The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations defines food security as “a condition in which all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.
The Centre for Studies in Food Security at Ryerson University works with the following five components of Food Security, known as the Five A’s:
Availability – sufficient food for all people at all times
Accessibility – physical and economic access to food for all at all times
Adequacy – access to food that is nutritious and safe, and produced in environmentally sustainable ways
Acceptability – access to culturally acceptable food, which is produced and obtained in ways that do not compromise people’s dignity, self-respect or human rights
Agency – the policies and processes that enable the achievement of food security