FOOD SECURITY AND RIGHT TO FOOD

Food security has been defined as a product of food availability, food access, stability of supplies and biological utilization. At the World Food Summit in 1996, it was agreed that 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. Food security has also been defined to mean access by all people at all times to adequate food for an active healthy life, and entails both the availability of food and the ability of all members to have access to adequate amount of food.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security entails several elements including food availability: which refers to the availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports (including food aid); food access: which means access by individuals to adequate resources (entitlements) for acquiring appropriate foods for a nutritious diet; utilization: which refers to utilization of food through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach a state of nutritional well-being where all physiological needs are met; and stability: the idea that to be food secure, a population, household or individual must have access to adequate food at all times and that they should not risk losing access to food as a consequence of sudden shocks (such as an economic or climatic crisis) or cyclical events including seasonal food insecurity.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), people are considered food secure when they have availability and adequate access at all times to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life. In addition, it has been asserted that food security is a very important determinant of whether people can lead an active and healthy life, because it determines their access to foods required to meet nutrient needs. Achieving food security has been described as a key determinant for the realization of the human right to food towards Sustainable Development.

The right to food has been defined as the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access—either directly or by means of financial purchases— to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear. This right is enshrined at the international level under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which recognizes the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.

The right to food requires all countries recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, to take, individually and through international co-operation, measures, including specific programmes, which are needed to improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge among other measures. At a national level, the Constitution of Kenya, for example, also recognizes the right of every person to be free from hunger, and to have adequate food of acceptable quality. Food security is at the heart of the Sustainable Development agenda.

The United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development envisions a world where food is sufficient, safe, affordable and nutritious. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 seeks to end hunger, achieve food security, and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. SDG 2 sets out several targets towards enhancing food security which include ensuring access by all people to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round; ending all forms of malnutrition; doubling the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment; ensuring sustainable food production systems and implementing resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality; increasing investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries; correcting and preventing trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect; and adopting measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility.

Achieving the targets of SDG 2 is therefore necessary in order to enhance food security. Enhancing food security is vital for Sustainable Development in Africa. It has been argued that demand for food across the world is increasing, driven by a range of population and demographic changes including population growth, changes in population structure, consumption growth, and urbanization. Meeting the increasing demand for food is potentially constrained by factors such as biological performance, climate change, and the local and planetary boundaries that determine the need for agriculture to be more sustainable. Therefore, meeting the challenges associated with food security require more than simply innovating to increase yields, but also demands changes in farming systems to promote the sustainable, and resilient production of food to meet the nutritional requirements of local and global populations. In light of the foregoing, it has been posited that Africa’s food systems must become more resilient and guarantee access to healthy and affordable diets for all.