Dear david

Food security is a situation “when all the people, at all the times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food and to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO,1996). Therefore poverty is one of the most important reason of food insecurity at the world.

Mohammad Kazemi

Thanks a lot Mohammed for the response. I however would like to know if it could be considered the main cause (number one among the causes) of food (and nutrition) insecurity

I think that the most common causes of food insecurity in third World countries are:

Climate change, drought and other extreme weather events, pests, livestock diseases and other agricultural problems, rapid population growth, corruption and political instability, military conflicts and so on. Therefore depend on the region, main cause of food insecurity is different.

Mohammad Kazemi

oh ok, thanks a lot for the enlightenment, Mohammad. Your suggestion is well noted

poverty is a cause of malnutrition in most African countries but don't loose sight of the fact that malnutrition can be explained as condition that results from eating a diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess (too high in intake), or in the wrong proportions therefore even the rich people can malnourished if they continue to eat junk food with high cholestrol. the poor even though they donot have enough money they eat fresh food which most at times is of a balanced diet than the rich.

therefore in my opinion its not only poverty that causes malnourishment

Thanks a lot Luchi for your suggestion. Your point is well noted

Thank you Indiana,I agree with you the poverty itself is not the main cause of malnourishment because many rich people ( especially developed countries) may be malnourished. Most people think of Africa when it comes to malnutrition. The kids in Africa die due to lack of food and in USA and other rich countries kids die due to foods problems, I think both of them are malnourished. The main key to success is education and good practices.

As many of you may well know, Amartya Sen has written extensively on the role of access and entitlements in famine and food insecurity. While related to poverty, these concepts aren't entirely explained by poverty or lack thereof. I would recommend his writings as part of any lit review into the issue of food insecurity.

Food science has a role to play to achieve food security, but its importance is often seen too high. The assumption that too little food is produced to feed everybody on the planet is incorrect. Actually enough food statistically is around, but not everybody has access to what is available. Food science can cause increase in the cost of food making it unaffordable for poor people.

The Green Revolution is an example for this. High Yielding Varieties cost money, fertilizers, pesticides and other high costs for external inputs make agriculture costly. Still plant science can help to better adapt agriculture for example to a changing climate. One aspect that brings issues around food security together is the sustainable livelihood approach. The e external aspects of these approaches include seasonality of all sorts that can threaten people's livelihood security.

Of course livelihood security is a concept much broader than food security, but there are a lot of overlaps, especially in times of climate change..... Crucial is to keep the basis of food production is good shape. Environmental degradation is very dangerous from such perspective. Second is the distribution / access to food, which is to remove poverty. To better understand what is needed one needs to be aware of the different facets of food security.

Food security is a situation that 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

This is how the FAO defines food security. It combines food production, distribution and consumption, looks into cultural and individual food preferences and also at quality aspects of food both from a nutrition perspective as well as from the perspective of food safety. Climate / environmental changes can have impacts on all these aspects, on food production, food distribution / access and food consumption.

Food production and climate change

ll food crops have their optimum what climatetic conditons such as temperature, rainfall, etc are concerned. Especially extremes (too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry) can have devasting impacts. Some plants can tolerate a wide range of conditions, while other plants are rather little flexible to adapt to changing climatic conditons. In addition natural hazards (floods, cyclones, droughts) can have devasting impacts destroying crops in the fields. This all does not mean that only negative impacts are from climate change to agriculture. E.G. the temperate zones towards the poles will have warmer climates allowing longer vegetation periods, longer for crops like wheat. The impacts thus have to be established in regional or even sub-regional dimensions.

Access to food and climate change this addresses in particular the changes of food prices as a result of climate change. Here in particular countries are effected that already now import big parts of their food requirements, like Kiribati, Tuvalu and other atoll states. Already today food imports make much of their imports and have very negative impacts on their BoP situation. On the micro-level afford rising food prices. They have to change to cheaper foods, often of lesser quality.

cCarthy, J. F., & Obidzinski, K. (2017). Framing the food poverty question: Policy choices and livelihood consequences in Indonesia. Journal of Rural Studies, 54, 344-354.

Cramer, L., Huyer, S., Lavado, A., Loboguerrero, A. M., Martínez Barón, D., Nyasimi, M., ... & van Wijk, M. (2017). Methods Proposed to Evaluate the Potential Impact of Climate Change on Food and Nutrition Security in Central America and the Dominican Republic.

Moragues-Faus, A., Sonnino, R., & Marsden, T. (2017). Exploring European food system vulnerabilities: Towards integrated food security governance. Environmental Science & Policy, 75, 184-215.

Chandra, A., McNamara, K. E., Dargusch, P., Caspe, A. M., & Dalabajan, D. (2017). Gendered vulnerabilities of smallholder farmers to climate change in conflict-prone areas: A case study from Mindanao, Philippines. Journal of Rural Studies, 50, 45-59.

Poverty itself is a cause to poverty and food insecurity on learners especially in rural areas and it exists in a vicious cycle.