Exploring definitions of food insecurity and vulnerability: time to refocus assessments
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2009
TITLE AUTHOR(S): T.G.B.Hart
KEYWORDS: FOOD PRICES, FOOD SECURITY, POVERTY
Intranet: HSRC Library: shelf number 6183
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/4424
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/4424
If you would like to obtain a copy of this Research Output, please contact Hanlie Baudin at researchoutputs@hsrc.ac.za.
Abstract
Recent high food prices and changes in the world food situation are exacerbating the conditions of households that are vulnerable to food insecurity, especially those with weak livelihood strategies. To address the impact of these and other stressors it is necessary to develop a deeper understanding of concepts such as 'vulnerability' and 'food insecurity'. This is challenging as both concepts are used rather loosely in the food security literature, despite both having at least two dimensions. Vulnerability has an external and internal dimension, and food insecurity has a temporal and intensity dimension. However, assessments are often only concerned with one dimension at a time. An exploration of the two concepts suggests that in both cases the dimensions need to be combined in order to understand the different interactions and the interconnections between different dimensions and the multiple levels of the systems in which they are embedded. This combination of dimensions is important for understanding the significant role that livelihoods play in the accumulation of assets and for accessing food. It makes the understanding of the multiple causes and consequences of vulnerability and food insecurity for different households clearer. Those households and individuals considered chronically poor or food-insecure are likely to experience severe food insecurity in the long-term, as a result of their weak livelihoods and minimal assets. Consequently, future studies on vulnerability to food insecurity should focus on these chronically food insecure households in order to determine the multidimensional nature of the stressors they experience and their ability to cope and adapt to these stressors. This would contribute to our understanding of the contexts in which the data from larger quantitative studies are embedded.-
Related Research Outputs:
- The cost of a healthy diet: a South African perspective
- Protect food insecure households against rapid food price inflation
- Protecting food insecure households against rapid food price inflation
- Agro-food market policy and food security in South Africa
- Food security in southern Africa: causes and responses from the region
- What do we know about food insecurity measurement compared to poverty in South Africa?
- Food insecurity and vulnerability information and mapping system (FIVIMS-ZA)
- Poverty in South Africa: extent of access to food and income
- Downstream social monitoring study: nutrition, food security and selected public health issues in IFR reaches: IFR 1, IFR 2, IFR 3, IFR 7 and IFR 9. Volume III
- Draft protocol for social monitoring in the downstream areas of the LHWP: use of riverine resources by individuals and households; income and standards of living of households; nutritional and food security indicators; selected public health indicators
- Measures to increase food production and mitigating against increased food prices: the Malawi case study
- Household food security status in South Africa
- Exploring Statistics South Africa's national household surveys as sources of information about household-level food security
- The status of household food security targets in South Africa
- Boosting smallholder production for food security: some approaches and evidence from studies in sub-Saharan Africa
- The contribution of subsistence farming to food security in South Africa
- Should subsistence agriculture be supported as a strategy to address rural food insecurity?
- Food security in South Africa
- Adult starvation and disease-related malnutrition: a proposal for etiology-based diagnosis in the clinical practice setting from the International Consensus Guideline Committee
- Identifying a target for food security in South Africa