About Food Security

Food security exists 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.
(World Food Summit 1996)

Key components of food security :

• Production or availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food
• Access or capacity to acquire nutritionally adequate and safe food.

Facts About Food Security:

• The world produces enough food to feed everyone. However, there are countries, regions within countries, villages within regions, households within villages and individuals within households that are not able to meet their food needs.
• Food security requires an available and reliable food supply at all times.
• Individuals and households must have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food both in quantity and in quality to meet their daily dietary requirements for a healthy and productive life.
• Over 800 million human beings do not have enough to eat in a world that produces enough food to feed every man, woman and child.
• The paradox is that global food security exists alongside individual food insecurity. Vulnerable people in Canada are unable to meet their food needs without compromising other basic needs.
• Food security is a complex, multifaceted isssue that can only be fully addressed through the active cooperation of all actors including federal and provincial departments and civil society groups.
• Food Security has been interpreted broadly to include access, availability and utilization of food. It is of growing importance in the Canadian context as an access issue, whereby vulnerable individuals cannot obtain food without problems in meeting other basic needs.
• At the World Food Summit in Rome, in 1996, Canada joined 186 other nations to endorse the Summit's goal to eradicate hunger and to reduce the number of undernourished people by half, no later than 2015.
• Food security has become an issue of increasing public concern. With the recession of the 1980s the demand for food assistance rose dramatically and a massive charitable food assistance system emerged. The first Food Bank in Canada was established in 1981 in Edmonton, Alberta. Although very few statistics on the use of charitable food assistance programs exist, there is ample evidence that the number of Food Banks, collective kitchens, school-based breakfast or community-based feeding programs geared to the needy has risen sharply. Results from the HungerCount: A Surplus of Hunger survey (2000) indicated that 726,902 people, of which 40% were under 18 years of age, received emergency groceries from a food bank. The Canadian Association of Food Banks estimates that 2.4 million Canadians suffer from hunger.
• There is strong evidence of food-related health and nutritional problems in Canada, particularly in children, the aboriginal community, single mothers and the elderly. For Aboriginals, contaminants in water and traditional food supplies is a significant concern.
• There is increasing consumer awareness of and concern about food quality and safety including biotechnology, genetic engineering, chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Vulnerable Groups:

• Vulnerable groups include: single parent women, children, elderly people, aboriginals, homeless persons, unemployed people, refugees and new immigrants.

Issues Affecting Food Security:

1. Poverty
   • A primary obstacle to food security is poverty.
   • Canadians living in poverty are faced with food insecurity.
2. Access to food
   • Despite the high level of supplies of healthy food in Canada, there are disparities in access to food and in nutritional well-being. Vulnerable groups are the most affected.
   • In Canada, social safety net programs helping vulnerable persons purchase food include : Federal Employment Insurance, Old Age Security, Child Tax Benefit and the Canada Health and Social Transfer Program.
   • Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local administration, with support from federal and provincial governments help provide access to food and other supports needed by vulnerable persons.

The Canadian Response:

• At the November 1996 World Food Summit, hosted in Rome by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Canada and the international community made the commitment to reduce by half the number of hungry and undernourished no later than the year 2015.
• In response to the World Food Summit, Canada developed an Action Plan containing plans and actions to improve food security both domestically and internationally.
• Canada's Action Plan on Food Security was launched on October 16, 1998.
• A Food Security Bureau was established in February 1999.
• Canada's First Progress Report was completed in 1999.
• Canada submitted its Second Progress Report in 2002.