N°12 > Towards sustainable and shared food security and sovereignty
under the direction of Jean-Louis RASTOIN, Associate Expert and Professor Montpellier SupAgro
The right to food is recognised by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. Today, it is part of sustainable food and food and nutrition security issues defined by the FAO between 2010 and 2012. This right is implicitly present in most of the 17 sustainable development objectives 2030 adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at the end of 2015.
According to the Committee on World Food Security (CFS, 2012): “Food and nutrition security is a condition when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life, while benefiting from adequate health environment and services, education and care”.
If we accept this definition, sustainable food and nutrition security is still out of reach with, according to recent estimates, nearly 40% of the world’s population being malnourished, half by deficit and half by excess.
In the macro-region of La Verticale “AME” (Africa, Mediterranean, Europe), food insecurity is also worrying, to various extents in the different sub-regions.