Food security, at Higher Level: Different examples from SL: Japan, Sudan, Sri Lanka's 2022 crisis and Western Asia. At HL, link food security to economics (prices, incomes, trade) and to justice: who goes hungry, and why. Malnutrition and famine in depth are 5.2.20.
Practise this as you read
- Outline factors that reduce food security in a named region.
- Distinguish physical from economic availability with an example.
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Food security: Food security is the physical and economic availability of food, so that every person can get the balanced diet they need for an active and healthy life.
The points to remember
- Physical availability: enough food is actually there, grown locally or brought in.
- Economic availability: people can afford it or get it another way.
- Balanced diet: enough of the right foods, not just enough calories.
- All individuals: a country can have plenty while some of its people go hungry.
- It must last all the time, not only after a good harvest.
Remember it as: There, affordable, balanced, for everyone.
Example (HL): Japan. Japan grows only about 38% of the calories its people eat (2024), one of the lowest shares of any rich country, yet very few people go hungry because food can be imported and afforded.
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Physical availability fails when food cannot be grown, stored or delivered.
The points to remember
- Low production: poor soils, drought, floods, pests.
- Conflict: farmers flee, fields and markets are destroyed, aid is blocked.
- Poor roads and storage: food spoils or cannot reach markets.
- Few imports: countries that cannot buy or ship food in run short.
- Shocks: a bad harvest or a blocked port can empty markets fast.
Example (HL): Sudan. Sudan has fertile land along the Nile, but war since 2023 drove farmers from their fields and blocked aid; in 2024 famine was confirmed in Zamzam camp, Darfur.
Economic availability fails when food is in the shops but people cannot pay for it.
The points to remember
- Poverty: low incomes leave too little for food.
- High prices: inflation, poor harvests or war raise food prices fast.
- A healthy diet costs more than a diet of cheap starchy food.
- In 2025, about 2.69 billion people could not afford a healthy diet.
- Help includes food aid, cash transfers, school meals and fair wages.
Example (HL): Sri Lanka, 2022. In an economic crisis, food prices rose by about 95% in a year (September 2022). Shops still had food, but about 6.3 million people, over 30% of the population, became food insecure.
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FAO measures food security in two main ways: hunger (too few calories) and moderate or severe food insecurity (people unsure they can get enough food, or going without).
The points to remember
- In 2025, about 645 million people (7.8%) faced hunger; about 2.1 billion (25.8%) were moderately or severely food insecure.
- Africa is worst: 20% hungry, 56.6% food insecure, and now the largest number of hungry people.
- Asia and Latin America are improving; Africa improved in 2025 for the first time in a decade.
- Northern America and Europe are the most food secure, but not fully: 8.7% are still food insecure.
Example (HL): Western Asia. Hunger here rose from 9.3% in 2015 to 13.0% in 2025, driven by conflict, against the improving trend in the rest of Asia.
How this could come up: Paper 2 Section B (a) can ask you to outline factors affecting food security in a named region [4]: four separate points, one named example.
Hunger varies three-fold between Africa's subregions.
Outline four factors that can reduce food security in a named region.
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