BP 510: Hunger and Malnutrition in a Food Secure Nation
- Introduction
Food insecurity occurs when people’s access to food is minimally adequate and they struggle to meet their basic dietary requirements. The opposite – food security – occurs when all people at all times have access to sufficient and nutritious food to meet their dietary requirements for an active and healthy life. This is achieved when the following objectives are met: (1) food availability; (2) food accessibility; and (3) food quality for all people at all times, and (4) when food sustainability and stability are ensured. Food availability depends on healthy cultivated and non-cultivated (natural land) systems that enable food production. Food accessibility is based on people’s entitlements and rights to acquire food, as enabled by political, legal, economic and social arrangements. And food quality is mainly concerned with people’s uptake of appropriate and nutritional food as per the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) nutritional and health standards.