Build it back better: Deconstructing food security for improved measurement and action

The challenge of measuring food security became increasingly thorny during the 1990s, when the number of conceptual elements proliferated in widely accepted definitions. There have been commendable recent advances in the development of simple, valid measures of “food access”. Yet most users apply single indicators interchangeably and capture only a portion of the full concept. Rather than tackling 'food insecurity' as a monolithic concept, food security assessment and action would be more effective if deconstructed into well-defined dimensions beyond the “availability, access, and utilization pillars”. Internationally recognized definitions and ethnographic literature support the isolation of five dimensions: (1) food sufficiency (2) nutrient adequacy (3) cultural acceptability, (4) safety, (5) certainty and stability. This paper traces the evolution of food security concepts and measures up through the first decade of the 21st century, proposes indicators to represent these five dimensions, and highlights areas where the development of new metrics is warranted.