7 Food Security Factors

7 Food Security Factors

Food security refers to the access, by all people at all times, to adequate, safe and nutritious food for a healthy and productive life. Food security influenced by the following factors:

1 - Exponential growth of the human population

• The world’s population is growing at an exponential rate (very rapidly) and as a result some countries cannot produce enough food to feed their growing population. Food production needs to increase as rapidly as the world population; otherwise many countries will experience food insecurity.

2 - Droughts and floods

• Climate change has led to more frequent and severe droughts and floods. Droughts result in crop losses and livestock death which reduce the food available in an area. Floods cause extensive damage in a short period of time and decrease the amount of farmland available to grow crops. People also usually lose their homes, possessions and economic security during floods, further impacting on food security.

3 - Poor farming practices – monoculture, pest control, loss of topsoil and the need for fertilizers

• Monoculture is the growing of one type of crop over large areas of land year after year. Monoculture depletes nutrients and water supplies and therefore impacts negatively on the quality of the topsoil.

• Pest control involves the use of pesticides (chemicals) to kill pests that compete with humans for food. Pesticides may kill or get into the tissues of healthy plants. This may reduce crop production and, since pesticides are expensive, increase the cost of food and thus reduce access to poor consumers. Many farmers now use biological control, which uses a natural predator/parasite to get rid of the pest instead of using expensive pesticides.

• Topsoil is the top 1.5 metres of soil that contain the nutrients that plants require for growth. The tilling of the soil between plantings and heavy rainfall cause much of the topsoil to be lost, leading to the loss of valuable nutrients over time, reducing crop yields.

• The use of fertilizers, both inorganic (chemical) and organic (compost and manure) can increase the nutrients in the soil and keep soil fertile. This replaces nutrients in the soil that are lost when crop plants absorb them. Fertilizers can be expensive, contributing to the high cost of food, thus reducing access to poor consumers.

4 - Alien plants and reduction of agricultural land

• Alien plants deplete the topsoil of water and nutrients. These alien plants out-compete indigenous plants because they have no natural predators, grow rapidly and invade land that could be used to grow crops.

5 - The loss of wild varieties and the impact on gene pools

• Crop plants have replaced wild varieties. The preservation of wild varieties is important because, if changing environmental conditions destroy the present crop plants, then wild varieties could be used as alternative sources of food. If wild varieties are wiped out, it will reduce the genetic diversity and thus the gene pool.

6 - Genetically engineered food

• Genetically engineered food is produced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Genetic engineering involves the inserting of a gene (with a desired characteristic) from one organism into another organism to increase the yield. For example, a gene for drought resistance could be inserted into a crop plant that grows in areas where water is scarce.

7 - Food wastage

• Wastage could occur during the storage, production and processing of food. Wastage includes food thrown away and food not eaten. Wastage increases the prices of food to consumers and could reduce food security in a country.