Food security

A widely used definition, based on the 1996 World Food Summit, describes food security as a condition in which all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and preferences for an active, healthy life. The framework is commonly organized around four interrelated dimensions. Availability concerns the food supply, including production, stocks and trade. Access asks whether people can physically and economically obtain food; plentiful national supplies alone do not guarantee household access. Utilization concerns whether food can contribute to nutrition, including its safety, preparation, dietary variety, care practices and the body's use of nutrients. Stability is the reliability of the other three dimensions over time. The framework treats these dimensions as simultaneous: weakness in any one can undermine food security.

Food insecurity is broader than the experience of hunger. It can be persistent or chronic, temporary after a shock, or seasonal and recurring. Hunger usually refers to insufficient food energy, while malnutrition includes deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in nutrient intake and may also have causes beyond food. The concepts overlap, but they are not interchangeable: people can face unreliable or inadequate access to nutritious food without reporting hunger at a particular moment. Current food-security discussions also give greater attention to agency—the ability of people and communities to shape decisions about food systems—and to sustainability, alongside the four established dimensions.

No single indicator captures every dimension of food security. The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, uses an eight-question survey to measure people's reported difficulty accessing enough safe and nutritious food and the severity of that experience. Its calibrated reference scale supports comparisons across countries and population groups. FIES measures the access dimension; it is not, by itself, a complete measure of availability, utilization and stability. Other analyses therefore combine different indicators, such as food supply, affordability and nutrition, to answer different questions.

Food insecurity can arise even when food is available nationally, if households cannot afford it or reach it. Conflict, extreme weather and economic shocks are among the drivers identified by the World Food Programme, and they can overlap. Price rises, unemployment, political instability and adverse weather can also disrupt the stability of access over time. Because the dimensions are connected, responses may combine measures that protect household access, support nutrition and health, strengthen food systems and reduce vulnerability to future shocks. The appropriate mix depends on the causes and the people affected.