limit access to food and can also help in
increasing the vulnerability of food. There are basically two types of success to food. One is
the direct access, where the household is known to produce food using material and human
resources. The second one is the economic access where in which a people are known to
purchase food that is produced elsewhere. For this particular issue location is known to
affect the food accessability and it also depends on what type of access the family will be
relying on(McLaughlin and Kinzelbach, 2015). The education level of the family members,
demographics and gender of the household head is known to determine the household
preferences which will also influence on the type of food which is known to purchase. The
access to enough nutritious food of the household will not assure adequate amount of food
intake of all the family members. Household with enough resources will also be overcoming
unstable harvests and shortages of local food which will also maintain their access to food.
Poverty is also known to limit access to food.
Utilization
Another pillar of food security is the food utilization which is known to refer to the
metabolism of the food by the individuals. The food safety is known to affect the utilization
of food. It is also known to be affected by the preparation, cooking and processing of food in
the community and households. Education about the food preparation and nutrition will be
affect food utilization and will improve the pillar of food security. The household’s
nutritional values is known to determine the choices of food and also whether food meets the
cultural preferences is used for utilization in terms of psychological and social wellbeing.