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”

• Genome sequence. Cassava. “… cassava is used for industrial starch production, and has potential as a biofuel source, there are commercial applications of these breeding tools.”

  
  Biotech — Authority: 131
  Steve Rounsley, Associate Professor in the School of Plant Sciences from the University of Arizona has said:“With the first cassava genome in hand, we can cheaply and quickly sequence other varieties that will give us thousands of little signposts – mile markers if you like – that will help us identify key genes ...
  5 hours ago

• White House Taps Former Gates Foundation Executive for Foreign Aid Chief

  
  American Conservative Daily — Authority: 501
  President Obama has chosen Rajiv Shah, a medical doctor and currently a senior official at the Agriculture Department dealing with food security, to run the U.S. Agency for International Development.
  16 hours ago

• Food security: Feeling insecure?

  
  Gideon Rachman's Blog — Authority: 540
  By Alan Beattie, the FT’s world trade editor “Food security”: one of those infinitely malleable concepts, now to be defined at a UN summit next week. Does it mean self-sufficiency? No, say companies that make lots of money shipping food. Yes, up to a point, say governments with truculent subsidy-guzzling ...
  19 hours ago

• UAE to fund dam in Burkina Faso

  
  Thaindian News — Authority: 715
  Abu Dhabi, Nov 10 (IANS) The United Arab Emirates (UAE) would finance the construction of a dam in Burkina Faso in west Africa, WAM news agency reported Tuesday.The loan agreement was signed at the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) headquarters in Abu Dhabi by Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, acting director general of ...
  20 hours ago

• 11 African Countries Sign CAADP Compacts

  
  Net News Publisher — Authority: 155
  In spite of the involvement of African countries in the establishment of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) to promote agriculture and reduce poverty, only 11 countries have signed the CAADP Compacts. The countries mostly members of the Economic Community of West African States ...
  1 day ago

• Escudero Cites The Weakness Of RP Agriculture And The Needed Reforms

  
  At Midfield — Authority: 131
  Opposition Sen. Chiz Escudero says the inability of government to ensure food security, particularly in rice, speaks volumes of its current policy on agriculture where almost 40 percent of the country’s estimated labor force of 36 million is engaged. Escudero told At Midfield that “only last month, the ...
  1 day ago

• Climate change will increase food insecurity

  
  Friends of the World Food Program: Uniting to End Hunger — Authority: 131
  Imagine the year 2050. Wheat prices have increased by over90 percent , child undernutrition has increased by 20 percent and crop yieldscontinue to decrease due to lack of water. These are just some of the ominouspredictions from a newstudy   that finds climate changecould have negative consequences for ...
  1 day ago

• Growing food (Springer)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 148
  Interesting book on food production :Growing FoodA Guide to Food ProductionPublisherSpringer NetherlandsDOI10.1007/978-1-4020-4975-0Copyright2006ISBN978-1-4020-4827-2 (Print) 978-1-4020-4975-0 (Online)Subject CollectionBiomedical and Life SciencesSubjectLife Sciences, Food Science, Nutrition, Plant Ecology, Plant ...
  1 day ago

• The baobab as a source of food (Springer)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 148
  Interesting publication :Chemical and Nutrient Analysis of Baobab (Adansonia digitata) Fruit and Seed Protein SolubilityJournalPlant Foods for Human Nutrition (Formerly Qualitas Plantarum)PublisherSpringer NetherlandsISSN0921-9668 (Print) 1573-9104 (Online)IssueVolume 59, Number 1 / January, ...
  1 day ago

• UAE to support dam project in Burkina Faso

  
  Thaindian News — Authority: 715
  Abu Dhabi, Nov 9 (IANS) The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will give about $9 million loan for a dam project in Burkina Faso in West Africa, WAM news agency reported Monday.Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, director general of Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), and Omar Diawara, Burkina Faso’s envoy to Saudi Arabia, have ...
  1 day ago

• East Timor : “Seeds of Life” – a successful seed-relief program (CGIAR)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 148
  Read at : CGIARhttp://www.cgiar.org/monthlystory/november2009.htmlStory of the Month: November 2009archiveA Microcosm of Global Food Security As government leaders gather for the World Food Summit in Rome during November, they would do well to consider the case of East Timor – viewing it as an instructive microcosm ...
  1 day ago

• African Agriculture Development Meeting Opens in Abuja

  
  Net News Publisher — Authority: 155
  The 5th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Partnership Platform Meeting opened on Monday in Abuja with more than 50 African countries and donor agencies in attendance. The meeting is being held in preparation of the three-day World Summit on Food Security in Rome (16-18 November) where ...
  1 day ago

• New approaches to malnutrition : Fortified flour and chewing gum (IRIN)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 148
  Read at : IRINGLOBAL : Fortified flour and chewing gum – new approaches to malnutrition NAIROBI, 9 November 2009 (IRIN) – Some of the most widespread forms of malnutrition can best be reduced by delivering micronutrients and fortifying food in new, cost-effective ways, in combination with community outreach work, ...
  1 day ago

• Water in agriculture and food, and of networks and genes

  
  Professor Douglas Kell's blog — Authority: 108
  One of last week’s meetings (that we co-sponsored) was an all-day discussion at the RAC Club on the future of agriculture and food production, organised and skilfully facilitated by Sir Ben Gill and entitled From a Land of Plenty to a Land of Uncertainty . Sub-themes were (i) the competing demands for land ...
  2 days ago

• Hear the good news from Rome (Willem Van Cotthem)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 148
  For many years scientists-members of the CST (Committee on Science and Technology) of the UNCCD (UN Convention to Combat Desertification) have been asking for strong UN-decisions to apply well-known success stories and best practices to mitigate drought, to combat desertification and to alleviate poverty.Repeatedly ...
  2 days ago

• Heart of Dryness: Climate Change Coping Strategies

  
  Circle of Blue | WaterNews — Authority: 501
  By James G. Workman Special to Circle of Blue Copyright 2009 Walker & Company, Excerpt from Heart of Dryness Circle of Blue’s “Water + Climate: Words” highlights literary investigations of water and climate intersections. As politicians debate the line-by-line contents of a global climate change ...
  3 days ago

• Philippines to import rice early next year

  
  PinoyBusiness.ORG - Home — Authority: 135
  To cover the shortage of rice which was caused by the recent string of typhoons that hit the country, the Philippine government has decided to import rice. Two companies, Daewoo International Corp. of South Korea, and Vietnam Southern Food Corp. (Vinafood) of Vietnam, have offered the lowest bids for 275,500 tons ...
  3 days ago

• YouTube video sinks Turnbull minder

  
  Ohaiyo Business Magazine — Authority: 431
  A media minder for Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has reportedly quit his job after being linked to an online bout of Liberal factional warfare. The video parodies Liberal MP Alex Hawke by portraying him as an enraged Adolf Hitler, echoing a YouTube trend of dubbing Hitler biopic Downfall with fake ...
  3 days ago

• Food insecurity and dependence on relief agencies (Africa54)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 148
  Read at : Africa54http://www.africa54.com/projects.htmFood insecurity and dependence on relief agenciesFamine is the order of the day in Konza. Rainfall is scarce making traditional agriculture an insecure source of food and income. No cash crops are grown in Konza and there are no other sources of income. Many people ...
  3 days ago

• Vegetarians Rebuttal to The Carnivores Dilemma

  
  TreeHugger — Authority: 721
  Eat Me. You might possibly, perhaps be doing something good for the environment. Credit: Ethicurean Last weeks NY Times featured an op-ed entitled " The Carnivores Dilemma "--an ostensibly enlightened response to the chorus of voices promulgating a vegetarian diet as a way to significantly reduce ones emission ...
  4 days ago

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