Food Security

Food security, as defined by the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security, is the condition in which all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Over the coming decades, a changing climate, growing global population, rising food prices, and environmental stressors will have significant yet highly uncertain impacts on food security. 

Adaptation strategies and policy responses to global change, including options for handling water allocation, land use patterns, food trade, post-harvest food processing, and food prices and safety are urgently needed. These policy responses will be vital to improve the living conditions of farmers and rural populations across the globe.

Economic growth is only sustainable if all countries have food security. Without country-owned and country-driven food security strategies, there will be obstacles and additional costs to global, regional, and country-level economic growth. Food security needs to encompass women and other vulnerable and disadvantages groups. 

IFPRI’s work on food security includes topics such as cash transfers, agricultural technologies, and other such means of building resiliency to shocks. One central theme in IFPRI research is the need to understand and manage tradeoffs in the realm of food security, such as balancing the nutritional benefits of meat against the ecological costs of its production.