5.1 Food Security

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 Europe Total

Human Natural 10 8

Combined 7 3 7 1 1 1 0

Total 25 11

2 Note. Adapted from FAO GIEWS, (2015). by C.Li (2021). 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

factor that relevant to the food insecurity in Senegal because 70% of crops rely on rainfall for water (WFP, 2021), and it is extremely vulnerable to shocks associated with climate change, Senegal is expected to be frequently affected by climate changes and fluctuations such as hotter and drier conditions, oscillations in precipitation patterns, extreme events such as floods and droughts, as well as slow-onset and incremental environmental changes such as land degradation and desertification (Hummel, 2016) which severely affects food supply and prices.

According to Hathie et al. research (2019), Senegal’s prevalence of malnutrition is 17.6% and the malnutrition prevalence of the West African Economic Community of West Africa, which consists of 15 countries, is 15%. In the case of Senegal, the quality of the diet is considered the main factor in food insecurity and undernourishment prevalence in the country. Also, Diouf’s research (2015) shows that the women's anemia in Senegal resulting from Malnutrition is 79%, which results in Senegal becoming on the top 10 developing countries for anemia prevalence.

Due to the lack of employment opportunities in agriculture, people tend to leave the rural areas and emigrate to the urban areas, so those left (women and children and the elderly) in the rural areas are subjected to food insecurity. In Senegal, Women and youth of farming households have limited knowledge of climate-smart agriculture and irrigation practices and limited access to improved inputs, technology, and land. The objective is to improve access to irrigation, training in agricultural research, learning diet and nutrition, and development activities for the local communities through farming activities, thereby improving the lives and livelihoods of the local population.