This book looks at food security from a socio-economic perspective. It offers a detailed and systematic examination of food security from its historical backgrounds, concepts and measurements, to the determinants and approaches to achieve food security. The book also introduces the key challenges and root causes of food insecurity. Through country-specific cases, the book highlights instances of both successful and disastrous national food security management and their outcomes. The invaluable learning experiences of these countries shed light on food security practices, and the straightforward demand-supply framework effectively guides readers in understanding food security issues. This is an essential resource for anyone who is keen to learn more about food security, particularly researchers and university students who are new to the field. The book endeavours to help us reflect on the current phenomenon and strategize better for the future.

The International Development Committee calls for concerted action to curb food wastage in the UK and for expansion of DFID's bilateral nutrition programmes with a particular focus on pregnancy and early years, as part of wider efforts to improve global food security. There is scope for the Government to launch a national consumer campaign to reduce domestic food waste, also setting national targets to curb food waste within the UK food production and retail sectors. Agriculturally-produced biofuels are having a major detrimental impact on global food security by driving higher and more volatile food prices. EU targets requiring 10 per cent of transport energy to be drawn from renewable sources by 2020 are likely to cause dramatic food price increases, and the Government should revise its domestic Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation to specifically exclude agriculturally-produced biofuels. Looking at the impact of rising world population, the Committee praises DFID's significant efforts to meet the considerable unmet need for contraception in many developing nations and urges the UK government to maintain a keen focus on women's reproductive rights within its development assistance programmes. MPs also flag the longer term barriers to development posed by systematic undernutrition. The Committee expresses concern that large corporations are buying up large areas of land in many developing countries previously farmed by smallholders. UK-domiciled corporations should be required to be transparent about land deals. Lastly, MPs focus on the key role that smallholder farmers will play in feeding a growing global population and in reducing rural poverty.

Food security as a concept originated only in the mid-1970s, in the discussions of international food problems at a time of global food crisis. The initial focus of attention was primarily on food supply problems - of assuring the availability and to some degree the price stability of basic foodstuffs at the international and national level. That supply-side, international and institutional set of concerns reflected the changing organisation of the global food economy that had precipitated the crisis. The present artefact reviews selected key challenges regarding food security from both an academic and policy-oriented angle. By the mid-1990s food security was recognised as a significant concern, spanning a spectrum from the individual to the global level. However, access now involved sufficient food, indicating continuing concern with protein-energy malnutrition to incorporate food safety and also nutritional balance, reflecting concerns about food composition and minor nutrient requirements for an active and healthy life. Food preferences, socially or culturally determined, now became a consideration. The potentially high degree of context specificity implies that the concept had both lost its simplicity and was not itself a goal, but an intermediating set of actions that contribute to an active and healthy life. The continuing evolution of food security as an operational concept in public policy has reflected the wider recognition of the complexities of the technical and policy issues involved. The Economics of Food Security addresses important issues of food security in their wide-ranging selection of the most influential published contributions in this area of study. The text looks at the origins of the concept of chronic food insecurity, the implications for measurement, and proposes the need for a complementary investigation into the implications for transitory food insecurity of trade liberalization. This book summaries that food insecurity traces to poverty, that poverty must be addressed by economic development, and that economic development flows from application of the standard model that is now mainstream economics. The Book will be of interest to all academics, policymakers, international organisations and students working in this area.

Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions. The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.

'The Challenge of Food Security addresses one of the key development challenges of our time. It examines issues related to food security in a comprehensive manner that covers both theoretical perspectives and policy challenges. It will be a key reference book for anyone interested in issues related to food security.' Philippe Cullet, University of London, UK 'This is a timely book which addresses one of the greatest challenges for international regulation: food security. The book is a comprehensive treatment of various aspects of food security from its origins to the relationship between food security and other values, the role that commodity trading plays in exacerbating food insecurity, the importance of adequate food governance, together with specific food security problems like fish, water and genetic resources. The editors should be congratulated on a stimulating collection of essays that brings together a diverse range of scholars and which sheds real light on the complex dimensions of the food security debate.' Fiona Smith, University College London, UK This timely study addresses the pressing issue of food security through a range of interdisciplinary contributions, providing both scholarly and policy-making perspectives. It sets the discussion on food security within the little-studied context of its international legal and regulatory framework. The expert contributors explore the key issues from a development perspective and through the lens of existing governance and policy systems with a view to articulating how these systems can be made more effective in dealing with the roots of food insecurity. The book considers the root causes of food insecurity before discussing the regulatory challenges inherent in reconciling food production and sustainability to ensure both adequate supply of and equitable access to food, particularly in light of emerging issues such as food price volatility, 'land grabbing' and the need to coordinate the actions of the multitude of actors that influence food policy and regulation. It highlights the need for more equitable, transparent and coherent policy and regulatory approaches to the myriad of issues that make up the food security challenge. This cross-cutting study will appeal to researchers in law, international relations, agricultural science and food systems, as well as to policy makers in government and international organisations that engage with policy and regulation of food security issues. It will also be essential reading for professionals in non-governmental organisations that are interested in development issues in general and food security in particular.