Food Security

What food security means

Food security means that people can reliably obtain enough safe, nutritious food. It depends on more than the total amount of food grown: food must also be available where it is needed and affordable to the people who need it. A shortage can arise when demand grows, production falls or the cost of obtaining food rises.

More people and changing diets

As the human population increases, more food is needed. Farming must produce enough to keep pace, while land and water are also needed for other human activities. Demand can rise further when more people eat meat and fish.

Producing meat usually involves feeding crops to livestock before people eat the animals. At each stage of a food chain, organisms use some of what they take in for respiration and other life processes, so not all the crop biomass becomes edible meat. Rearing more animals can therefore require more land, feed and water than growing crops for people to eat directly. Farmed fish may also be fed crops or feed made from other animals. Greater demand for wild fish can put pressure on fish stocks if fish are caught faster than they reproduce. These pressures do not mean that all meat or fish production is the same; the effect depends on how it is managed.

When food production is disrupted

Pests can eat or damage crops, while pathogens cause disease in crops or farm animals. A new pest or pathogen may spread through a population with little resistance, reducing the amount of food harvested or produced. Farmers may need to spend more on controlling it, adding to production costs.

Human activity can also change the environment on which farming depends. For example, climate change can alter rainfall and increase the risk of drought or flooding in some places. Crops need suitable water and growing conditions; drought can limit growth, while floods can damage crops and wash away fertile soil. Pollution and soil degradation can also make land less productive. The effects vary by place and crop, but reduced yields make it harder to maintain a reliable food supply.

Producing food sustainably

Food production has to meet present demand without undermining future production. One trade-off is biofuel: crops can be grown to make fuel, but land used for those crops may no longer be available for food crops. Biofuel production can therefore compete with food production for land.

Farmers also need agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertiliser, animal feed, machinery and fuel. These can help maintain yields, but their cost may make food more expensive or prevent farmers from producing as much as they could. Food security is therefore affected both by how much food can be produced and by whether people can afford it.