Food Security Assessment

This book offers an essential, comprehensive, yet accessible reference of contemporary food security discourse and guides readers through the steps required for food security analysis. Food insecurity is a major obstacle to development and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. It is a complex issue that cuts across traditional sectors in government and disciplines in academia. Understanding how multiple elements cause and influence food security is essential for policymakers, practitioners and scholars. This book demonstrates how evaluation can integrate the four elements of food security (availability, access, nutrition and resilience) and offers practical tools for policy and programme impact assessment to support evidence-based planning. Aimed at researchers, postgraduates and those undertaking professional development in food studies, agricultural economics, rural development, nutrition and public health, the book is key reading for those seeking to understand evidence-based food security analysis.

Food security in 70 developing countries is projected to deteriorate over the next decade, according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture¿s Economic Research Service. After rising nearly 11% from 2007 to 2008, the number of food-insecure people in the developing countries is estimated to rise to 833 million in 2009, an almost 2% rise from 2008 to 2009. Despite a decline in food prices in late 2008, deteriorating purchasing power and food security are expected in 2009 because of the growing financial deficits and higher inflation that have occurred in recent years. Food-insecure people are defined as those consuming less than the nutritional target of 2,100 calories per day per person. Charts and tables.

The United States is viewed by the world as a country with plenty of food, yet not all households in America are food secure, meaning access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. A proportion of the population experiences food insecurity at some time in a given year because of food deprivation and lack of access to food due to economic resource constraints. Still, food insecurity in the United States is not of the same intensity as in some developing countries. Since 1995 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has annually published statistics on the extent of food insecurity and food insecurity with hunger in U.S. households. These estimates are based on a survey measure developed by the U.S. Food Security Measurement Project, an ongoing collaboration among federal agencies, academic researchers, and private organizations. USDA requested the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies to convene a panel of experts to undertake a two-year study in two phases to review at this 10-year mark the concepts and methodology for measuring food insecurity and hunger and the uses of the measure. In Phase 2 of the study the panel was to consider in more depth the issues raised in Phase 1 relating to the concepts and methods used to measure food security and make recommendations as appropriate. The Committee on National Statistics appointed a panel of 10 experts to examine the above issues. In order to provide timely guidance to USDA, the panel issued an interim Phase 1 report, Measuring Food Insecurity and Hunger: Phase 1 Report. That report presented the panel's preliminary assessments of the food security concepts and definitions; the appropriateness of identifying hunger as a severe range of food insecurity in such a survey-based measurement method; questions for measuring these concepts; and the appropriateness of a household survey for regularly monitoring food security in the U.S. population. It provided interim guidance for the continued production of the food security estimates. This final report primarily focuses on the Phase 2 charge. The major findings and conclusions based on the panel's review and deliberations are summarized.

The book focuses on the theory, methodology, and analysis of these indicators.

Food insecurity in the 76 countries included in this report (low- and middle-income countries as classified by the World Bank that are or have been receiving food aid and are experiencing or have experienced food insecurity) is expected to remain virtually unchanged, but with some distributional changes, between 2012 and 2013. The total number of food-insecure people is estimated at 707 million in 2013, up 3 million from 2012. Over the longer term, the food security situation is projected to deteriorate. Food-insecure people are defined as those consuming less than the nutritional target of roughly 2,100 calories per day per person. By 2023, the number of food-insecure people is projected to increase nearly 23 percent to 868 million, slightly faster than population growth. As a result, the share of the population that is food insecure is projected to increase from 20.4 percent to 21.5 percent. The distribution gap-the amount of additional food needed to bring people in all income deciles up to the nutritional target-is projected to increase 28 percent by 2023, meaning that food insecurity in these countries is expected to intensify over the next 10 years. Despite improvements over the years, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to remain the most food-insecure region in the world.

USDA's new International Food Security Assessment model is a demand-oriented framework that includes information on domestic prices, consumer responsiveness to changes in prices and incomes, and food quality differences by income groups. Given projections for lower food prices and rising incomes, food security for the 76 low- and middle-income countries included in this demand-oriented framework is expected to improve through 2016. The share of the population that is food insecure is projected to fall from 17% in 2016 to 6% in 2026. The number of food-insecure people is projected to fall markedly, 59%, which matches the decline in the intensity of food insecurity, at the aggregate level. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.