conference specifically “to consider the goal of freedom from want in relation to
food and agriculture” (Mcdonald, 2010: 16). This conference was the first step in
the creation of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations on
October 1945 (UNDP, 1994; Shaw, 2007; Christopher/Maxwell, 2005).
After the war, the right to food and an obligation to help all states provide and
secure that right was affirmed by many international initiatives. For instance, the
rising interest in food security can be found in The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights of 1948 (UN General Assembly, 1948). This declares:
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of
himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Another initiative was the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, which mentioned “the fundamental right of everyone to be free
from hunger”, and has outlined “the right of everyone to an adequate standard of
living for himself and his family, including adequate food” (UN, 1966, cited in
Mcdonald, 2010).
However, food security as a concept originated in the mid-1970s during discussions on international food problems at the time of a global food crisis (Clay,
2002). According to the 1974 World Food Summit, food security is defined as
availability at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a
steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices
(UN, 1974).
In the early 1980s, following Amartya Sen’s seminal work on entitlement
analysis, the definition of food security used by the FAO was expanded to include
both physical and economic access (Sen, 1981). According to Nobel Prize laureate
and economist Sen, food insecurity is not a problem of food production or availability but of people’s limited ability to mobilize resources and rules to access food.
Sen argued that individuals need entitlements to food and this will depend, amongst
other things, on their income and assets. Sen’s analysis has shown that it is not just
the supply side of food that is important in ensuring individual food security but
also demand side factors. Thus in 1983 the FAO expanded its concept to include
Sen’s approach: “Ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and
economic access to the basic food that they need” (FAO, 1983). Nonetheless the
highly influential 1986 World Bank report “Poverty and Hunger” focused on the
temporal dynamics of food insecurity. It introduced the widely accepted distinction
between chronic food insecurity, associated with problems of continuing or structural poverty and low incomes, and transitory food insecurity, which involved
periods of intensified pressure caused by natural disasters, economic collapse or
conflict.
During the 1990s, food security literature has broadened to address marketorientated economic growth, agricultural development, poverty reduction, demographic trends, rising incomes, changing food consumption patterns, gender issues,
8 Addressing the Challenge of Food Security in Turkey
129
food and agriculture” (Mcdonald, 2010: 16). This conference was the first step in
the creation of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations on
October 1945 (UNDP, 1994; Shaw, 2007; Christopher/Maxwell, 2005).
After the war, the right to food and an obligation to help all states provide and
secure that right was affirmed by many international initiatives. For instance, the
rising interest in food security can be found in The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights of 1948 (UN General Assembly, 1948). This declares:
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of
himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Another initiative was the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, which mentioned “the fundamental right of everyone to be free
from hunger”, and has outlined “the right of everyone to an adequate standard of
living for himself and his family, including adequate food” (UN, 1966, cited in
Mcdonald, 2010).
However, food security as a concept originated in the mid-1970s during discussions on international food problems at the time of a global food crisis (Clay,
2002). According to the 1974 World Food Summit, food security is defined as
availability at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a
steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices
(UN, 1974).
In the early 1980s, following Amartya Sen’s seminal work on entitlement
analysis, the definition of food security used by the FAO was expanded to include
both physical and economic access (Sen, 1981). According to Nobel Prize laureate
and economist Sen, food insecurity is not a problem of food production or availability but of people’s limited ability to mobilize resources and rules to access food.
Sen argued that individuals need entitlements to food and this will depend, amongst
other things, on their income and assets. Sen’s analysis has shown that it is not just
the supply side of food that is important in ensuring individual food security but
also demand side factors. Thus in 1983 the FAO expanded its concept to include
Sen’s approach: “Ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and
economic access to the basic food that they need” (FAO, 1983). Nonetheless the
highly influential 1986 World Bank report “Poverty and Hunger” focused on the
temporal dynamics of food insecurity. It introduced the widely accepted distinction
between chronic food insecurity, associated with problems of continuing or structural poverty and low incomes, and transitory food insecurity, which involved
periods of intensified pressure caused by natural disasters, economic collapse or
conflict.
During the 1990s, food security literature has broadened to address marketorientated economic growth, agricultural development, poverty reduction, demographic trends, rising incomes, changing food consumption patterns, gender issues,
8 Addressing the Challenge of Food Security in Turkey
129