Food Security: What Do We Need Beyond National-Level “Grain Security”?
I. What Is Food Security?
As we can see, the concept of food security emphasises several key elements. Correspondingly, if people are unable to obtain the adequate food described in the definition above, a food security problem exists.
So to truly understand food security, we need to look beyond the framework of “grain security” that is commonly discussed in China. Because “grain security” often emphasises only grain production and supply at the national level, whereas “food security” is much more focused on the individual level: whether each of us can access sufficient, nutritious and safe food at any time and in any place.
But how did “food security” evolve from a national concern with grain supply into the complex concept we have today? Various factors have shaped this transformation.
Drawing on scholars’ research into food systems, three main factors have driven the evolution of food security.
The first is the involvement of different stakeholder groups. How can sufficient grain be supplied? Initially this was a government concern, as it related to regime stability. Later, as more consumers and farmers became involved, our understanding of food security gradually shifted from the level of grain supply to that of individual consumption.
The second is the emergence of new information and experience, which has led people to rethink how food security should be defined. Because this definition influences international food policy and governance, it also shapes what aspects each country should consider when formulating policies to promote food security.
The third factor is the establishment of institutions dealing with grain trade. Particularly noteworthy here are two UN bodies: the founding of the FAO in 1945 and the subsequent establishment of the World Food Programme (WFP). These two organisations have had a profound impact on international grain trade and global food governance.
Moreover, in terms of scale, “food security” has evolved from a national-level concept to an international one, and then gradually to the individual and household levels, with its meaning expanding accordingly. Initially, “food security” simply meant food production and supply. Later, emphasis shifted to food access and to the nutrition and health dimensions of food. Since the 1990s, food culture, consumer rights and farmers’ rights have also become part of the concept. I believe this understanding will continue to broaden in the years to come.
II. The Evolution of the Meaning of “Food Security”
In the 1950s, the United States and other Western countries spearheaded the Green Revolution on a global scale – a transformative upheaval in grain and agricultural production systems. Before the Green Revolution, grain production relied heavily on manual labour. After it began, an ever-growing use of external inputs – especially chemical fertilisers and pesticides – brought about dramatic increases in grain yields. So what was to be done with the surplus? Many of the countries that had pioneered the Green Revolution, such as the United States, sought to ship surplus grain to hungry or food-deficit nations through international food aid. As a result, international food aid was carried out very extensively throughout the 1950s.
By the 1960s, the United States realised that food aid could not continue on this basis, because it was destroying local agriculture and instead becoming a source of instability in international politics. The productivity of smallholder farmers simply could not compete with the cheap grain produced through large-scale mechanised farming, driving many smallholders into bankruptcy, dismantling local food systems and making them ever more dependent on international grain supply. So the countries that had already embraced the Green Revolution, led by the United States, began promoting it in the developing world – including the use of pesticides, hybrid seed and chemical fertilisers – to help them achieve grain self-sufficiency.
In the 1970s, a widespread grain crisis erupted and international grain prices surged. It was at this point that the term “food security” was first introduced in the field of food policy; in China it has consistently been translated as “grain security”. By then, food security was concerned with the adequate supply of grain at the global level.
In the 1980s, a growing number of researchers and policymakers began to realise that even with sufficient food, adequate output and supply, food security could not be guaranteed for everyone. Many people still faced significant barriers to accessing food – perhaps because they had no income, or because they lived in a food desert, far from the nearest point of food access. A wide range of factors could affect an individual’s food access.
Food security then began to focus on how individuals and households could better obtain food. “Food access” was thus incorporated into the concept of “food security”.
In 1983, the FAO redefined “food security” as “ensuring that all people have, at all times, both physical and economic access to the basic food they need”. Note that this still addressed only access to basic food, without considering nutrition or safety. The World Bank also offered a definition in 1986: food security exists when all people, at all times, have access to enough food for an active and healthy life. This definition introduced a new dimension – “active and healthy”.
In the 1990s, the meaning of food security continued to broaden, with food nutrition and food culture becoming part of its scope. For example, the 1996 World Food Summit stated that food security exists at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels when 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 and healthy life.
These newer definitions encompass different scales, from the individual to the international level. At each scale, different actors participate in food security policy-making, each playing their own role. So when we examine food security, we need to discuss it across all levels, from the international to the individual.
The 1990s also saw the emergence of the concept of “food sovereignty”. It began with the peasant movement La Vía Campesina in Latin America, which launched a social movement of farmers resisting multinational food corporations and industrialised food systems. As consumer groups, researchers and other stakeholders joined in, “food sovereignty” expanded from the right of farmers to autonomously decide what to grow, how to grow it, and how to access their own seed, to the right of all people – including consumers – to define their own food and agricultural systems, rather than being swept along by multinational food corporations and industrialised food systems.
The introduction of “food sovereignty” injected fresh meaning into “food security”.The High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition has also proposed that, beyond food access and supply, food security must take into account people’s rights and sustainability if it is to endure.
III. The Four Dimensions of Food Security
Second is access, that is, people must have sufficient income to buy food.
Third is utilisation, which refers to people obtaining the best possible health outcomes from the food they eat. This point may not be immediately obvious. For example, suppose I have money and food is readily available for purchase – does that mean I automatically have food security once I obtain the food? Not necessarily. If a food safety problem arises, then even though we have access to sufficient, available food, our food security is clearly compromised.
The fourth dimension is stability – the three aspects above must remain steady in the face of uncertainty. For instance, the pandemic in recent years has posed serious challenges to the availability, accessibility and safety of food.
Beyond these four dimensions, scholars are incorporating two further ones. The first is people’s rights – the right of consumers and farmers alike to define their own methods of production and consumption. The second is sustainability – food production and consumption should also be sustainable in environmental, social and cultural terms.
IV. The State of Global Food Security
The FAO’s 2022 global hunger map reveals that since the onset of the pandemic, the global hungry population has increased by a staggering 150 million. This means that years of effort by countries around the world to eliminate hunger have been all but undone.
V. Measuring Food Security Levels
We have conducted food security surveys in seven cities across the developing world: Nanjing, Mexico City, Kingston (Jamaica), Nairobi (Kenya), Maputo (Mozambique), Cape Town (South Africa), and Bengaluru (India). The study aims to understand how food systems operate in these cities, what role the informal food system plays, how food security levels compare, how food security policies are developed, and how such policies might be improved.
The first is the Household Food Security Scale, which allows us to see how many households in a city face severe food security problems, where they are located, and what characteristics they share. This ultimately helps guide policy-making.
The second is Household Dietary Diversity, which aims to survey the variety of foods a household has consumed in the past 24 hours.
The third is Household Food Supply Sufficiency Months, which assesses whether a household’s food supply capacity reaches a minimum level each month; we ask households whether they experienced a food supply shortfall in any month over the past year.
VI. Survey Results on Food Security Levels
Furthermore, from 1990 to 2000, Nanjing’s wet markets were repositioned from a commercial enterprise to infrastructure serving social welfare. This point is crucial, because if wet markets were regarded purely as commercial enterprises, the government would not intervene so comprehensively, nor would it invest so many resources in them.
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VII. Summary
Another point is the broad food outlook. We need a new understanding of food security – one that goes beyond grain security and mere food supply to encompass access at the individual and household level, the question of food utilisation, and how we can achieve equity and sustainability in our food systems.
Finally, I would like to say that in formulating food policy we need to move beyond the agricultural bias – we cannot equate talking about food with talking about grain production. Food itself has certain qualities as a public good, and we cannot simply leave everything to the market and look the other way. What happens with a completely free food market in the West? Many areas can become food deserts – because the population is too small, private businesses such as chain supermarkets are unwilling to open a store there, and as a result, in many places people simply cannot access food without a car.
The experience of Nanjing’s wet markets tells us that moderate government involvement in food supply, together with a mixed-ownership food supply system, helps to raise household food security levels.
*This article is based on a talk given by Dr Si Zhenzhong at a Foodthink sharing session on 16 April 2023. A video recording is available on Foodthink’s WeChat Channels and Bilibili channels of the same name. For more information about the Hungry Cities research, visit the project website: https://hungrycities.net/.
Text prepared by: Yano
Editing: Tianle