BEIJING, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- The world is to mark the World Food Day 2010 on Oct. 16. The following are basic facts on the concept and the current situation of world food security.
The concept of Food security originated in the mid-1970s, a time of global food crisis. The initial focus was on the volume and stability of food supplies.
Food security was defined in the 1974 World Food Summit 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, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expanded its concept to include securing access by vulnerable people to available supplies: "ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to the basic food that they need."
In 1996, the World Food Summit adopted a 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 dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life."
For a long time world food production has been hovering at two billion tons per year, nearly half of which comes from developed countries. While the world's population grows 1.3 percent each year on average, almost all population growth comes from developing nations. The unbalanced population growth causes a structural imbalance of food distribution and consumption.
