food security

Food security at the individual or household level means access to enough nutritious food to sustain an active and healthy life. The Community Food Securition Coalition defines community food security as a "condition in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice," which covers six basic principles:

• Low Income Food Needs - Focusing on meeting the food needs of low income communities, reducing hunger and improving individual health.
• Broad Goals - Addressing a broad issues, such as increasing poverty and hunger, disappearing family farms, urban food deserts, rural communities, suburban sprawl, and ag- and food-related air and water pollution.
• Community focus - Building up a community's food resources to meet its own needs, through farmers' markets, gardens, community-based food processing ventures and urban farms, for example.
• Self-reliance/empowerment - Building individuals' abilities to provide for their food needs.
• Local agriculture - Building stronger ties between farmers and consumers.
• Systems-oriented - Crossing many boundaries and incorporating collaborations with multiple agencies.

Blogs that address food security include World Watch Institute and U.S. Food Policy.

by Liz Marr, MS, RD Are you a writer, passionate about this or any other topic? Join Blogcritics!

Latest blogosphere posts tagged “food security”

• Farmers market comes to the UNU

  
  OurWorld 2.0 — Authority: 117
  Farmers markets are popping up in the unlikeliest of places these days. In the heart of Tokyo’s Aoyama/Omotesando high-end fashion district, the Farmers Market at the United Nations University has grown into a regular weekend fixture. Over 40 stallholders sell fresh fruit, vegetables, plants and flowers, as well as ...
  16 hours ago

• Ensuring Food Security As Important to Britain’s Future As Energy Supply

  
  Net News Publisher — Authority: 153
  Ensuring food security is just as important to Britain’s future as energy supply, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Hilary Benn told delegates at the Oxford Farming Conference today as he unveiled the Government’s food strategy, Food 2030. Farming and food businesses contribute more than ...
  1 day ago

• Consumers a key plank in future of food security

  
  Australian Food News — Authority: 143
  Ensuring food security is just as important for the world’s future as energy supply, the UK’s Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Hilary Benn told delegates at the Oxford Farming Conference overnight as he unveiled the Government’s food strategy, Food 2030.The UK’s Food Strategy sets out ...
  1 day ago

• Solar-powered irrigation improves diet and income in rural sub-Saharan Africa

  
  Thaindian News — Authority: 731
  Washington, January 5 (ANI): A new study by Stanford University scientists has determined that solar-powered drip irrigation systems significantly enhance household incomes and nutritional intake of villagers in arid sub-Saharan Africa.The two-year study found that solar-powered pumps installed in remote villages in ...
  1 day ago

• Climate Change and Security

  
  Wednesday-Night — Authority: 135
  Chatham House Briefing Paper - Cleo Paskal : How climate change is pushing the boundaries of security and foreign policy ; More of Cleo’s publications ; International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) Climate Change and Security ; The Regional Impacts of Climate Change ; Alliance of Small ...
  2 days ago

• Searching for origins of food inflation

  
  Urbanomics — Authority: 130
  The fast rising foodgrain prices (latest year-on-uear food inflation was 19.83% ) has generated an intense debate about its origins and calls for immediate action to contain inflationary pressures. This blog has consistently argued that the increases in food prices has its roots in supply-side constraints , with ...
  3 days ago

• New Year’s Revolutions

  
  Eat Close To Home — Authority: 116
  Rob (over at One Straw: Be The Change ) had a great post last week about New Year’s Revolutions , and I am totally jumping on that bandwagon. His categories are re-localization, re-skilling, and re-building community. I might also add “reliance” to that – learning to trust your own skills to get you through. ...
  3 days ago

• Open Democracy’s retrospective and prospective look at the decade/s

  
  Larvatus Prodeo — Authority: 515
  Open Democracy has asked a range of its contributors to answer the following questions: A volcanic decade in global politics ends amid deep unease about the world’s ability to rise to key 21st-century challenges. openDemocracy writers draw breath and look ahead by reflecting on three questions: 1) What was the ...
  4 days ago

• BOLSTERED SUPPORT TO FEED WORLD’S HUNGRY BILLION (UNNews)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 138
  Read at : UNNewsUN FOOD CHIEF CALLS FOR BOLSTERED SUPPORT TO FEED WORLD’S HUNGRY BILLIONNew York, Dec 31 2009 12:05PMWith the number of chronically hungry people topping one billion for the first time in history, a coordinated effort to feed the world is crucial for the coming year, the head of the United Nations ...
  5 days ago

• "Without the ability to grow our own food…"

  
  Bokashi Blog — Authority: 106
  Without the ability to grow our own food, we leave our children and grandchildren held ransom to buy food on the world market from whatever source, of whatever quality, at whatever price. Gary Runka, First General Manager of the B.C. Agricultural Land Commission. Source [pdf] @ http://www.stopgateway.ca ...
  6 days ago

• Gambian Finance Minister Comments on Decline in Government Revenue Due to Global Crisis

  
  Net News Publisher — Authority: 153
  The Gambian Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Abdou Kolley has disclosed that the recent financial crisis exacerbated the problems associated with food security, as it has led to further decline in government revenue and reduced economic activity. Speaking at the signing ceremony of the 2.64 million euro ...
  6 days ago

• Our World 2.0 — 2009 in review

  
  OurWorld 2.0 — Authority: 117
  The year 2009 will be remembered as the year the world struggled and just about failed to seal a deal on climate change.Following the momentum built by the 2007 Bali summit and the election of Barack Obama to the United States presidency, this final year of the millennium’s first decade was billed as the year [...] ...
  6 days ago

• Technologies for food production (Google / Smarticle)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 138
  Read at : Google Alert – desertificationhttp://smarticle.co.uk/technology/climate-change-and-food/Climate Change and FoodPosted by: admin //// Some people are worried that if Climate Change occurs, that there will be increased desertification and an inability for humanity to feed itself and resulting mass ...
  6 days ago

• WORLD MAJOR EVENTS -Year in Review 2009

  
  WERI CHANNEL — Authority: 118
  United Nations 2009 – a year when arctic ice was melting faster than ever before and multiple crises -food, energy, recession or pandemic flu – called for global cooperation on an unprecedented level. At the same time, peacekeepers served in missions around the world and the fight against hunger and poverty ...
  6 days ago

• Toad Busters banned from gassing pests

  
  Ohaiyo Business Magazine — Authority: 136
  A group fighting to keep cane toads out of Western Australias Kimberley says it is being stopped from using carbon dioxide to gas the pests because bureaucrats have told them it is too cruel. Kimberley Toad Busters has labelled the Department of Environment and Conservations (DEC) refusal to sanction the use of ...
  1 week ago

• Growing Demand For Soybeans Threatens Amazon Rainforest

  
  Sustainablog — Authority: 126
  Image credit: Tiago Fioreze at Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons licenseOriginally published at Plan B UpdatesBy Lester R. BrownSome 3,000 years ago, farmers in eastern China domesticated the soybean. In 1765, the first soybeans were planted in North America. Today the soybean occupies more U.S. cropland than ...
  1 week ago

• MALI: The paradox of plenty in Mali (IRIN)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 138
  Read at : IRINhumanitarian news and analysisa project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian AffairsMALI: The paradox of plenty in Mali SIKASSO, 29 December 2009 (IRIN) – Sikasso is one of Mali’s most fertile regions, but under-five malnutrition is as high here as in the country’s barren north, ...
  1 week ago

• CPI favours consensus on formation of Telangana

  
  Thaindian News — Authority: 731
  Bangalore, Dec 30 (IANS) The Communist Party of India (CPI) has favoured formation of Telangana as a separate state but only after evolving a consensus among the people and other political parties in Andhra Pradesh.“We support Telangana as a separate state. But the process should be taken up after forging a ...
  1 week ago

• CPI calls for massive public investment in farms

  
  Thaindian News — Authority: 731
  Bangalore, Dec 30 (IANS) The Communist Party of India (CPI) has urged the central government to adopt a massive public investment programme in the agrarian sector to enhance foodgrain production and ensure food security.“The government should take steps to strengthen farm infrastructure, including irrigation and ...
  1 week ago

• Monsanto and Johnny’s Seeds

  
  Eat Close To Home — Authority: 116
  I am so ticked off that Monsanto owns such a large proportion of the world’s food supply seeds (and then “retires” them) that I want to avoid buying seeds from them at all costs. This is especially difficult now that they’ve bought Seminis, one of the largest garden seed wholesalers in the world. I know that ...
  1 week ago

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