The Three A’s of Food Security

TL:DR – The three A’s of food security are availability, access, and action.


Famine, drought, disease, crop failure, they might afflict any one of us, but in the developing world and on the margins of urbanised regions, the issue of food security is paramount for survival. There are three main factors to consider when one thinks of food security each of which must be addressed to offer a fourth factor, in which people have adequate nutritious food to eat despite shocks caused by natural, economic, social and policy stresses:

  1. Availability
  2. Access
  3. Action

Availability is achieved when sufficient quantities of food are consistently available for the whole community, whether on a local, regional, or national level. Access to food involves individuals, families and communities have adequate resources to grow their own food, money to buy food, or fitness to work for food. Action, or utilisation, of food refers to the idea that given adequate supplies of food are those supplies are being used properly – to feed people.

Nutritionist Mieke Faber of the Nutritional Intervention Research Unit, at the Medical Research Council, in Cape Town, and colleagues GIS Director Craig Schwabe of the Human Sciences Research Council, in Pretoria, South Africa, and research fellow Scott Drimie of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), in Washington DC, USA, have looked at these factors as they pertain to food security among the poorest households in the country.

The team surveyed almost 500 homes picked at random across five municipalities of Greater Sekhukhune, Limpopo Province, South Africa. These municipalities are among the poorest in the country. Here, seventy-five percent of households are in the low living standard measure category, this means poverty is rife and deprivation common.

They investigated living standards, months of food shortages, household food insecurity and access and found that a potentially key indicator of potential food security issues is dietary diversity.

The team learned that foods were mostly purchased, either from supermarkets in town or small trading stores. This result corresponded with a national survey that showed that most South African households bought the five most widely consumed food items (maize, sugar, tea, whole milk and brown bread) rather than subsisting on agriculture.

The researchers also confirmed an obvious point:

Household income is particularly important for food security as it directly affects household access to food, as was shown by the similar seasonal patterns that were observed for months of inadequate food provision and shortage of money.

However, this statement belies the complexity of the underlying issues. Indeed, the team’s main finding is that the three A’s of food security are underpinned by the finding that households consuming a diet with low diversity experienced more food shortage than households consuming a diet of higher diversity.

This is not to say that by purchasing a more diverse range of foods will improve food security directly, but diversity acts as a risk factor, a proxy measure, to assist in finding the most vulnerable households. Households with a low dietary diversity had fewer assets, such as a refrigerator, than households with a higher dietary diversity, a finding that aligns with earlier research. Not having access to cold storage had already been shown to be a risk factor for stunted growth or being underweight in South African children.

Of course, a survey is just a survey, and the three A’s of food security are entirely meaningless words unless action is taken to address the underlying problems facing poor people in the developing world.

Research Blogging IconMieke Faber, Craig Schwabe, & Scott Drimie (2009). Dietary diversity in relation to other household food security indicators Int. J. Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health, 2 (1), 1-15

Homeopathic ER

Last week, I heard Simon Singh at the World Conference of Science Journalists discussing the state of England’s libel laws, chiropractic, and more. At least I assume that’s what he was discussing, the acoustics in the conference centre were terrible and he seemed to be showing a Katie Melua video at one point, and my aging aural cavities really couldn’t cope.

Regardless, there is growing support for Singh’s defence against the British Chiropractic Association who somehow managed to sue him for libel against their organisation. I always thought it was only individuals that could be libelled not organisations. In an article in The Guardian, Singh apparently referred to certain practices as bogus, on the basis that they allegedly have no clinical trials or scientific explanation to support the claims. Sense about Science has more on the case here as well as a petition aimed at keeping libel laws out of scientific debate.

I wonder though whether Singh was in on the script for this Mitchell and Webb comedy sketch about a homeopathic ER (probably not). A road accident victim is brought to the casualty department and various treatments called for, including wolfsbane, flower remedies, and a near infinitely diluted infusion of the Ford vehicle that collided with the man. None of them work, but then the surgeon has a brain wave…

It’s very near the knuckle (ish), but I suspect the Association of Homeopathic Remedyists won’t be taking Mitchell and Webb to court any time soon because they never once use the word bogus. And, even if they had, that word has so many meanings as to render any libel case null and void, assuming a sensible judge with a more than vague understanding of medicine, at least. Just for the record, I’ve personally had successful chiropractic treatment, but this whole case is ludicrous.

Unfortunately, the pub scene punchline totally ruins the comedic atmosphere. You see the pair order a pint of lager to drown their sorrows after the victim dies. But, a drop of lager in a pint glass of water would have absolutely no effect on them homeopathically speaking. Far too concentrated, you see?

World Conference of Science Journalists

Just back from the 6th World Conference of Science Journalists in London this week. Tired, suffering the after-effects of overheating in old London buildings with no air conditioning, such as Westminster Central Hall.

Regardless, it was an excellent conference, a great opportunity to meet a hugely diverse range of people. Some of them old friends known from previous career incarnations, including the delightful and enthusiastic Sunny Bains and ESF’s Sofia Valleley, newscientist’s Graham Lawton, C&EN’s Celia Arnaud, Nature’s Mark Peplow, Wilson da Silva of Cosmos, the Nobel Simon Frantz, Diabetes UK Jo Brodie, immuno expert and communicator Caroline Cross, fellow freelance Cormac Sheridan, The Guardian’s Tim Radford and Alok Jha, and many others.

Then there were the previously only virtual friends made flesh – Claire Ainsworth, Mun-Keat Looi aka @Ayasawada, the winning Ed Yong, Paul Sutherland, Richard Scrase, Martin Ince, Sonya Buyting, Jennifer Beal, John and Kate Travis, James Cornell president of the International Science Writers Association, Oranjeboom fiend Arran Frood, Juliette Mutheu.

Not forgetting, looking very smart and professional in orange Emma, Jessica, Jacob, and many, many others manning the stands and allowing the hacks to lead them astray at the Westminster Arms. And, of course, the inimitable Sallie Robins. I’m going to stop before this begins to sound like an Oscars speech, so apologies to my other new best friends if I didn’t mention you here.

The coffee break, lunchtime and social discussions were often even more diverse than the scheduled plenaries, lectures and workshops. Chat among journalists usually degrades to rates, kill fees and booze. However, this meeting was different topics featured in both lectures and chats headed off to the rise and fall and the rise of science journalism, the heat, philanthropy, Bach, Saharan solar power, the heat, inexpensive bus rides, Scottish lasers and Mount Rushmore, the miniature hamburgers, the heat, nano-curlers, orange ties, blogging, the LHC, man bags, chiropractic, AIDS, and MrsSlocombesPussy, of course, and so much more…including rates, kill fees and booze.

A wonderful week everyone. Thank you.

Meanwhile, for Twitter fiends: We may not have trended our hashtag “#WCSJ” but we tweeted 2,494 tweets, there were 236 contributors (out of 800 or so delegates), We averaged 356 tweets per day with almost half of those coming from the most prolific 10 twitters. an eighth were retweets, a fifth were mentions, and just over 5% had multiple hashtags and so spilled into other areas.

Discussion on twitter using the #WCSJ hashtag really started to heat up on Thursday last week – you can read a transcript here and you can tweak the dates to home in on particular days for the actual conference.

Giant Sperm, Ultrasonic Brain Surgery, and Oil

Giant sperm – Some animals supersize their sperm. Microscopic freshwater ostracods, such as Eucypris virens, for instance have filamentous, spiralling sperm cells that can be up to ten times the body length of the organism itself. The longest known ostracod sperm cell is 10 mm long. How big would a human sperm have to be to compete in size with that of the ostracods? 17 metres long, that’s how long. But, why?

Synchrotron X-ray holotomography has revealed why size really does matter to the sex lives of some creatures. The researchers provide evidence of ancient giant fossil sperm and hint at a link to organisms alive today. Long version…

Cut-free brain surgery – A new approach to brain surgery avoids the use of the surgeon’s scalpel and instead exploits advances in magnetic resonance imaging to guide an ultrasound intervention. Dig into the full story here…

Luxurious edible oils – Researchers have developed a novel approach to the rapid assignment of NMR spectra to the major components of vegetable oils such as avocado, mango kernel and macadamia nut oils. The slick new approach could help improve quality control and detect fraud in the food industry. More…