Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. It has four main dimensions:
- Availability – sufficient quantities of food available consistently
- Access – having resources to obtain appropriate foods
- Utilization – proper use of food, including proper food preparation and nutrition knowledge
- Stability – consistent access to food over time
Food security is primarily addressed in SDG 2: “Zero Hunger.” This goal aims to “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” by 2030. The specific targets include:
- Ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food year-round for all people
- Ending all forms of malnutrition
- Doubling agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers
- Ensuring sustainable food production systems
- Maintaining genetic diversity of seeds, plants, and animals
- Increasing investment in rural infrastructure and agricultural research
- Preventing agricultural trade restrictions and market distortions
Kenya ranks 100th out of 127 countries in terms of food security or lack thereof ( 2024 Global Hunger Index). 51% of the population is faced with food poverty.
Food poverty is a large part of the population, and the situation can only worsen with increasing climate change.
However, practicing climate-smart agriculture which advocates for crop rotation, minimum tillage and mulching may assist in increasing the productivity of the land, a great step towards being food secure.
The use of crop biomass to make manure enriches the soil by plowing back the carbon trapped in them in the soil .. This enriches the soil as well as reduces the carbon emissions that would have happened in cases of open burning of crop remains.
Article by Julia Wahome