Fragile Pillars of Food Security: Exploring the Challenges of Availability, Accessibility, and Quality for Global Food Regime

Ipsita Ray, Anshuman Shukla, Anshuman Shukla

Resumo


Hunger is a critical issue impacting a greater part of the world. Food distribution systems are failing millions of people, thereby leading to the crisis of food security. Various international declarations, like the UDHR and the ICESCR, have designated food and basic nutrition as integral elements of human rights. Therefore, provision for adequate and affordable food to all has become the dominant value for relevant regulatory and policy regimes. The problem is particularly sensitive to war-like events as is revealed by troubling statistics emerging against the backdrop of Covid-19, Russia-Ukraine War, and Israel-Hamas crisis. All these recent events have increased global food security concerns. This paper evaluates the fragile nature of food security in its multidisciplinary dimension. It identifies food availability, food accessibility, food utilization, and environmental vulnerability as the intrinsic obstacles to any regulatory intervention. In this context, the paper analyses challenges to food accessibility as the core problem of right to food and food sovereignty regimes. It signifies the connection between the structural notion of accessibility and the legal concept of right to food through food sovereignty. It analyses the causal linkages between the problem of food security and other fundamental policy challenges, like poverty, unemployment, and social inequality. The international nature of the crisis is also manifested in the classic developed-developing nations’ divide. It, consequently, highlights the structural inefficiencies of the powerful international bodies, like the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF. The comprehensive nature of the problem is explored through the idea of food sovereignty, which signifies the cultural sensitivity of food and nutrition. Food insecurity is not merely a productivity problem. The paper, therefore, suggests a consumer-centric model of food distribution and accessibility as an optimal and practical model for public policy and regulations.

Keywords: food security, food sovereignty, nutrition, social inequality

Palavras-chave


Keywords: food security, food sovereignty, nutrition, social inequality, human rights

Texto completo:

PDF (English)

Referências


Abay, K.A., Breisinger, C., Glauber, J., Kurdi, S., Laborde, D. and Siddig, K., 2023. The Russia-Ukraine war: Implications for global and regional food security and potential policy responses. Global Food Security, 36, p.100675.

Bjornlund, V., Bjornlund, H. and van Rooyen, A., 2022. Why food insecurity persists in sub-Saharan Africa: A review of existing evidence. Food Security, 14(4), pp.845-864.

Block, S.A., Kiess, L., Webb, P., Kosen, S., Moench-Pfanner, R., Bloem, M.W. and Timmer, C.P., 2004. Macro shocks and micro outcomes: child nutrition during Indonesia’s crisis. Economics & Human Biology, 2(1), pp.21-44.

Blue Bird Jernigan, V., Maudrie, T.L., Nikolaus, C.J., Benally, T., Johnson, S., Teague, T., Mayes, M., Jacob, T. and Taniguchi, T., 2021. Food sovereignty indicators for Indigenous community capacity building and health. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 5, p.704750.

Boliko, M.C., 2019. FAO and the situation of food security and nutrition in the world. Journal of nutritional science and vitaminology, 65(Supplement), pp.S4-S8.

Bossy, S., 2014. The utopias of political consumerism: The search of alternatives to mass consumption. Journal of Consumer Culture, 14(2), pp.179-198.

Campesina, L.V., 2021. Food of Our Future Grows from Seeds of Our Past. The Value of Hawaiʻi 3, p.111; Bjornlund, V., Bjornlund, H. and van Rooyen, A., 2022. Why food insecurity persists in sub-Saharan Africa: A review of existing evidence. Food Security, 14(4), pp.845-864.

Chen, Y. and Lu, C., 2018. A comparative analysis on food security in Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. Sustainability, 10(2), p.405.

Conway, G., 1998. The doubly green revolution. BIOLOGIST-INSTITUTE OF BIOLOGY, 45, pp.85-86.

Cook, J.T. and Frank, D.A. (2008), Food Security, Poverty, and Human Development in the United States. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1136: 193-209. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1425.001

Cypher, J.M., 2014. The process of economic development. Routledge.

Dalgliesh, B., 2014. Zygmunt Bauman and the Consumption of Ethics by the Ethics of Consumerism. Theory, culture & society, 31(4), pp.97-118.

De Hoyos, R.E. and Medvedev, D., 2011. Poverty effects of higher food prices: a global perspective. Review of Development Economics, 15(3), pp.387-402.

Deaton, A., 1990. Price elasticities from survey data: extensions and Indonesian results. Journal of econometrics, 44(3), pp.281-309.

Fleming, C.A., De Oliveira, J.D., Hockey, K., Lala, G., Schmied, V., Theakstone, G. and Third, A., 2020. Food and Me. How Adolescents Experience Nutrition Across the World. A Companion Report to The State of the World's Children 2019.

Friedman, J. and Levinsohn, J., 2002. The distributional impacts of Indonesia's financial crisis on household welfare: A “rapid response” methodology. The World Bank Economic Review, 16(3), pp.397-423.

George, S., 2014. How the other half dies. In Classic and Contemporary Readings in Sociology (pp. 266-271). Routledge.

Gonzalez, C.G., 2004. Trade liberalization, food security, and the environment: the neoliberal threat to sustainable rural development. Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs., 14, p.419.

Grace, D., 2015. Food safety in developing countries: an overview.

Griffin, K., 1979. The political economy of agrarian change: An essay on the Green Revolution. Springer.

Gunaratne, M.S., Radin Firdaus, R.B. and Rathnasooriya, S.I., 2021. Climate change and food security in Sri Lanka: Towards food sovereignty. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1)

Headey, D.D. and Martin, W.J., 2016. The impact of food prices on poverty and food security. Annual review of resource economics, 8, pp.329-351.

Holt-Giménez, E., 2008. The world food crisis: What’s behind it and what we can do about it. Hunger Notes, 23(2008), pp.181-192.

Hughes, H., 1998. Michel Chossudovsky-The Globalisation of Poverty: impacts of IMF and World Bank reforms. ASIAN PACIFIC ECONOMIC LITERATURE, 12, pp.67-67.

Index, G.H., 2023. 2023 Global Hunger Index: The Power of Youth in Shaping Food Systems.

Ismail, F., 2008. Rediscovering the role of developing countries in GATT before the Doha Round. The Law and Development Review, 1(1), pp.51-73.

Jean Drèze & Amartya Kumar Sen, Hunger and Public Action, in The Amartya Sen & Jean Drèze Omnibus 258 (1989).

Kupka, R., Siekmans, K. and Beal, T., 2020. The diets of children: Overview of available data for children and adolescents. Global Food Security, 27, p.100442.

Lawrence, M., Homer-Dixon, T., Janzwood, S., Rockstöm, J., Renn, O. and Donges, J.F., 2024. Global Polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement. Global Sustainability, 7, p.e6.

Lee, Y.S., 2006. Reclaiming development in the world trading system. Cambridge University Press.

Liguori, J., Trübswasser, U., Pradeilles, R., Le Port, A., Landais, E., Talsma, E.F., Lundy, M., Béné, C., Bricas, N., Laar, A. and Amiot, M.J., 2022. How do food safety concerns affect consumer behaviors and diets in low-and middle-income countries? A systematic review. Global Food Security, 32, p.100606.

Mabhaudhi, T., Chibarabada, T.P., Chimonyo, V.G.P., Murugani, V.G., Pereira, L.M., Sobratee, N., Govender, L., Slotow, R. and Modi, A.T., 2018. Mainstreaming underutilized indigenous and traditional crops into food systems: A South African perspective. Sustainability, 11(1), p.172.

Mabhaudhi, T., Chimonyo, V.G.P., Hlahla, S., Massawe, F., Mayes, S., Nhamo, L. and Modi, A.T., 2019. Prospects of orphan crops in climate change. Planta, 250, pp.695-708.

Mahadevan, R. and Hoang, V., 2016. Is there a link between poverty and food security?. Social Indicators Research, 128, pp.179-199.

Migotto, M., Davis, B., Carletto, C. and Beegle, K., 2007. Measuring food security using respondents’ perception of food consumption adequacy. Food Security: Indicators, Measurement, and the Impact of Trade Openness. B. Guha-Khasnobis, SS Archaya and B. Davis, Eds. UNU-WIDER and ICSSR.

Mittal, A., 2009. The 2008 food price crisis: rethinking food security policies. New York: UN.

Mudau, M., Ramashia, S.E. and Mashau, M.E., 2022. Mineral content, functional, thermo-pasting, and microstructural properties of spontaneously fermented finger millet flours. Foods, 11(16), p.2474

Mustafa, M.A., Mabhaudhi, T., Avvari, M.V. and Massawe, F., 2021. Transition toward sustainable food systems: A holistic pathway toward sustainable development. In Food security and nutrition (pp. 33-56). Academic Press.

Nora McKeon & Carol Kalafat ic, U.N. Non-Governmenta l Liaison Service, Strengthening Dialogue: UN Experience with Small Farmer Organizat ions and Indigenous Peoples (2009).

Peet, R., 2009. Unholy trinity: the IMF, World Bank and WTO. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Robbins, P., 2003. Stolen fruit: the tropical commodities disaster. Zed Books.

Sampson, D., Cely-Santos, M., Gemmill-Herren, B., Babin, N., Bernhart, A., Bezner Kerr, R., Blesh, J., Bowness, E., Feldman, M., Gonçalves, A.L. and James, D., 2021. Food sovereignty and rights-based approaches strengthen food security and nutrition across the globe: A systematic review. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 5, p.686492

Sassi, M., 2021. Coping strategies of food insecure households in conflict areas: the case of South Sudan. Sustainability, 13(15), p.8615.

Seda, F.S., LUGINA SETYAWATI, T.T. and NOBEL, K., 2021. Consumerism Index in the Context of Sustainable Development: Pattern of Household Food Consumption. Journal of Sustainability Science and Management, 16(4), pp.285-302.

Sen, A., 1982. Poverty and famines: an essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford university press.

Sidibé, A., Meldrum, G., Coulibaly, H., Padulosi, S., Traore, I., Diawara, G., Sangaré, A.R. and Mbosso, C., 2020. Revitalizing cultivation and strengthening the seed systems of fonio and Bambara groundnut in Mali through a community biodiversity management approach. Plant Genetic Resources, 18(2), pp.31-48.

Sonnino, R. (2023). Food system transformation: Urban perspectives. Cities, 134, 104164.

Stockemer, D. and Sundstrom, A., 2022. Youth without representation: The absence of young adults in parliaments, cabinets, and candidacies (p. 207). University of Michigan Press.

Tutwiler, M., Bailey, A., Attwood, S., Remans, R. and Ramirez, M., 2017. Agricultural biodiversity and food system sustainability.

Wang, S., Abbas, J., Sial, M.S., Álvarez-Otero, S. and Cioca, L.I., 2022. Achieving green innovation and sustainable development goals through green knowledge management: Moderating role of organizational green culture. Journal of innovation & knowledge, 7(4), p.100272.

Wessels, C., Merow, C. and Trisos, C.H., 2021. Climate change risk to southern African wild food plants. Regional Environmental Change, 21, pp.1-14.

Wijerathna-Yapa, A. and Pathirana, R., 2022. Sustainable agro-food systems for addressing climate change and food security. Agriculture, 12(10), p.1554.

Wise, T.A. and Murphy, S., 2019. The World Trade Organization Is to Blame for Inequality in Agriculture, Not Agribusinesses. The Industrial Food Complex, p.181.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.5102/rdi.v21i2.9700

ISSN 2236-997X (impresso) - ISSN 2237-1036 (on-line)

Desenvolvido por:

Logomarca da Lepidus Tecnologia