What is food security?

"Food security is when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life"
- United Nations Food and Agriculture Association

Why should we care about the food system?

Food security effects us all and relates to social, political and environmental issues. Understanding the nature of food and how it is produced both traditionally and industrially helps us to take an active role in ensuring we will always have nutritious food to eat.

Here is some food for thought on food security issues

1. Food is part of our carbon footprint

The processing of food takes many forms of energy. These include:

  • the physical running of farm machinery and pesticide planes (used for fertizilizing, spraying, weeding, and harvesting)
  • the transportation of food from farms to processing plants, from plants to grocers, and from grocers to your home
  • the running of machinery at processing plants
  • the creation of packaging for foods (plastic bags, containers, cans, bottles)
  • the transportation that packaging from a production plant to a food processing plant
  • the creation and distribution of pesticides
  • the creation and distribution of chemical fertilizers
  • the storage of certain foods (refridgerated and frozen items)

    • The energy used in each of the above listed stops in the food creation plant increases as:

  • a food is more highly processed - including more ingrediants, from more places, and more energy to produce it (and likely more packaging)
  • the food comes from a more distant place.

    • No amount of no-emission biking to work can cancel out dinners traveling to your table from Brazil.

    2. The supply and distribution system is based on the premise of cheap oil

    As you see above, much of the food system involves processing and distributing foods. Often, this is across large expaneses of land - such as Bananas from Jamaica, Grapes from Chili, and Mangos from Southeast Asia.

    One study has estimated that food destined for Toronto traveled an average of 3,333 miles or 5,364 km. That's roughly the distance of a road trip across Canada, starting at Vancouver and stopping at ever major city along the way, even Edmonton and Saskatoon - and still nearly making it to St. John's!

    Keep in mind, that's the average distance traveled. Meaning a lot of food comes from a lot farther away.

    But why do we care that our food gets to see more of the world than we do?

  • While oil is cheap now, prices may rise and raise havoc on our current food distribution system, leaving many people without the ability to access food due to financial constraints
  • Oil is a finite resource, and will eventually run out (predictions say sooner rather than later). This will leave people who depend on long-distance food with no way to transport food to their cities.

    • In order to address these issues cities around the world are adopting urban agricultural practices and attempting to save what agricultural land they have left - to ensure food can be produced nearby.

    3. The status quo threatens biodiversity

    Industrial production threatens biodiversity in a few key ways

  • by selecting to grow certain foods over others and covering large expanses of land with them (thereby disallowing other plants to grow in that area)
  • by spraying pesticides which kill bugs regardless of whether they are dangerous to crops
  • through the threat of increase of the use of genetically modified organisms

    • Types of food that grow the fastest, are easiest to harvest, and travel the best is preferred by food companies. The result is that we are increasingly losing diversity within foods (how often do you see purple cauliflour?).

    Loss of diversity is a problem because it weakens the food system. For example, if all we grow is one type of corn, and that corn becomes suseptible to a disease, we lose all the food. In a field with diverse crops, by contrast, one type of food may be affected by the disease while other crops survive.

    4. Public health is a concern, as the processes of the industrial production of food is not held up to scrutiny and is difficult to hold accountable

    5. The existing food system may be efficient on a short-term market standpoint, but it is extremely inefficient on an environmental and social health standpoint

    6. The food system is strongly linked to global hunger

    Food prices are determined on a global level, but labour wages are determined on local demand and supply. Many developing countries with open markets have many people subjected to an unfair pricing system, the result of which is a mismatch in people? salary and how much food they can purchase, they can work very hard and have a good local salary, but be ultimately unable to adequately feed their families.

    This globalized food system can have a negative effect on food security by discouraging developing countries with open international markets from developing their own local agriculture. Arable land is often used for the production of 'cash crops' like cotton or expensive fruits. This was even the case during the Irish Potato Famine, where despite the intensity of need for food, grain grown in Ireland were being shipped to England where people had the money to pay for it.

    For more on how the food system is linked to global hunger, visit the Oxfam International website.


    A traditional food system

    Traditional food systems are light on resources and therefore have little or no negative environmental impact. These are reflected in organic agriculture, backyard and rooftop gardening, and community gardens. It is a system in which you know exactly where your food came with, how it was prepared and by whom, and where the waste goes.

    An industrial food system

    The industrial food system has developed primarily over the last 100 years. In this system, the food you eat is likely grown thousands of miles from where you eat it - perhaps they are grapes grown in chili, pineapple from jamaica, or soy from brazil. Sometimes, even if a food is grown in Canada or the US it will travel hundreds of miles from where it is grown to where it is processed. It is pre cut, bagged, and 'value added' (made microwavable, quick-fixable, or eatable with one hand while in the car). The processing puts many foods together and often involves adding preservatives, extra sugars or extra salts (twinkies, anyone?).