Food Security

• What is food security?

  Food security occurs when all people are able to access enough safe and nutritious food to meet their requirements for a healthy life, in ways the planet can sustain into the future.

  • However, food security faces a number of challenges, which means that many people across the world don't have access to adequate food.
• Factors affecting food security

  1. Rising populations across the world mean there are now more people to feed.

  2) Diets change as countries become wealthier, and this means food is often transported around the world, and more meat is being consumed (which is less efficient to produce than plant-based foods).
• Factors affecting food security

  3) New pests and pathogens can kill crops or livestock, which may lead to famine.

  4) Environmental changes due to climate change, such as higher temperatures or reduced rainfall, can decrease food yields.

  5) Agricultural inputs can be expensive. Fuels, pesticides, fertilisers, animal feed etc are all expensive and these costs are often passed onto the consumer, which means food becomes more expensive.
• Factors affecting food security

  6) Conflicts such as wars can disrupt the production and transportation of food, so often cause food prices to rise, and in some cases can cause famine.
• How could the spread of pathogens across the world affect food security?

  They could damage/kill plants...

  ...which would decrease their yield...

  ...so there would be less food available.