FOOD SECURITY AND SAFETY
With the increased movement of people and goods around the globe, food security -- access to adequate and sustainable food supplies -- and food safety have become topics of widespread international interest. What is being done to ensure that reliable and affordable amounts of nutritious food are available to the world's growing population and how safe is the global food supply?

Only a small percentage of the world's hungry and malnourished people currently are being reached by food assistance programs, says Congressman Tony Hall, U.S. Ambassador-designate to the United Nations hunger and food organizations, in the lead article in this issue of Economic Perspectives. Hasty, stop-gap measures to address food security, he says, must be replaced by programs that are crafted, in part, by key stakeholders in affected communities to ensure predictable and stable food supplies appropriate to local conditions.

Hall and other experts begin by asking if food insecurity is a symptom or a cause of poverty. Hall suggests that hungry people are so focused on getting their next meal they cannot take advantage of many traditional routes out of poverty, such as education and alternative agricultural techniques that would, over the long term, help them attain food security. These experts recommend some new approaches, such as direct food assistance for families whose children stay in school and legal protection for rural property rights that would encourage farmers to make the types of investments that would boost food productivity. Others argue that food insecurity is not an issue of a shortfall in food production but rather that governments have neglected agricultural development, made ineffective use of food aid, and, through protective trade barriers, made hunger alleviation more difficult to attain.

There are success stories. Bangladesh, once extremely dependent on food imports, has transformed its devastated agricultural sector into one of the most productive farm economies in all of South Asia through a global partnership between foreign aid agencies, international research institutions, and indigenous non-governmental organizations. Greater crop diversification would help further food security in Bangladesh, experts say.

Food security and safety are tightly linked. On one hand, transgenic technology may hold the greatest potential to increase food production, reduce the use of harmful chemical pesticides, and provide nutritional foods. On the other hand, some argue that the technology, rather than being a hope, represents a new threat to both the environment and health. Some argue that the U.S. food safety regulatory structure is the best in the world and ensures the safety of both the domestic and export food supply. Others say that as good as this structure is, even more food product labeling is needed to let consumers know which products include or exclude genetically engineered foods and ingredients.

This issue of Economic Perspectives does not take sides on all of these issues but aims rather to educate foreign audiences on U.S. policy and on the debate in the United States over food security and safety, raising important questions that policy-makers in each country must address in forming future development and environmental policies.

世界糧農組織的解釋：
What is meant by food security?
Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for a healthy and active life (World Food Summit Plan of Action, par. 1). This involves four conditions:
(i) adequacy of food supply or availability;
(ii) stability of supply, without fluctuations or shortages from season to season or from year to year;
(iii) accessibility to food or affordability; and
(iv) quality and safety of food.

中文：
糧食安全的定義是什么?

糧食安全就是所有人在任何時候都能在物質上和經濟上獲得足夠、安全和富有營養的食物以滿足其健康而積極生活的膳食需要（世界糧食首腦會議行動計劃第一段）。這涉及四個條件：
（1）充足的糧食供應或可獲得量；
（2）不因季節或年份而產生波動或不足的穩定供應；
（3）具有可獲得的并負擔得起的糧食；
（4）優質安全的食物。

世界糧農組織糧食安全特別計劃：The specail programe for food security(FPFS)

What are the Programme's main objectives?
The main objectives of the SPFS are: (i) to help LIFDCs improve national food security through rapid increases in productivity and food production; (ii) to reduce year-to-year variability in production on an economically and environmentally sustainable basis; and (iii) to improve household access to food. Increasing the net income of farmers, rural employment and social and gender equity are core features of the SPFS.

特別計劃的主要目標是： (i) 幫助低收入缺糧國通過迅速提高生產率和糧食產量加強國家糧食安全；(ii) 在經濟和環境可持續的基礎上縮小每年的產量波動；(iii) 改善家庭獲得糧食的機會。增加農民凈收入、鄉村就業、社會公平和男女平等是特別計劃的核心。