Food Security: Beyond National-Level ‘Food Security’, What Else Do We Need?

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At first glance, food security might seem like a rather academic subject, but it is fundamentally tied to the dietary health and nutrition of every individual on a daily basis. I will begin by unpacking the concept itself, tracing how this comprehensive framework took shape and the key developments it has undergone. I will then turn to the question of measurement: how do we actually gauge food security levels within a specific city or community? To conclude, I will discuss the surveys we have carried out on food security across China and several other countries, sharing some of the findings from our research.

1. What Is Food Security?

To begin with, what exactly is food security? The English term is *food security*, though in China it is typically rendered as “grain security”. Internationally, however, the concept encompasses a much wider scope. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) offers a precise definition, which can be translated as: food security “should aim to satisfy people’s increasingly diverse dietary needs and preferences, ensuring that every citizen has unimpeded access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food across time, space, and economic dimensions”. It stresses that “there must be both an adequate food supply with a product mix that aligns with local consumption habits, and clear requirements for food quality and nutrition”.

As these points illustrate, the concept of food security revolves around several key terms. Conversely, when people are unable to access the adequate food supply outlined above, a food security issue arises.

Therefore, to truly grasp “food security”, we must step outside the framework of “grain security” that dominates domestic discourse in China. While “grain security” often focuses narrowly on national-level production and supply, “food security” is fundamentally more individual: it asks whether each of us can reliably access sufficient, safe, and nutritious food, wherever and whenever we need it.

But how did “food security” evolve from a simple matter of national grain supply into the complex concept it is today? A range of factors lies behind this shift.

Drawing on scholarly research into food systems, three primary factors have shaped the evolution of food security.

First is the involvement of diverse stakeholder groups. How do we ensure an adequate food supply? Initially, this was a primary concern for governments, as it bore directly on political stability. However, as more consumers and farmers became engaged, our understanding of food security gradually shifted from a macro-level focus on supply to a micro-level focus on individual consumption.

Second is the emergence of new information and lived experiences. These have prompted a re-evaluation of how food security should be defined. Such a definition is crucial, as it shapes international food policy and governance, and determines what factors nations must weigh when drafting policies to advance food security.

The third factor is the institutional architecture governing food trade. Of particular note are two United Nations bodies: the founding of the FAO in 1945 and the subsequent establishment of the World Food Programme (WFP). Both have exerted a profound influence on international food trade and global food governance.

Furthermore, in terms of scale, “food security” has expanded from a national concern to an international one, and gradually shifted towards the individual and household level, with its underlying meaning correspondingly broadening. At first, “food security” referred solely to production and supply. The focus then shifted to access, as well as the nutritional value and health implications of food. Since the 1990s, dietary culture and the rights of both consumers and farmers have progressively become integral to the concept. I am confident that this concept and its associated meanings will continue to evolve.

II. The Evolution of the Concept of Food Security

Looking back over the past century, in the early twentieth century, “food security” was broadly understood as national-level grain production and supply, forming the bedrock of state-building. Moreover, before the First World War, many nations sought to guarantee sufficient grain production and reserves to handle potential emergencies, thereby preserving social and political stability. In the war’s aftermath, the international community recognised the pressing need for a multilateral mechanism to address food production, supply, and trade. They had identified insufficient grain supplies in numerous countries as a catalyst for conflict, one that frequently spiralled into internal unrest and strained diplomatic relations. Hence, food security constitutes a necessary condition for averting war. Consequently, the FAO was founded in 1945, with one of its core mandates being to eradicate hunger. At this stage, the concept of food security was almost entirely focused on addressing starvation.

During the 1950s, Western nations, led by the United States, spearheaded the Green Revolution across the globe, triggering a profound transformation in agricultural and grain production systems. Prior to this period, grain cultivation depended predominantly on human labour. With the advent of the Green Revolution, the growing application of external inputs—most notably chemical fertilisers and pesticides—resulted in dramatic yield increases. The question then became: what to do with the surplus? Countries that had pioneered the Green Revolution, particularly the US, looked to international food aid as a means of shipping excess grain to nations facing shortages or famine. Consequently, international food aid initiatives expanded widely throughout the 1950s.

By the 1960s, the US recognised that continuing food aid in this manner was unsustainable, as it was eroding local agricultural sectors and inadvertently fuelling political instability abroad. Local smallholders could not compete with the cheap grain produced by large-scale mechanised farming, which drove many to bankruptcy, dismantled domestic food systems, and bred a growing reliance on international grain supplies. In response, nations that had already implemented the Green Revolution, led by the US, began promoting its methods in developing countries. This included introducing pesticides, hybrid seeds, and synthetic fertilisers to help these nations achieve agricultural self-sufficiency.

A severe global grain crisis struck in the 1970s, driving up international prices. It was during this period that the term “food security” was first introduced in policy discourse, consistently rendered in Chinese contexts as “粮食安全”. By this stage, the focus of food security had shifted to ensuring adequate grain supplies on a global scale.

During the 1980s, a growing number of researchers and policymakers recognised that abundant food production and supply alone could not guarantee food security for every individual. Numerous barriers still hindered people’s ability to obtain food, whether due to financial hardship, residing in food deserts, or living in remote areas far from the nearest markets or distribution points. A myriad of factors were found to influence an individual’s actual access to food.

Consequently, the focus of food security began to shift towards how individuals and households could more effectively obtain food. The concept of “food access” was subsequently integrated into the broader framework of food security.

In 1983, the FAO revised its definition of “food security” to: “ensuring that all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to the basic food they require.” It is worth noting that this formulation still focused merely on acquiring staple food, without yet accounting for nutritional value or food safety. The World Bank offered its own definition in 1986, stating that food security means all people can, at all times, access sufficient food to lead an active and healthy life. This introduced a new dimension centred on well-being.

Throughout the 1990s, the concept of food security continued to evolve, incorporating considerations of nutrition and dietary culture. The 1996 World Food Summit, for example, asserted that food security at individual, household, national, regional, and global levels could only be realised when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

These revised definitions encompassed multiple scales, placing emphasis on everything from the individual to the international level. Different actors engage in food security policymaking at each scale, fulfilling distinct roles. Accordingly, when examining food security, our discourse must span from the international sphere down to the individual.

The concept of “food sovereignty” also emerged during the 1990s. Originating with the Latin American agrarian movement La Vía Campesina (Peasants’ Path), it sparked a broader social movement of farmers resisting transnational food corporations and industrialised agricultural systems. As consumer advocates, researchers, and other groups joined the cause, “food sovereignty” expanded from the farmers’ right to autonomously decide what to cultivate, how to cultivate it, and access their own seed supplies, into a broader claim for everyone—including consumers—to define their own food and agricultural systems, free from the dominance of multinational corporations and industrialised food chains.

The introduction of “food sovereignty” has thus infused “food security” with fresh meaning and deeper purpose.The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition has likewise emphasised that, to achieve lasting food security, frameworks must look beyond mere access and supply to encompass individual rights and sustainability.

III. The Four Dimensions of Food Security

Food security comprises four dimensions, each a condition that must be met to achieve it. First, food must be available (availability), meaning there must be sufficient food supply and production.

Second is access (access), which requires that people have adequate income to purchase food.

Third is food utilisation (utilisation), referring to the ability of individuals to derive the healthiest possible outcomes from the food they consume. This concept can be somewhat difficult to grasp. Consider this: suppose I have the money and the food is purchasable; does simply obtaining it guarantee food security? Not necessarily. Take food safety as an example. Should safety issues arise, our food security would clearly be compromised, even if we have access to sufficient and available food.

The fourth dimension is that the aforementioned three aspects must remain stable (stability) when confronted with uncertainty. For instance, the pandemic in recent years has posed significant challenges to food availability, access, and safety.

Beyond these four dimensions, the academic community is integrating two additional pillars. One is individual rights, encompassing both consumers and farmers, granting them the agency to define their own methods of production and consumption. The other is that food production and consumption must be sustainable across environmental, social, and cultural dimensions.

● The four dimensions of food security.

IV. The Global State of Food Security

So what is the current state of food security worldwide? In academic circles, a widely cited concept is the “triple burden of global malnutrition” (the triple burden of global malnutrition). Here, malnutrition extends beyond simple undernutrition to include micronutrient deficiencies (hidden hunger) as well as overnutrition and obesity; all of these are classified as forms of malnutrition.
United Nations data shows that one in three people globally suffers from one or more forms of malnutrition, a profoundly serious issue that may stem from insufficient nutrient intake or a deficiency in specific micronutrients. To be precise, over 800 million people worldwide suffer from undernutrition, with three million children dying as a result; meanwhile, 1.9 billion adults are overweight or obese, and 41 million children are overweight. These figures continue to climb rapidly, particularly in developing nations. (For further information, please refer to the “Further Reading” section at the end of the article.)

According to the Global Hunger Map published by the FAO in 2022, since the onset of the pandemic, the number of people facing hunger worldwide has surged by 150 million. This means that years of international efforts to eradicate hunger have been almost entirely undone.

● The pandemic has almost set global efforts to reduce hunger back to square one.

V. Measuring Food Security Levels

Now that we have covered the global picture of food security, I would like to turn to how food security levels are measured. I have outlined several indicators for assessing food security. Here, I want to focus in detail on the final one: the “Hunger Cities” project.

I have been involved with this initiative since 2015. It assesses urban food security using a food acquisition matrix. This tool maps out what a household consumed in the preceding 24 hours and identifies the source channel for each item, creating a matrix that reveals the household’s dietary composition.

We carried out food security surveys in seven cities across developing nations: Nanjing, Mexico City, Kingston (Jamaica), Nairobi (Kenya), Maputo (Mozambique), Cape Town (South Africa), and Bangalore (India). The research aims to understand how these urban food systems operate, the precise role played by informal food systems, the current state of food security, how policies are formulated, and where improvements can be made.

The project I am involved with employs the FANTA (Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance) framework, which is widely adopted internationally for measuring food security. This framework comprises three components.

The first is the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, which reveals how many households in a city face severe food insecurity, their geographical distribution, and their demographic characteristics. This data ultimately helps inform policy formulation.

The second is Household Dietary Diversity, which assesses the variety of foods consumed by a household over the preceding 24 hours.

The third is Months of Adequate Household Food Provisioning, which measures a household’s capacity to maintain a minimum level of food supply each month. We determine this by asking whether the household experienced any period of food shortage during the past year.

VI. Survey Findings on Food Security Levels

Below are some of our findings. The second-to-last column in this table displays the average questionnaire scores for the Household Food Security Scale mentioned above; higher values indicate more severe food security challenges. As can be seen, Nanjing has the highest level of food security and the best dietary diversity, with an average household consuming nearly eight different food groups in the preceding 24 hours, compared to just 4.14 in Maputo.

So, why is food security in Nanjing so robust? And why do these other cities, even the capital, face such pronounced food security issues? What policy and food environments enable Nanjing to sustain such a high standard? This is not unique to Nanjing; across China, its food system closely resembles that of many other major cities. The primary driver is the progressive, comprehensive food security planning under Nanjing’s Vegetable Basket Project. From the inaugural plan in 1989 to the most recent in 2018, the project has systematically advanced food security planning, ultimately forging an integrated food security framework. Crucially, the core channel for urban food supply is the wet market. Wet markets in China operate under a mixed-ownership model, meaning some are privately run while others are publicly owned. Consequently, the government plays a pivotal role in their management and governance.

Furthermore, between 1990 and 2000, Nanjing repositioned its wet markets from market-oriented commercial enterprises to infrastructure serving public welfare. This shift is highly significant: had wet markets been treated purely as commercial ventures, the government would not have intervened so comprehensively, nor would it have allocated such substantial resources to them.

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VII. Conclusion

What did these studies reveal, and what lessons can we draw to strengthen food security? To begin with, the coronavirus pandemic laid bare the fragility of modern food systems. Our daily diets depend heavily on urban food networks. Yet, before the pandemic, many people paid little attention to the origins of their food or who was producing it. Once the crisis unfolded, we witnessed a stark divide: farmers struggled to offload their produce, leaving many to destroy crops in the fields, while consumers contended with shrinking variety and climbing prices.

● Top image: A Shanghai resident receives a government-distributed “care vegetable box” in April 2022. Photo: Meiqin; Bottom image: A market emptied by panic buying during an outbreak wave in Guangzhou, April 2022. Photo: Qiran

Another crucial aspect is adopting a broader view of food. We need to rethink food security. It is not merely about grain reserves or physical supply; it concerns access at the individual and household level, the effective use of food, and how we can ensure equity and sustainability across the entire food system.

Lastly, when crafting food policy, we must look beyond a narrow agricultural focus. Discussing food should not automatically mean focusing solely on staple crop production. Food possesses inherent public good attributes; we cannot simply hand everything over to the market and walk away. What happens in Western countries under a wholly liberalised food market? Food deserts frequently emerge. In sparsely populated areas, private chains see little incentive to open supermarkets or grocery stores. As a result, residents without a car often find themselves completely cut off from food supplies.

Nanjing’s wet market experience shows that moderate government intervention in food supply, combined with a hybrid provisioning system, helps improve household-level food security.

Foodthink Contributor
Dr Si Zhenzhong
Holder of a PhD in Geography from the University of Waterloo, Canada. He currently serves as Research Project Director at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Canada, where he also teaches courses on food security and sustainable food systems. His primary research focuses on urban food security, sustainable food systems, and rural development. Dr Si has long been committed to sustainable agricultural development in China, and is a keen balcony gardener and advocate for wholesome food.

 

*This article is adapted from remarks made by Dr Si Zhenzhong at a Foodthink talk on 16 April 2023. A recording of the session can be viewed on Foodthink’s WeChat Channels account and Bilibili. For further information on the “Hungry Cities” research project, please visit: https://hungrycities.net/.

● Scene from the sharing session on 16 April 2023.

Compiled by: Yan’ou

Edited by: Tianle

Published by Foodthink