The big idea: A place has food security when all its people, at all times, have reliable access to enough safe and nutritious food for an active, healthy life.
It is not just about growing enough food
- Is there enough food in total?
- Can people physically reach it?
- Can people afford it?
Key terms
- Food security - reliable access for everyone to enough safe, nutritious food.
- Food insecurity - when access is unreliable, so people go hungry or are malnourished.
- Availability - is there enough food produced or imported in the area?
- Access - can people physically reach the food and afford to buy it?
- Food emergency - an area where many people face severe, immediate hunger.
Three sides, not one: Food security has three sides: enough food is available, people can access it, and the food is used well (clean water, nutrition).
A country can grow plenty of food and still be food-insecure if the poor cannot afford it.
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Many different factors can lower a country's food security. A strong answer names a factor and then explains the mechanism - how it cuts the supply of food or stops people getting it.
Factors that lower food security
| Factor | How it threatens food security |
|---|---|
| Climate / drought | Failed rains and heat ruin harvests, so less food is grown |
| Conflict | War destroys farms and blocks supply routes and markets |
| Poverty / high prices | People cannot afford food even when it is on sale |
| Rapid population growth | More mouths to feed than the land and farms can supply |
| Land degradation | Soil erosion and overuse cut how much the land can grow |
| Pests and disease | Locusts or crop disease wipe out part of the harvest |
Turning a factor into an answer
- Name the factor (e.g. drought).
- Explain the mechanism - how it works (failed rains ruin harvests).
- State the effect on food security (so less food is available and people go hungry).
Explain how two different factors can lower a country's food security.
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.
What improves food security
- Raising production — irrigation, better seeds, soil conservation, farm advice.
- Reducing poverty — households can afford food; farmers can invest; governments can build roads and markets.
- Safety nets — food or cash for the poorest in bad years.
- Diverse supply — importing from many countries so one failure does not cut supply.
Named examples — improving food security: Ethiopia: the Productive Safety Net Programme (since 2005) gives food or cash to millions of poor rural households in return for public work, and funds terracing and small irrigation.
Singapore: imports food from many countries and invests in high-tech local farms under its “30 by 30” goal (30% of nutritional needs produced locally by 2030).
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A growing middle class changes food: As incomes rise and the middle class grows (e.g. in China, India and Brazil), what and how much people eat changes - and this puts new pressure on land.
How a growing middle class changes diets
- People eat more meat and dairy, which needs far more land and grain to produce.
- Demand shifts to processed and varied food, often imported from other countries.
- More food overall is eaten as people can afford a richer diet.
Explain how a growing middle-class population can lead to changes in what people eat.
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.
Explain how a growing middle-class population can create land-use pressures.
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.
China - the meat shift: As China's middle class has grown, meat consumption per person has risen several-fold since the 1980s.
Why it matters: producing that meat needs large imports of soybean feed, much of it grown on cleared land in Brazil - so one country's diet shift drives land-use change abroad.
How this is tested: Your stimulus is a shaded food-security map — a region-by-region map (e.g. the Horn of Africa). The darkest areas are in food emergency; the lightest are secure.
How to answer
Read the key
Check which shade means emergency and which means secure.
Describe [2]
Say where the worst-hit zones are.
Explain [4]
Give two factors that lower a country's food security.
Key, then where, then why.
Read the key first. Which regions are darkest (most in crisis) and which are lightest (secure)?
Interactive diagram
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Describe the distribution of food insecurity shown on the map.
Model answer plan
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Ethiopia - food-emergency zones (illustrative)
| Region | Location in the country | Food-security status |
|---|---|---|
| Afar | Far north-east / eastern lowlands | Emergency |
| Somali | South-east / eastern lowlands | Emergency |
| Tigray | Far north | Emergency |
| Oromia (central) | Central highlands | Stressed |
| Addis Ababa | Central | Secure |
| Southern highlands | South-west | Secure |
IB-style question - read the map
Using the table above: (a) identify one region in food emergency [1]; (b) describe where the food-emergency zones are located within Ethiopia [2].
How to answer each part
- (a) Identify an emergency region. Scan the status column - Afar, Somali or Tigray are in emergency.
- (b) Describe the location. The emergency zones lie mainly in the eastern and northern lowlands (Afar, Somali in the east; Tigray in the far north).
- Add the contrast. The central highlands and the south-west are more secure - so the pattern is peripheral lowlands vs the centre.
Final answer
(a) Afar / Somali / Tigray; (b) the emergency zones are in the eastern and northern lowlands, away from the more secure central highlands.
Explain two distinct factors that can lower a country's food security.
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.
Easy marks: (1) Two distinct factors, not two versions of one. (2) Give the mechanism, not just the name. (3) End each with 'so food security falls / people go hungry'.