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COMCEC Agriculture Outlook 2018

42

3.4.

Stability

The definition of food security stresses the time spatial extent of food security by stating “when

all people,

at all times

, have physical, social and economic access to safe and nutritious food …

for an active and healthy life”. In this definition,

at all times

refer to the stability aspect by

covering the availability, access and utilization dimension of food security on a periodic basis.

Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of having to reduce the risk of adverse effects on the

other three dimensions, namely availability, access and utilization. Therefore, these three

dimensions should be stable over time and not be affected negatively by natural (drought,

floods), social (unemployment), economic, (rising food prices) or political factors (social

unrest).

Accordingly, FAO describes the stability dimension of food security such that a population,

household or individual must have acquire to adequate food

at all times

without any risk losing

access to food as a consequence of sudden shocks (e.g. an economic or climatic crisis) or cyclical

events (e.g. seasonal food insecurity).

17

In the FAO study of food security indicators, the access dimension of food security is measured

by various indicators such as cereal import dependency ratio, percent of arable land equipped

for irrigation, value of food imports over total merchandise exports, political stability and

absence of violence/terrorism, domestic food price volatility, per capita food production

variability, per capita food supply variability. In this study, among these indicators, per capita

food supply variability which compares the variations of per capita food supply across countries

and time is seen as the most useful indicator to assess the stability dimension of food security in

the OIC member countries.

Figure 37: Per Capita Food Supply Variability, kcal/capita/day

Source: Annex 41

17

FAO, 2006

32

30

23

23

4

13

10

7

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

2000

2005

2010

2013

OIC

World