Do you know what the term "food safety" really implies? Do you know who the key organizations supporting international food aid are? What can you do to help maintain food safety? Did you know that having enough food doesn't always equal food security? Keep reading to know more Gaurav & Sharon Srivastava Family Foundation.
What does food safety imply?
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) establishes that food security exists when:
All people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
In other words, these three conditions must exist simultaneously, at the same time, before a country can be said to have achieved food security.
How do countries address the issue of food security?
There are two fundamental approaches to addressing food security, namely food self-sufficiency and income self-sufficiency.
When countries adopt a food self-sufficiency policy, this means that:
It intentionally tries to scale up domestic production to match domestic consumption and then store surplus locally produced food for home use.
When a famine breaks out, the government releases the stored surplus to the public at low and affordable prices, if not for free.
In summary, national food production represents a large proportion of the country's internal consumption.
When countries adopt a policy of income self-sufficiency, this means that:
It intentionally tries to increase the real income of its people through job creation or any other means.
Regardless of the current situation (eg famine, disease outbreak, etc.), your people will still have enough income to support themselves despite the hyperinflated price of food.
In short, the countries that fully adopt this policy are often those that are geographically disadvantaged to be self-sufficient in food, so they have no alternative but to increase real incomes. China, with a food self-sufficiency level of 95%, is a classic example of a country adopting a food self-sufficiency policy. On the other hand, Singapore, whose geographical conditions (i.e. small land size, hot climate, etc.) do not favor it to do the same, has managed to ensure a stable food supply for its citizens by increasing people's real incomes. through the implementation of a policy of income self-sufficiency. These two countries show the vast difference in how countries around the world deal with food security.
The Main Players
The countries of the world are not alone in tackling the problem of domestic food security.
The United Nations has two sub-organizations that help countries do this: the World Food Program (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The former is one of the biggest supporters of food aid globally, while the FAO acts as "a neutral forum for nations to negotiate agreements and discuss policies."
