About this Research Topic

Background

Food security satisfies people’s dietary needs by ensuring physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. Nowadays, food security is of prime importance; because not only does it overcomes hunger, poverty and malnutrition, but it also determines the national security and political and economic sovereignty of states. However, according to the FAO report (2021), 2.37 billion people (nearly one in three people) in the world did not have adequate food availability in 2020.

The green revolution created an era of extraordinary food production worldwide, but agriculture-oriented developing countries face adverse impacts such as loss of ecosystem quality and biodiversity and environmental degradation. Besides, several challenges such as population growth, pollution, natural resource depletion, agricultural land conversions and climate change are further developing concerns in achieving food security.

It necessitates a second green revolution that involves ideas of sustainability and innovative technologies. Even though food security and sustainability are different scientific disciplines, their concepts are alike; because food security involves food availability, accessibility, utilization and stability that pinpoints their goal to meet the requirement of future generations sustainably.

Sustainability assesses the robustness of the food production system over time by improving agricultural productivity, ensuring a sustainable natural resource base and provisioning ecosystem services. Researchers are emerging with innovative findings for combining sustainability in agriculture, forestry and other food production systems. Policy-level initiatives, urban agriculture, sustainable agriculture and agroforestry are some of the arising research fields. In such a scenario, the United Nations Food Systems Summit was held on 23 September 2021 and aimed to transform global food systems as contributors to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, especially SDGs 2 (zero hunger) and 12 (responsible consumption and production). The summit aligned and empowered stakeholders and recognized the urgency for food system transformation with technological advances.

To fulfil the food requirements of people, a secure and sustainable way of food production is not enough. In addition, food should be accessible physically and economically to everyone. Accessibility to food covers three elements: affordability which depends on the product price and individual’s income and wealth; allocation, that decided by the policies and marketability; and preference of people, which varies with season, religion, tastes and customs.

As a basic need, achieving food security is immediate consideration of various administrating and organizing officials: international, national, regional and local. Sustainability and accessibility should integrate with food security practices to develop it as a long-term goal. Scientific interventions, technological advances, researches, practical implementation and monitoring of applied projects are essential to find out global scenarios that are apt and assure food security. Hence, this Research Topic aims to study food security from a sustainable and accessible point of view.

Keywords: food security, sustainability, sustainable diets, accessibility, SDG

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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