5.1
Food Security
By: Chenshuo Li
According to the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Summit (1996), Food security is defined as “all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life”. In general, Food security is a measure of food supply and the accessibility of individuals to obtain sufficient and safe food. In the last decades, issues towards food insecurity have been raised to a high level of concern. The reasons causing food insecurity can be many, such as the influences of rapidly increased population, rising food prices, changing climate, environmental impacts, and anthropogenic factors. Recently, the moral and human rights issues of food security have become the focus of the public. The right to food was first brought forward in 1948 in the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The official adoption of the Right to Adequate Food by World Food Summit delegates in 1996 paved the way for a rights-based approach to food security (WFP, 2021). Currently, more than 40 countries have provided for the right to food in their constitution and the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nation (FAO) estimates that the rights to access to food could be legislative in 54 countries (McClain-Nhlapo, 2004). However, according to the research from FAO (2006), there are still 39 countries in the world that were suffering significant food emergencies and required external support in response to severe food insecurity: 25 in Africa and Senegal is one of the countries with critical food insecurity. The table below clearly shows the significance of human factors in stimulating crises, either directly, for example armed conflict, or through interaction with natural hazards that caused food emergencies. Table 15 Food Emergencies Dominant variable
Africa
Asia
Latin America
Human 10 3 1 Natural 8 7 1 Combined 7 1 0 Total 25 11 2 Note. Adapted from FAO GIEWS, (2015). by C.Li (2021).
Europe
Total
1 0 0 1
15 16 8 39
Food shortages are still a public health problem that plagues West Africa. In the past two decades, this has had a major impact on household food insecurity. These crises are mostly induced by armed conflict, and often exacerbated by natural disasters like floods and drought and the influence of the AIDS pandemic. These crises ultimately affect regional or even national food production and food security, resulting in a severe impact on local people (FAO, 2006). They were forced to leave their homes, unable to cultivate, isolated from agricultural markets, isolated from commercial supplies of seeds and fertilizer. Although Senegal has achieved tremendous economic growth and decades of political stability, it still faces severe development challenges. Over 1/3 of the population of Senegal lives below the poverty line, and 75% of households suffer from poverty over many years. Senegal is susceptible to food insecurity due to poor food access and low nutritional food quality (Hathie, 2017). Food insecurity is especially common in rural areas of the country. And most of the agricultural activities are dominated by subsistence agriculture in which the farms grow foods to meet the needs of themselves and their families (WFP, 2021). And there are limited chances to access high-quality seeds and fertilizers, technology, and post-harvest storage technology. Climate change is also a major
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