OPINION - Food security and sovereignty: the words of hunger

When the media or the general public take up issues related to hunger and food security, shortcuts are very common. One might be too quick to believe that the entire global food situation is due to the ability of a few countries—Russia and Ukraine, for example—to be able to export. Moderation and caution are essential, and time for reflection and analysis is needed. It is necessary to place events and issues in the long term while explaining the meaning of words. This includes expressions used very often, without anyone really agreeing on their meaning: food security and food sovereignty.

Food security and food sovereignty are two concepts that must be differentiated. Broadly speaking, food security is a state of affairs—having enough quality food—and food sovereignty questions the means to achieve it, and more specifically the policies (agricultural, commercial, social, etc.) implemented. The current debate shows one thing: these two concepts, and the fear of scarcity they underlie, are global and are no longer, in popular perceptions, the preserve of so-called developing countries. Will we experience scarcity tomorrow? One thing is certain: the spectre of hunger is far from having disappeared. It is highly unlikely that the "zero hunger" objective will be achieved by 2030. As in 2015, there will still be 8,100,000 of the world's population who go to sleep hungry every night.

The FARM Foundation has decided to publish a complete article to clarify and better understand these terms and the issues they underlie.

Matthieu Brun, Scientific Director of the FARM Foundation