Lecture 10

Food Safety and
Security
Course Instructor: Munia Zain Islam
Department of Public Health
School of Health and Life Sciences
North South University
[email protected]
A Global Perspective
Around the world, more than enough food is produced to feed the global
population, but:
• 9% of the world population (around 697 million people) are severely food
insecure
• One-in-four people globally (1.9 billion people) are moderately or
severely food insecure
• From 2018 to 2019, the number of undernourished people grew by 10
million, and there are nearly 60 million more undernourished people now
than in 2014
Definition of Food Security
• Food Security
• Exists when all people at all time have physical, social and economic access to
adequate amounts of nutritious, safe and culturally appropriate foods, which
are produced in a sustainable and socially just manner, and that people can
make informed decision about their food choices that meets dietary needs and
food preferences for an active and healthy life
• People who produce our food are able to earn a decent living wage growing,
catching, producing, processing, transporting, retailing, and serving food.
Definition of Food Insecurity
• Describes a household's inability to provide enough food for every

person to live an active, healthy life
• Can also mean:
• Running out of food and not being able to buy more
• Fear of running out of food that causes anxiety and stress
• Insufficient, low-quality or unreliable food intake
• Hunger, when extreme
Food Safety and Security: A Public Health Issue
• Places a substantial burden on our society through health care and social costs
• People experiencing food insecurity often consume a nutrient-poor diet, which
may contribute to the development of obesity, heart disease, hypertension,
diabetes, and other chronic diseases
• Unsafe food consumption:
• contain harmful chemical, bacterial, viral, and parasitic contaminants contributing to various
diseases (ranging from diarrhea to cancers)
• can lead to a vicious cycle of disease, poor immunity and malnutrition especially affecting
young children, elderly, and vulnerable (e.g. sick) populations
Cyclic Patterns of Food Security
• Food safe for human consumption and balanced human diets, leading to a
reduction of food waste
• Zoonotic diseases stopped or controlled, leading to more productive
animals and more animal source foods
• Reduced use of natural resources, reduced GHG emissions per unit of
commodity, leading to minimal pollution and environmental services
protected
Food Security Access
• Access to healthy and optimal nutritious food

• Food access is linked closely to food supply
• Food security is dependent on healthy and sustainable food systems
Sustainable Food Systems
A healthy sustainable food system focuses on:

• Environmental Health
• Ensures that food production and procurement do not compromise the land, air, or water now or
for future generations
• Economic Vitality
• Ensures that the people who are producing our food are able to earn a decent living wage doing so
(ensures that producers can continue to produce our food)
• Human Health and Social Equity
• Ensures that particular importance is placed on community development and the health of the
community, making sure that healthy foods are available economically and physically to the
community and the the people are able to access these foods in a dignified manner
Four Pillars of Food Security
• The availability of food

• Access to food
• The safe and healthy utilization of food
• The stability of food availably, access and utilization
A country has food security only if enough food is available for all of the
persons, all persons have the capacity to buy food of acceptable quality and
there is no barrier to access of food.
Necessity of Food Security
• Ensure food that is inclusive of the lower socioeconomic status

• Low-wage workers (e.g. traditional artisans and service providers, RMG
workers, laborers and other self-employed ”blue collar” workers)
• Ultra poor, panhandlers and homeless persons
• Emergency situations like natural disasters and other calamities (e.g.
earthquakes, drought, flooding, etc.)
• Widespread crop failure or shortage of food supply
Food Insecurity Chain
• An event causes total productive of food to decrease

• Shortage of food in the affected areas leads to an increase in prices
• Due to the prices and/or availability, certain people cannot afford or
have access to the food
Food insecurity if often rooted in poverty and has long-term impacts on

the ability of families, communities and countries to develop
Effects of Long-Term Food Insecurity
• Starvation
• Suffering or death caused by lack of food
• When circumstances contribute to a lack of food access over a widespread area
during a longer period of time it may cause starvation among the people
• Famine
• Extreme scarcity of food caused by several factors including war, inflation, crop
failure, population imbalance, or government policies
• A massive starvation might take a turn of famine, characterized by widespread deaths,
regional malnutrition and epidemics
Hunger and Poverty
• Hunger is strongly interconnected with poverty, and it involves interactions among

an array of political, demographic, and societal factors.
• These households frequently face food insecurity, use inappropriate care practices, and live in
unsafe environments that have low access to quality water, sanitation, and hygiene, and
inadequate access or availability to health services and education
• Chronic Hunger
• Inadequate diet for a long time (e.g. poor people suffer from chronic hunger)
• Seasonal Hunger
• When access to adequate diet occurs for a particular period of time due to circumstances (e.g.
a person is unable to get work for the entire year)
Global Hunger Index (GHI)
• The multidimensional statistical tool used to describe the state of

countries’ hunger situation
• The GHI measures progress and failures in the global fight against
hunger
Food Security Indicators
Calorie supply per capita

• Amount of food available for consumption, measured in kilocalories per capita per day
• The figure is reached by dividing the total available food supply for human consumption by
the population and tracks the calories supply per capita in each country for calories available
from crop products
Receipts of food aid
• Amount of cereals designated as food aid and transferred to a country from all doners
• Cereals include wheat, barley, maize, rye, oats, millet, sorghum, rice buckwheat, alpiste/canary
seed, fonio, quinoa, triticale, wheat flour, and the cereals component of blended foods
• The figure represents cereal aid donated on a total-grant basis or on highly concessional terms
and data is usually collected from the donor countries and the World Food Programme
Threats to Global Food Security
• World population growth

• The increase demand for food
• Food price
• The disappearance of the variety of agricultural plant species
• The increase in the area of scarcity water and the limitation of the
availability of land
• The food losses and food waste
Food Security Challenges in Bangladesh
• Indiscriminate use of natural resources

• Excessive and unplanned urbanization
• Unplanned industrial growth
• Imbalanced use of agricultural inputs and extreme farming
• Population pressure
• Effect of industrial pollution
How can we have best
practices to ensure food
safety and security?
.
Key Summary Points
• Food security and safety is are key factors in determining the overall
health of communities and the people of a country.
• Food insecurity and unsafe practices directly contributes to a vicious
cycle of poverty and increased diseases among the people.
• With growing threats to food security there needs to be action taken
from social, political, and demographic perspectives.

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Food Safety and

• Describes a household's inability to provide enough food for every

• Access to healthy and optimal nutritious food

A healthy sustainable food system focuses on:

• The availability of food

• Ensure food that is inclusive of the lower socioeconomic status

• An event causes total productive of food to decrease

Food insecurity if often rooted in poverty and has long-term impacts on

• Hunger is strongly interconnected with poverty, and it involves interactions among

• The multidimensional statistical tool used to describe the state of

Calorie supply per capita

• World population growth

• Indiscriminate use of natural resources

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