Food Security and Sustainability: Discussing the Four Pillars to Encompass Other Dimensions

The unadjusted intake of food constitutes a real challenge for the several sustainability dimensions. In this perspective, the main objectives of this research are to characterise the current contexts of food security, its relationship with sustainability, and identify proposals and actions that may...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Foods 2021-11, Vol.10 (11), p.2732
Main Authors: Guiné, Raquel de Pinho Ferreira, Pato, Maria Lúcia de Jesus, Costa, Cristina Amaro da, Costa, Daniela de Vasconcelos Teixeira Aguiar da, Silva, Paulo Barracosa Correia da, Martinho, Vítor João Pereira Domingues
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agribusiness
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Availability
Climate change
factor-cluster analyses
FAOSTAT information
Farming
Food availability
Food intake
Food science
Food security
Food supply
Food waste
International organizations
International policy
Literature reviews
Longitudinal studies
Malnutrition
Nutrients
Nutrition
Pandemics
panel data approaches
Policies
Political factors
quantile regressions
Stability
Supply chains
Sustainability
Sustainable development
Undernutrition
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The unadjusted intake of food constitutes a real challenge for the several sustainability dimensions. In this perspective, the main objectives of this research are to characterise the current contexts of food security, its relationship with sustainability, and identify proposals and actions that may support the design of more adjusted policies in the future. In addition, it is intended to assess if the food security pillars properly address the sustainability goals and if the evolution of undernutrition is accompanied by sustainable frameworks. In this way, statistical information from the FAOSTAT database was considered for the several dimensions of food security over the period 2000-2020. These data were analysed through factor-cluster approaches and panel data methodologies, namely those related to quantile regressions. As main insights, we may refer that undernutrition is more impacted by the availability of food and nutrients and political stability than by the level of GDP-Gross Domestic Product (except for the extreme cases). This means that the level of development is not the primary explanation for the problems of nutrition. The main focus of the national and international policies must be to improve the agrifood supply chains and to support political stability, in order to mitigate undernutrition worldwide and ensure a global access to sustainable and healthy diets. In addition, it is suggested to rethink the four pillars of food security (availability, access, utilisation and stability), in order to encompass other dimensions, such as climate change.
ISSN:2304-8158
2304-8158
DOI:10.3390/foods10112732