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”

• Schoolchildren, let them eat snail: Nutritional Giant Snails Could Address Malnutrition (Science Daily / Inderscience Publishers)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 149
  Read at : Science Dailyhttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091119101207.htmLet Them Eat Snail: Nutritional Giant Snails Could Address MalnutritionScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2009) — A nutritionist in Nigeria says that malnutrition and iron deficiency in schoolchildren could be reduced in her country by baking up ...
  12 hours ago

• “The hungry cannot wait” (ENB / IISD)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 149
  Read at :World Summit on Food Security Bulletin· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·A Daily Report from the World Summit [...]
  18 hours ago

• Food : How to store and sell more stuff (The Economist)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 149
  Read at : The Economisthttp://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14926122Food marketsHow to store and sell more stuffNov 19th 2009From The Economist print editionPoor places need more than seeds, fertiliser or even food scienceIF FOOD aid is epitomised by a single image, it is that of neat ...
  18 hours ago

• Displaced Zimbabwean Farmers Set Down Roots in Nigeria

  
  Circle of Blue | WaterNews — Authority: 534
  Importing technical knowledge from Zimbabwean migrants is part of the Nigerian government’s plan to increase food self-sufficiency. The Nigerian government is inviting foreign farmers and giving them 1,000 hectares of land with 25-year leases in the agricultural hub of Shonga in order to improve food production, ...
  22 hours ago

• World Food Summit Wraps

  
  ONE — Authority: 535
  Wednesday wrapped up the World Summit on Food Security in Rome. Just to recap in case you missed the last post, the Summit was intended to bring together heads of state and food security institutions, like the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP), to further the global agenda on ...
  1 day ago

• US should be ‘more liberal’ in transferring technologies: Manmohan Singh (Lead)

  
  Thaindian News — Authority: 710
  By Arun KumarWashington, Nov 20 (IANS) Ahead of his upcoming summit with President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed the hope that the the US will be “more liberal” in transferring technologies to India to make their landmark civil nuclear fully operational.“We have a landmark agreement ...
  1 day ago

• Next Briefing on food crisis and food insecurity

  
  euforic blog — Authority: 107
  The next Brussels Development Briefing will be held on 9th December and will discuss “From Global Food Crisis to Local Food Insecurity” in the context of the new EC policy on Food security to be released. The Briefing will be looking at the domino effects of increased speculation in food markets (How has the ...
  1 day ago

• If words were food, nobody would go hungry (The Economist)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 149
  Read at : The Economisthttp://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14926114Feeding the worldIf words were food, nobody would go hungryNov 19th 2009 | ROMEFrom The Economist print editionInvestment in agriculture is soaring. So, worryingly, is distrust of markets and trade“THE world’s ...
  1 day ago

• How to feed the world (The Economist)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 149
  Read at : The Economisthttp://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=14915144Food and agricultureHow to feed the worldNov 19th 2009From The Economist print editionBusiness as usual will not do itIN 1974 Henry Kissinger, then America’s secretary of state, told the first world food conference in Rome that no ...
  1 day ago

• Fill a hungry belly this Thanksgiving (Friends of the WFP)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 149
  Read at : Friends of the World Food Program <info@friendsofwfp.org>Fill a hungry belly this ThanksgivingThis year has been difficult for many Americans. Job losses and the economic recession have pressed families to tighten budgets, postpone vacations and cut back on leisure activities. Those hit the hardest ...
  1 day ago

• About the UN Food Summit (Helena, Newsy)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 149
  Message received :“Dear Mr. Willem Van Cotthem,I recently read your post about the UN Food Summit ending without settingspecific targets to end world hunger on Desertification. I think you willfind the following video relevant to your post:http://www.newsy.com/videos/empty_plates_at_the_un_world_food_summitThe video ...
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• 15% of Americans have trouble putting food on table

  
  Survival News Network — Authority: 145
  The number of Americans that have trouble putting food on the table shot up last year in an unprecedented spike to a record 17 million households, the government reported on Monday.The Department of Agriculture report, which has been released annually since 1995, said the number of Americans that were hungry rose to ...
  1 day ago

• Reactions in the News to the World Food Summit

  
  ONE — Authority: 535
  As you know, the FAO World Food Summit ended yesterday in Rome. Check out the articles below to see a variety of reactions to the Summit: World leaders’ low turnout hits UN food summit (Reuters Africa)The absence of world leaders at this week’s World Food Summit presented a challenge from the start. The Summit’s ...
  2 days ago

• Food Security summit sees increased commitment to boost food supplies

  
  Australian Food News — Authority: 513
  The three-day World Summit on Food Security ended on Wednesday after the international community committed to invest more in agriculture.Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf, who hosted the event, said the Summit marked “an important step towards the achievement of our common ...
  2 days ago

• “I lived hunger. I suffered it.”

  
  ONE — Authority: 535
  Earlier this week, I had the chance to talk with Thomas Awiapo, a Ghanaian from the country’s Upper East Region and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) staff member. As a child in Ghana, Thomas was a beneficiary of CRS school feeding programs. Now, as an adult, he works for CRS Ghana and travels to the U.S. [...]
  2 days ago

• Food Security Summit Calls for National Governments to Act Now

  
  Circle of Blue | WaterNews — Authority: 534
  Only national solutions can solve food security problems, UN director says. The World Summit on Food Security was a forum for raising awareness and encouraging international action, said Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, at the end of the event. “The ...
  2 days ago

• 9th December 2009 – “From Global Food Crisis to Local Food Insecurity”

  
  Brussels Development Briefings — Authority: 104
  CTA in partnership with the European Commission-DG Development and EuropeAid, the EU Presidency, the ACP Secretariat, Euforic, IPS Europe and Concord organizes bimonthly Development Briefings in Brussels to raise awareness on key rural development issues with the development community based in Brussels. The next ...
  2 days ago

• Food for thought in thinking about food: 2009 World Summit on Food Security

  
  OurWorld 2.0 — Authority: 412
  On November 13, 2009, Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General, Jacques Diouf, embarked on a 24-hour public hunger strike, in the lead up to this week’s World Summit on Food Security in Rome.Diouf’s call for action to end the scourge of hunger comes on the heels of July’s G8 summit in Aquila, Italy, ...
  2 days ago

• SPAIN DOUBLES AID FOR UN FOOD OPERATION IN HORN OF AFRICA (UNNews)

  
  Desertification — Authority: 149
  Read at : UNNewsSPAIN DOUBLES AID FOR UN FOOD OPERATION IN HORN OF AFRICANew York, Nov 19 2009 10:05AMThe United Nations World Food Programme (<”http://www.wfp.org/”>WFP) received a boost today for its emergency relief efforts feeding millions of hungry people in the Horn of Africa, with the announcement of ...
  2 days ago

• One billion hungry people waiting for action on food security

  
  GenevaLunch — Authority: 495
  The world food security conference in Rome, Italy closed 18 November with promises to invest more in agriculture and “to eradicate hunger at the earliest date”, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), which hosted the three-day event. FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf expressed his ...
  2 days ago

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