Achieving Food Security: Challenges and Issues

1. Achieving Food Security: Challenges and Issues

2. Food security a situation in which all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active healthy life

3. Factors affecting food security • unstable social and political environments that preclude sustainable economic growth • war and civil strife • macroeconomic imbalances in trade • natural resource constraints • poor human resource base • gender inequality • inadequate education • poor health • natural disasters, such as floods and locust infestation • absence of good governance

4. Root cause of food insecurity:poverty

5. 70%+ live in the rural areas

6. Food security has three aspects food availability food access food adequacy

7. Underdeveloped Agricultural Sector over-reliance on primary agriculture low fertility soils minimal use of external farm inputs environmental degradation significant food crop loss minimal value addition and product differentiation inadequate food storage

8. Barriers to Market Access poor infrastructure limited resource base, lack of information lack of or inadequate support institutions poor policies factors

9. Effects of Globalization dumping of heavily subsidized produce premature exposure of upcoming industries to genuine competition from producers in developing and developed countries

10. Disease and Infection

11. Handicapping policies

12. Food Security Interventions Nutritional interventions Facilitating market access Capacity building Gender sensitive development Building on coping strategies Creating off- farm opportunities Good governance