International measurement of food security: Enhancing alignment between evidence and assistance programs

• Author: John Salvatore Scicchitano
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1837
• Date: 01 August 2019
• Published date: 01 August 2019

PRACTITIONER PAPER

International measurement of food security: Enhancing

alignment between evidence and assistance programs

John Salvatore Scicchitano

State University of New York at Albany,

Albany, NY, USA

Correspondence

John Salvatore Scicchitano, State University of

New York at Albany, Albany, NY, USA.

Email: scicc@alumni.princeton.edu

A definition of food security used in developing countries by United Nations

Agencies, The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

and other international development agencies establish four dimensions of food

security: access, availability, utilization, and stability. This definition provides a

framework for a multidimensional, rigorous measure of food security across

developing countries and enables an analysis of the magnitude and severity of food

insecurity across time and space. This framework also permits an analysis of the

drivers of food insecurity that foster appropriate, cost‐effective food assistance

programs. In the developed world, food security is often defined more narrowly,

resulting in a less rigorous measurement of food security. Food security experts in

developed countries can exploit the framework applied in the developing world to

improve the measurement of food insecurity, as well as evidence‐based food

assistance programs that are informed by its measurement.

1|DEVELOPED WORLD DEFINITION AND

MEASUREMENT OF FOOD SECURITY

Developed countries tend to focus their definition of food security

on the financial ability to procure food. In Canada, a government‐

funded food security policy research center employs the following

definition: “Household food insecurity is the inadequate or insecure

access to food due to financial constraints”(PROOF Food Insecurity

Policy Research, 2017). Households are classified as marginally,

moderately, or severely food insecure according to their ability to

buy food. Similarly, food security in the United States has been

defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “assured access

to enough food for an active, healthy life”(Hamilton, 1995). It is

measured at the national level through the Current Population

Survey Food Security Supplement (Committee on National Statistics,

Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, 2005). The

Food Security Supplement questionnaire also asks of households

with incomes below 185% of the poverty line about their financial

resources to meet food needs (Table 1). These food security frame-

works focus on food access, with significantly less emphasis on the

other three dimensions.

2|DEVELOPING WORLD DEFINITION OF

FOOD SECURITY

The World Summit on Food Security states that “food security exists

when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to

sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and

food preferences for an active and healthy life”(Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations, 2008). Other multilateral and

bilateral development agencies have adopted similar definitions,

including that of USAID's global food security program, Feed the

Future (U.S. Agency for International Development, 2018). From this

definition, the four dimensions of food security are established:

availability, access, utilization, and stability.

Food availability reflects the physical presence of food through

food production and distribution. In the developing world context,

most low‐income households produce food. Households generally rely

also on food purchases to obtain sufficient quantity and quality of

food to meet dietary need. Food markets are therefore important to

food availability, because an inadequate supply in markets will impact

a household's ability to obtain necessary food. Market functioning can

be impacted by infrastructure, conflict, and trade restrictions.

Received: 8 May 2018 Accepted: 13 May 2018

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1837

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1837.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1837

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of6