What is Food Security?

Food security is an important issue involving land-use planning, community development, ecological conservation and socio-economic sustainability.

The Salt Spring Island Food Security Project Steering Committee developed a draft definition of Salt Spring Island Food Security:

Food security exists when all individuals have access to adequate, nutritious food regardless of their income and their abilities. In a food secure community, most of the food is grown, processed and distributed on a local and regional basis. Food production and distribution is conducted in a manner that is environmentally and economically sustainable and local food access and production are an integral part of governance decisions affecting the community.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines food security as:

 a condition in which all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

The Centre for Studies in Food Security at Ryerson University further outlines the components of food security as:

Availability: sufficient food for all people at all times
Accessibility: physical and economic access to food for all at all times
Adequacy: access to food that is nutritious and safe, and produced in environmentally sustainable ways
Acceptability: access to culturally acceptable food, which is produced and obtained in ways that do not compromise people’s dignity, self-respect or human rights. 
Agency: the policies and processes that enable the achievement of food security.

Food is a growing dimension of urban and rural policy and its inclusion into policy frameworks has resulted in municipal food charters, food policy councils and pragmatic actions aimed at creating on-the-ground change in our daily lives.  In the current context of climate change, food security takes on renewed importance as food production can result in both carbon emissions and carbon sequestration. It is all about good choices.