1. INTRODUCTION

We are on the technocrat world where we dreamt of reaching to the moon and outer planet, but still a harsh reality pinched us when it comes in the feeding of the millions of the hungry stomach of the world, Food security has really emerged as one of the global issues with nearly 800 millions of people in the world facing food crises.

Food security is achieved when all people, at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutrition food preference for an active and healthy life. Food security was defined in the World Food Summit (1974) 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.”

In 1983, FAO expanded its concept to include securing access by vulnerable people to available supplies, implying the attention should be balanced between the demand and supply side of the food security equation:

“Ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to the basic food that they need.”

In 1986, the highly influential 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 problem of continuing or structural poverty and low income and transitory food insecurity, which involved periods of intensified pressure caused by natural disasters economic collapse or conflict. This concept of food security is further elaborated in terms of: “Access of all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.”

                By mid-1990s food security was recognized as a significant concern, spanning a spectrum from the individual to the global level.

In 1996 World Food Summit adopted a still more complex definition:

“Food security, at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels [is achieved] when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their active and healthy life.”

                Food insecurity exists when people do not have adequate physical, social or economic access to food as defined above.

 2. FOOD SECURITY IN WORLD

About 850 million people in the world are undernourished - a number that has hardly changed since the 1990-92 base period for the World Food Summit and Millennium Development Goal commitments on reducing hunger by half by 2015. Of particular concern are hunger hotspots, marked by the widespread persistence and prevalence of food insecurity, especially in protracted crises. As of May 2006, 39 countries in the world were experiencing serious food emergencies and required external assistance for dealing with critical food insecurity: 25 in Africa, 11 in Asia and Near East, 2 in Latin America and 1 in Europe.

3. FOOD SECURITY IN NEPAL

In Nepal, Food security depends on land productivity as managed by small holders who faced challenges in productivity and sustainability and the country is prone to natural disasters that can have serious consequences for agricultural production. The World Food Program (WFP) of the United Nations conducted a Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) in 2005 in order to understand the Food Insecurity and vulnerability in Nepal. A total of 1676 households represented agro-ecological regions of Nepal (Terai, Hills, and Mountains) across all 5 Development Regions. The study revealed the approximately 27% of the rural households are food insecure and have a very poor food consumption pattern- chronic malnutrition and low weight are common; 49% of children aged 0-58 months are underweight and 46% are stunted. Among the Far Western and Mid Western Development Region of the country contain the highest concentration of households with poor or very poor food consumption pattern. Additionally, the households that are most likely to be food insecure tended to engage in livelihood activities such as petty trade, unskilled labor, natural resources exploitation, handicrafts and farming Nepal has become a net importer of grain in recent years.

REASONS OF FOOD INSECURITIES IN NEPAL

- Land fragmentation

- Low production of food due to lack of technical manpower, poor extension and access to technology

- Agro environmental problems, loss of Agrobiodiversity, land degradation, soil erosion through run off on the productive land

- Yield stagnation

- Conversion of agricultural land for other purpose than farming

- Climate change

- Infestation of epidemic diseases pets in crop land

- Global water crises

- Utilization of staple food crop in increasing livestock feed industry

-  post harvest loss.

Now everyone has realized about the food security, food security is the multidimensional phenomenon, national and International policies should be prioritize to ensure the food security. Similarly The United Nation has been developing several strategies to promote activities against food insecurities. MDG and SDG are the major strategies tools through which the UN has planned to reach its goal, the World Food Programme and others have been actively working to achieve the goal of Zero Hunger. . Something like the “State of global food insecurity” analysis has to be undertaken. Since food insecurity is about risks and uncertainty, the formal analysis should include both chronic sub-nutrition and transitory, acute insecurity that reflects economic and food system volatility. spatial distribution within countries of poverty and forms of food insecurity, drawing on evidence from vulnerability assessment and mapping supported by the Food Information and Vulnerability Mapping Systems (FIVIMS), the FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) interagency initiative.

To sum up we must think and act wisely, boldly and innovatively to gear up viable solutions to gain food security more rapidly on the global scale.

#####OUR ACTION ARE OUR FUTURE###

HEALTHY DIET FOR A ZERO HUNGER

##### WORLD FOOD DAY#######

references

1. https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/agriculture-and-food-security

2. www.nnfsp.gov.np

3. https://www.nepjol.info>articles>view

4. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

5. https://reliefweb.int/report/nepal/brief-food-security-nepal-mid-november-2016-mid-march-2017