Food security has undergone many changes since it came to global
attention in the early 20th century. The changes in definition have
been numerous and have worked as a means to track and formalise the shifting
perceptions around the issue. Food security has been perennial in the global
south (specifically Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa) and aid and
trade histories have defined this socio-economic and climatic issues with political
instability, poverty, institutional weakness as well as natural hazards playing
a large role in shaping this field (Devereux and Maxwell 2001).
Food security has been defined in dozens of ways (more than 30
definitions are given in Maxwell 1996) with interest waxing and waning over
time (Devereux and Maxwell 2001). Importantly three major paradigm shifts can
be recognized throughout the last 40 years of food security thought (Maxwell
1996). The shifts in perspective on food security can be tracked as a move from
a supply based approach at a global level to one focused on over-all
development and a household and individual based approach. The paradigm shifts
have been outlined and reviewed in-depth by Maxwell (1996) and can be defined
as follows: (1) From the global and
national to the household and the individual; (2) From a food perspective to a livelihood perspective; (3) From objective indicators to subjective
perception. Each of these paradigm shifts occur around social, political
and economic responses to the changing food system and solving the problem of
food insecurity. This essay aims to highlight some of the developments that
influenced the change in perspective moving from the 1970’s and culminating in
our present understanding of food security.
The 1970’s began with a food crisis that highlighted the fragility of
world food security (Shaw 2007), after decades of surplus production in the
West (Borlaug 2000). The 1960’s ended with the disappointment and failure of
the Green Revolution in Asia (Shaw 2007). The Green revolution, which started
in the mid-1940’s in Asia, was expected to solve the world food security
problem through technological innovations such as high yield cereals and grains,
pesticides and fertilizers (Brown 1970). But 15 years after its beginnings in
Mexico the Green Revolution failed to solve the global food security problem
and despite food stocks almost doubling since the beginning of the revolution,
food insecurity was still widespread (Borlaug 2000). The realisation of the
failure of the Green Revolution came alongside two unusually large monsoon
seasons in Asia (Shaw 2007) as well as crop failure in the USSR (UN 1975) which
put pressure on international food aid. The 1970’s therefore began with a food
crisis which led to the World Food Conference (WFC) in 1974 (United Nations
1975).
Prior to the 1974 World Food Conference, food security perspectives
centred on supply and demand of food stocks premised on the Malthusian idea
that a time would come when human consumption, as a result of population
growth, would outstrip food production. The crisis of the early 1970’s seemed
to highlight this perception with food aid increasing to fill the gap in
production. The UN thus defined food security as the
Availability at all times of adequate world supplies of basic food-stuffs…
to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption… and to offset fluctuations
in production and prices (UN 1975).
This definition and the preceding crisis resulted in heavy subsidisation
to the extent that “cropping patterns were distorted, domestic trade was
repressed and consumer preferences were altered” (Stevens et al. 2003: 1). It appears as though these issues did not align
with common perspective and governments continued, and many still do, to focus
on national food sufficiency through a dependence on international aid and
import (Harsch 1992). In addition to this unsustainable aid, it became clear
that food insecurity could occur simultaneously with food surplus and it
occurred to Sen (1981) that Malthus’s well known and pessimistic theory could
be entirely incorrect.
Sen (1981) introduced the individual to the problem of food security with
his theory of entitlements which makes the point that we do not live in a
society in which food is equally distributed but one in which the amount of
food a person has access to depends on what he owns and what he can get for
what he owns through trade and production. This idea, commonplace in nutrition
planning but ill-defined as a concept in food security (Devereux 1993),
cemented the shift in perspective from a global issue of supply and demand to
the household problem incorporating access and entitlement (Devereux and
Maxwell 2001). Sen’s approach showed that famine, and hence cases of food
insecurity, was not only dependent on food production but on sudden drops in
the purchasing power of specific social groups and additionally that degrees of
food security could exist in a single country (Shaw 2007).
The entitlements approach and its emphasis on the individual made a
formal impact on the definition of food security through definitions stated by
the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO 1983) and the World Bank (1986).
Both definitions included the distinction of ensuring food security of people,
as opposed to the general call for adequacy of food supplies stated in the 1975
definition. Thus food security became a more complex problem that included the
highly contextual aspect of entitlements and individuals (Maxwell and Smith
1992). This essentially defines the conclusion of the first paradigm shift outlined
by Maxwell (1996).
The entitlement approach, although revolutionary, was not without
criticism. Maxwell and Smith (1992) and Swift (1989) outline some of the main
criticisms of Sen’s analysis. Of importance is the household level analysis of
the approach which ignores any uneven intra-household distribution of food.
Additionally Sen assumes that inadequate food leads to death which ignores the
importance of disease and famine related mortalities. The approach does not
easily incorporate some important social systems such as social capital and
social networks which play a role in understanding the complex structures which
led to the next paradigm shift (Swift and Hamilton 2001).
The second shift occurred alongside the tremendous growth in urban areas and
an acknowledgment of the complexity surrounding urban and rural livelihoods (Ruel
et al. 1998). The food first approach
of the entitlements theory, although broader and more complex than the supply
approach, did not encompass much of the complexity surrounding the decisions
and trade-offs between procuring food, maintaining assets and upholding social
standings and life style (de Waal 1989). Through studying famine in Darfur,
Sudan, de Waal (1991) found that people were willing to go hungry in order to avoid
future hunger. It became apparent that households in both rural and urban
settings may have multiple objectives beyond maintaining food security (Swift
and Hamilton 2001).
The food first approach was largely premised on Maslow’s theory on the
hierarchy of needs whereby food is assigned the utmost importance as a
lower-order need fundamental to the organisation and maintenance of social life
(Hopkins 1986). However the second paradigm shift in perspectives of food
security recognised that this hierarchy of needs was not necessarily so simple
and the framework of livelihoods, and especially sustainable livelihoods,
offered a far more useful context in which to address the problems of food
security (Swift and Hamilton 2001). This new framework includes the concept of
security and a wider scope of risk avoidance than seen in the previous 20 years
of food security analysis (Maxwell and Smith 1992). The concept of risk allowed
for the inclusion of a future analysis of food security and the critical
choices which needed to be made by policy planners as well as the rural poor in
search of “entitlement protection” (Dreze and Sen 1991).
Combining risk and livelihoods in a new look at food security recognised
the importance of vulnerability of households and the historic patterns that
may have caused the current level of insecurity (Swift and Hamilton 2001). It
also introduced the notion of resilience to food security perspectives with
three types of households outlined by Oshaug (1985): enduring, resilient, and fragile
households. This approach extended the
individual approach to studying food security introduced by the first paradigm
shift even further and could be applied in a rural or urban context. The ideas
of resilience and sensitivity provided a strong framework for the analysis of
food security over time with the least secure households defined by high
sensitivity and low resilience (Swift 1989). By the end of the 1990’s the
concept of sustainable livelihoods was established and defined as follows:
A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material
and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A
livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stressors and
shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities or assets, while not undermining
the natural resource base (Scoones 1998: 5)
Assessing food security at a household level and through a sustainable
livelihoods framework allows for the incorporation of concerns of poverty,
gender issues, farming systems and governance (Swift and Hamilton 2001). The
sustainable livelihoods approach realistically saw food security as just one
aspect of survival within poor households (Davies 1996). Four important changes
to the perspective on food security were introduced (Ericksen 2008). Firstly, as
mentioned, the multiple objectives of households were recognized (Swift and Hamilton 2001).
Secondly, the understanding that agriculture is not always the primary source
of income and that other markets and economic trends play a role in household
security (Ellis 2000). Thirdly the environment is recognised as an important
asset (Scoones 1998), and lastly institutions were recognised as important in
distributing and arranging both social and economic capital through fostering
household livelihood strategies at multiple levels (Swift and Hamilton 2001).
The new approach thus allowed for a broader understanding of the drivers and
vulnerabilities causing food insecurity beyond a food first approach and an
entitlements approach.
As the concept of food security changed the means of measuring food
security was forced to change, thus the third paradigm shift began to take
place (Maxwell 1996). Coming to grips with a personal level of assessment of
food security meant that objective definitions of food security, such as
sufficient calories per day, were no longer adequate (Maxwell 1996). A new
subjective approach to food security was necessary. Subjective definitions of
poverty have been recognized since the 1970’s (Townsend 1974) and their
introduction to the concept of food security marks an important shift in understanding
human needs and cultures.
It was recognized by Payne (1990) that definitions based on calorie
requirements calculated using average adults and children and average levels of
activity should be subject to constant revision as conditions change, and that
nutritional requirements change as a function of health, size, workload and
environment (Payne and Lipton 1994). A calorie requirement, which may have
seemed like a simple means of measuring food security, was far more difficult
when individuals are taken into consideration. It became increasingly obvious
that a quantitative approach would not suffice (Maxwell 1996), and a new
definition of food security was needed which could account for the complex
individual physical and cultural dimensions of food.
The argument was then made that food security can only be obtained when
access to quality, nutritionally adequate food which is culturally acceptable
is possible without loss of dignity and self-determination and is consistent
with access to other basic needs (Maxwell and Smith 1992). These definitions
require reference to food insecure people as a means of understanding the
delicate balances and trade-offs made in the search for food security, and as
such subjective questioning and local level studies are imperative to the
realisation of food security (Minhas et
al. 1990; Bickel et al. 2000).
The 1990’s saw food security studied as a multi-disciplinary field and
began with the International Conference on Nutrition jointly organized by the
FAO and the World Health Organisation. The following years saw conferences on
Human Rights (in 1993), Overcoming Global Hunger (also 1993), Social
Development (World Summit in 1995) and eventually the World Food Summit (WFS)
in 1996 (Shaw 2007). The frequency of international conferences can perhaps be
seen as a mark of the global recognition of the problems of food security and
poverty in the developing world and a result of the three important paradigm
shifts leading to a more inclusive view of the possible causes of these
widespread problems. The WFS resulted in a new definition of food security
which has remained as the primary definition for the last quarter century:
Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social
and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary
needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO 1996: 2)
This definition was re-enforced in 2009 and extended to include four
pillars of food security: availability, access, utilization, and stability (FAO
2009: 1). This definition is comprehensive and calls for action at all levels
(Ecker and Breisinger 2012). The stipulation of an active and healthy lifestyle
has more global bearing today than ever before. Previously the focus of food
insecurity lay on the developing world and on health issues associated with under
nourishment and starvation. In the last few decades, in fact since the 1970’s, obesity
rates have been increasing in almost all demographics (Sassi et al. 2009). A shift has begun whereby
global obesity rates are higher than previously recorded with an estimated 1.46
billion adults having a body mass index (BMI) of above 25kg/m2 of which 502 million adults were
technically obese with BMI greater than 30 kg/m2 in 2008 (Finucane et al. 2011). This gross extremism in
food caloric shortage and surplus must be attributed to a failing food system
(Swinburn et al. 2011).
Through the many definitions of food security over the past 40 years it
appears as though we have settled on one that is able to incorporate the
extremely complex nature of individual needs, entitlements, lifestyles and cultures.
However the long term focus on the connection between poverty, underdevelopment
and the global south has led to a one-sided view of food security which is only
just coming into focus. Studies on food deserts and food swamps are now
necessary in already developed countries of the global north (Rose et al. 2009). The future of food
security studies must now embrace a world even more complex than previously
imagined where morbidity as a result of lack and excess of food coexist.
A further complication to current perceptions and studies of food
security and the food system is a changing climate. Climate change may affect
food systems in multiple and unpredictable ways (Gregory et al. 2005). The realisation of the stress of Global Environmental
Change (GEC) on the food system prompted the development of programmes such as
the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) which aims to improve
the understanding of the relationship between the food and earth systems
(Ingram et al. 2005). The system is
more complex than ever and this has inspired the application of a
socio-ecological systems (SES) approach (Ericksen 2008), whereby GEC drivers
interact with socio-economic factors to impact food system outcomes related to
stability, access and utilisation of food, and the GEC drivers are analysed
through food system activities such as production, processing and distribution.
Ever more complex approaches to solving the global food security problem
are being developed. The perspectives have evolved immensely in the last 40
years despite the failures to meet many of the goals set by the multiple
summits and conferences over the decades. The problem is now, more than ever a
humanitarian one, as it is increasingly obvious that the resources and
knowledge required to end this century old problem exist.
(2597)
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