This blog contains information about Food Insecurity. In the start it explains Food Security in detail and mentions its Pillars. Then it defines and introduces what is Food Insecurity. It also elaborates the Main Causes of Food Insecurity. Then it explains the Impacts of Food insecurity in detail. In the end, it tells about the Control Measures of Food Insecurity. This blog contains Causes, Impacts and Control of Food Insecurity.
Definition of Food Security:
Food security is the condition which is reached when every individual is getting nutritious and sufficient quantity of food according to their need.
The condition of food security is that all the people gets enough quantity of quality food for their nutrition and fundamental needs. This is the concept that helps to maintain health of the humans by providing them best quality food and in sufficient quantities.
In the start of Earth’s era, there was a huge quantity of food and a few number of humans to utilize it. But as the population increases, the food starts becoming less as compared to population. So, we can say that we were food secure in the past, but now we are not.
We have cut many of the trees, utilized a large area of agricultural land for urbanization and other human activities. This has decrease the amounts of food that grows and many of the people does not can good quality food and the food enough for their proper needs.
4 Pillars of Food Security:
Following are the Pillars addressed by Food Security:
1. Physical Availability of Food:
The condition of Food security makes sure that there is always an availability of food for the people in bulk. So that everyone could avail that food and get it according to their requirement. If the food will not be physically available, people could not utilize it.
2. Economic and Physical Access to Food:
Food security takes care of the economic and physical access of food for the population. Only physical availability of food is not enough for maintaining food security. The food must be economically affordable and sound for people according to their earning.
3. Food Utilization:
It is the concept in which we look at utilization of food by different region’s populations. The utilization must be exactly according to the need of the population. It should not be greater or smaller than the need because in food insecurity we demand of sufficient amount of food for people.
4. Stability of all Three Dimensions:
Food security needs the stability of all three dimensions mentioned above. These three dimensions includes everything that is necessary for maintaining food security. We should keep all the three dimensions up to date in order to establish food security.
These are the four basic pillars in Food Security. This blog contains Food security, Food Insecurity, Causes, Impacts and Control Measures of Food Insecurity.
What is Food Insecurity?
Food insecurity is the concept in which there is a lack of regular access to safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active lifestyle.
This condition occurs when food resources become less than the need of a geographical region or a population. It is the availability of food that is not sufficient for a healthy lifestyle and nutritious needs of a population.
It covers the need of every individual at the same time. If any of the individual in the population has not got proper food and nutrition, it is considered as Food insecurity. Most of the regions of the world are becoming food insecure from last decade.
The reason behind increasing rates of food insecurity is that, the poor land-use change for the population accommodation is causing destruction of many agricultural and farmlands. In this way a lot of food resources are destroyed and the population has increased.
Food insecurity never existed in the past because the population was under the Earth’s capacity and all of the resources were more that enough for the population that time. This issue rises with the increase in population and over-exploitation of natural resources etc.
We will study about the Causes, Impacts and Control Measures of Food Insecurity in this blog.
Causes of Food Insecurity:
Following are the Causes of Food Insecurity:
. Poverty:
Poverty is the condition in which a person or a community have lack of financial resources to meet their fundamental needs to survive. It is the most common cause of food insecurity. It cause food security in a way that, if a person have 5 individuals in his house and he can only afford the food and other needs of two persons only. This really effects food utilization and food in their budget is not enough for everyone in their family. This is the biggest cause of food insecurity in present era.
. Environmental degradation:
As we all know human activities, natural changes and climate change is cause great environmental degradation on Earth. It can also be called as land degradation. It plays a great role in contributing in food insecurity as it cause reduction in fertility of the soil, disrupting supply chains and many other possible reasons. Land is also degraded by extreme land-use change, deforestation, desertification and other such conditions occurred as a result of Anthropogenic activities.
. Conflicts:
Conflict is a serious disagreement or argument between two people, organizations or countries. It takes a part in food insecurity as the case of International conflicts. As one region of the world has conflict with other region, they will not send of receive food resources from the other nation. This will create instability in food availability and utilization. It will also face Food scarcity or shortage and the rates of food may be very high to be afforded by most of the people.
. Climate Change:
Climate change is causing great effects on food production and protection of farmlands. As unusual rainfalls are damaging most of the crops every year. When the crops need sunlight, the weather is cloudy, when they need rain, there is extreme heat and many other such conditions caused by climate change and Global Warming, are decreasing the amount of food production every year. The land is facing problems life desertification, soil salinity, soil erosion because of extreme climatic events.
These are some of the causes of Food Insecurity.
Impacts of Food Insecurity:
Following are few major impacts of Food Insecurity:
i. Famine:
Food insecurity has a superlative degree called a famine. Famine is the condition in which all types of food and water resources are vanished from a region. This can be the most extreme impact of food insecurity. In this condition every person faces food insecurity.
ii. Higher Prices of Food:
When a small amount of food is available, every person wants to buy the food and food resources. So the shopkeepers raise the rates of food items in order to earn more profit from a little food. This may take the food out of reach from many people in the population and they could not buy food.
iii. Health Risks:
It is seen that most of the health conditions and diseases are caused to poor people. This happens because most of them are undernourished and are prone to food insecurity. Insufficient food makes the people weak and makes their immune system weaker with time and they get severe diseases in return.
iv. Civil Unrest:
It is the condition in which individuals of the same country fights with each other in order to get their resources. This mostly occurs among poor communities. And is a major impact of Food insecurity. As people choose wrong ways, fights, conflicts and threatening to have their resources to live.
These are some of the Impacts of Food insecurity.
Control Measures for Food Insecurities:
Following are some control measures for Food Insecurity:
- Sustainable use of Food related resources.
- Improving infrastructure to avoid food loss.
- Combating with climate change in order to get improved yields and food quality.
- Addressing indirect causes of Food insecurity.
- Reduce unnecessary food wastes.
- Ensure fair Trading Practices.
- Keep distributing access food in the community.
- Grow your own food and tell your kids to do the same.
- Protect food and natural resources in your surroundings.
- Help the needy people to get nutritious food.
- Reduce Yield gap for better production.
- Education and Awareness about Food Insecurity for the people.
All of these are control measures for Food Insecurity. This blog contains Food Insecurity, Causes, Impacts and Control Measures.
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