CHAPTER 7: Food Insecurity

What is Food Security?

 Food Security is present when families have access to safe and nutritious food, are not anxious about
accessing food, and acquire food in a typical manner.
What is Food Insecurity?
 Food Security is present when Food Insecurity is visible in households with limited or lack of financial
resources and worry that food will be depleted before they can replenish supplies and meals are not
balanced. Families have access to safe and nutritious food, are not anxious about accessing food, and
acquire food in a typical manner.
Components of Food Security
1. Availability
 Sufficient quantities of food are consistently available through production, distribution, and
exchange.
 Production: how much and what variety of food is available, manufactured locally or
domestically.
 Distribution: how is food made accessible, what, to whom, and when.
 Exchange: how many of the available food can be acquired through exchange procedures
such as barter, trade, purchase, or credit.
2. Access
 Individuals have economic and physical access to food, including the ability to purchase or produce
it.
 Affordability: the ability of individuals, households, or society to afford the price of food or
land for manufacturing food, relative to their earnings.
 Allocation: the phase of economic, social, and political methods governing when, where,
and how consumers can acquire food.
 Preference: social, religious, and societal norms and values control consumer demand for
definite types of food.
3. Food Utilization
 People must have access to a sufficient amount and diversity of foods to meet their nutritional needs
and eat and metabolize such food.
 Nutritional Value: the nutritional value dispensed by the foods that are consumed, as
measured in calories, vitamins, protein, and various micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron,
and iodine.
 Health Status: the cause and effect of diseases such as diarrhea, AIDS, HIV, on the ability
to ingest food and absorb and metabolize its nutritive value.
 Food Safety: access to food free from wasted food or from toxic contamination during the
production, processing, packaging, and distribution of food; and from food-borne diseases
such as salmonella and norovirus.
 Preparation and Consumption: resources such as cooking materials and fuel, knowledge,
and ability to make ready and consume food in a healthy and hygienic method.
4. Stability
 Food may be available and accessible to individuals who can utilize it successfully and avoid
increases in malnutrition.

Reasons Why Food Security is Important

1. Everyone must eat.
 Our reliance on food is so central that we often do not contemplate it or who is benefiting and buying.
2. Food is a fundamental human right.
 In Human Rights, article 25 includes the "right to a normal way of living sufficient for the health
security of himself and of his household, including medical care, food, housing, and clothing.”
3. Food is the basis of a community's wealth.
 Food is a necessary element of community self-sufficiency. It provides jobs, supports public health,
enhances culture, and enables community.

4. Our food system is unduly dependent on distant suppliers.

 Most of us rely on a structure that rarely has further than 3-4 days fresh food gathered locally-food
that travels a long way.
 5. What we see in the supermarket is an unprotected quality.
 The bounty on the supermarket shelves gives the impression that our food systems are in good
condition.
6. We can only handle what is close to home.
 Food products are grown, prepared, processed, and packaged/ assembled and can only be
effectively supervised in our control, where people have some say about the process.
7. Eventually, a community, province, or nation is indebted to its food suppliers.
 The use of food as an armament is becoming more common around the globe. It is folly to free our
capability of feeding ourselves.
8. It is vital to conserve blueprints (skills, tools, and capacity to feed ourselves).
 We are losing people who could teach us the arts of preserving, growing, harvesting, and cooking
our food, and most of us are losing expertise.
9. People are rightly concerned about food-health relations.
 Consumers are increasingly anxious about the security of their food. These can be related to
manufactured food products and questions about diseases, and pesticides.
10. Decent food is the basis of health.
 Nutrition is tied to health. The significant causes of death and disability in our society (cardiovascular
disease, diabetes, cancer) can be significantly affected by healthy eating choices and lifestyles.

Types of Food Insecurity

1. Chronic Food Insecurity
 Long-term and persistent inability to meet minimum food needs for extended periods.
2. Transitory Food Insecurity
 Short-term and sudden drop in ability to produce or access sufficient food.
3. Seasonal Food Insecurity
 Recurring condition following cyclical pattern of seasons.

Hunger, Malnutrition, and Poverty

Hunger

 Hunger is assumed as an uncomfortable or painful sensation caused by low food energy utilization. A
weakened condition brought about by prolonged lack of food or a specific nutrient.
Malnutrition

 Malnutrition is a situation that results from devouring a diet in which one or more nutrients are one or the
other not enough or are too much such that the diet causes health problems.
Malnutrition May Be an Effect of Food Insecurity, or It May Be Related to Non-food Factors Such as:
1. Inadequate Care Practices for Children
2. Insufficient Health Services
3. Unhealthy Environment
Poverty

 Recent studies show that economic development alone will not take care of food security.
 Income Growth
 Direct Nutrition Interventions
 Investment in Health, Water, and Education

Exacerbating Hunger: Conflicts, Extreme Weather Events, and Disasters

 The regions that are the most affected by hunger and food insecurity are rural. It is especially true in conflict-
affected areas of Central Mindanao and disaster-affected communities, mostly in the Visayas. These are
also areas were poverty incidence is much higher than the national average.

Structural Causes Vs Hunger and Food Insecurity

 Numerous factors have caused hunger in the Philippines. One culprit is inflation. High retail food prices
make food items unaffordable and hinder low households' ability to meet their daily food and dietary needs.
 Liberalization in the Philippines has led to increased hunger among agricultural workers due to low rural
compensations, vulnerability to extreme weather events, diseases, climate change, pests, and lack of
 access to productive resources. Despite enforcing social justice measures, the country's comprehensive
trade liberalization agenda has devastated the agriculture sector, highlighting the need for further
examination of whether these policies have improved food production and access to a safe, adequate, and
economical food supply.

Socio-economic Figures of the Philippines

 In 2014, the Philippines was the 13th majority inhabited country globally, with around one hundred seven
million.

Hunger Profile
 Several statistics support a quick glimpse of the country’s hunger profile or figure, and all of them point to
an absoluteness that the government has a humorless hunger problem.

The Severe and Constant Hunger Situation

 Philippines' Global Hunger Index (GHI) in 2014 was 13.1. This index is based on three indicators: child
mortality, child underweight, and undernourishment. It uses a scale of 0 or no hunger to 100 or hunger. The
fitting score is less than 5, which signifies low hunger. Therefore, the country is rated 29th globally, with its
situation classified as a "serious problem." The number of Filipino households who rated themselves as
starving rose from 8.3% to 18.3% in the past 15 years (1999-2014).

Women and Children’s Faces

 The people suffering from hunger in the Philippines are children and women. There was a minimal decrease
in the number of underweight children— from 20.7% in 2003 to 20.2% in 2011. Further, alarmingly 33.6%
of children under five years old are suffering from stunted growth in the same year, which placed the country
9th in small children's world rankings. Pregnant women in the Philippines also count amongst the people
suffering the most from hunger.
 According to the Food Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), one-fourth of the pregnant women with children
aged below five years are nutritionally at risk, while close 12% of lactating mothers are underweight.
According to a 2013 UNICEF report, the Philippines ranked 5th among the countries with low birth-weight
babies.

Food Security in the Philippines

 In the Philippines, food security has long been a problem impacted by a number of variables including
population expansion, economic hardships, and natural catastrophes. To address this issue, several
measures have been put into place, such as: Government Initiatives: In an effort to boost local food
production and lessen reliance on imports, the Philippine government has launched initiatives like the "Food
Staples Sufficiency Program".
 This involves promoting high-yielding crops, investing in agricultural infrastructure, and offering assistance
to small scale farmers. Disaster Preparedness and Resilience: Efforts are being undertaken to improve
agricultural communities’ preparedness and resilience for natural disasters like typhoons and droughts,
given the country's susceptibility to these events. Practices of Sustainable Agriculture: In order to guarantee
long-term food security, there is an increasing focus on encouraging sustainable agriculture methods.
 This involves enhancing soil fertility, protecting natural resources, and strengthening resistance to climate
change through organic farming, agroforestry, and water-saving measures.
 Nutrition Programs: Improving access to nutrient-dense foods and preventing malnutrition are prioritized
in addition to addressing food availability. This covers campaigns to educate people about nutrition, school
feeding programs, and campaigns to support breastfeeding and maternal health.
 Public-business Partnerships: Working together to address issues related to food security requires
cooperation between governmental and non-governmental groups as well as the business sector. This
includes programs like market access for smallholder farmers, value chain improvement, and infrastructure
development through public-private partnerships. Despite these efforts, challenges such as poverty,
unequal distribution of resources, and climate change continue to impact food security in the Philippines.
Continued investment in sustainable agriculture, social safety nets, and resilience-building measures is
essential to ensure food security for all Filipinos.

Potential Solutions Toward Food Security

1. Reduce food waste.
2. Improve local infrastructure.
3. Implement fair trade policies.
4. Promote consumption of locally grown food.
5. Improve crop yield with better land management.
6. Defeat climate change.
Challenges that Influence Food Security
1. Global Water Crisis
 Less clean and safe water for agriculture production which in turn means less food available,
threatening food security and nutrition.
2. Climate Change
 The frequent changes in climate patterns and remarkable increases in temperatures tend to have a
catastrophic effect on the harvested crops, supplementary land and water resources.
3. Land Degradation
 Innovation, ingenuity, and the advent of technology gave birth to a lot of proposed solutions to bridge
the widening gap between the supply and demand of food. Intensive farming modernization
processes promising high yields became the new trend for food production.
4. Greedy Land Deals
 Corporations purchase millions of acres of agricultural lands and convert them into commercial
establishments such as shopping malls, gasoline stations, and fast-food restaurants. Agrarian waste
allocated for food production is replaced with concrete structures rendering farmers powerless to
use the land for its original purpose.
5. World Population Growth
 As our world’s population increases the demand for food and other resources grows. In this situation
when there is a lack of proper food management it leads to food insecurity.
6. Food Waste
 Approximately one-third of all food produced globally for human consumption is either lost or wasted,
leading not only to food insecurity but also the loss of resources used to create tat food and
increasing pollution in landfill.