Food Security (Edexcel GCSE Biology)

Factors Affecting Food Security

• Food security is having enough food to feed a population

• That ‘population’ could represent a group of people on a range of different scales, from a particular family, to a town, to a region or even a whole country

• Food security gives an indication of how much food is available

Biological Factors Threatening Food Security Table

Sustainability

• Sustainable methods of farming and food production are needed in order to overcome food shortages and help populations whose food security is under threat

• Sustainable food production involves making enough food for the current population, whilst also ensuring this is done without using resources (such as water and soils) faster than these resources can be renewed and used again (so that the future population also has enough food)

• It is often about finding the right balance, for example:

  • Biofuels, being produced as a renewable alternative to fossil fuels, take up valuable land space, which previously would have been used for food production

  • It is an important balance between providing renewable biofuels and producing enough food to feed the growing population

  • An increase in the cost of farming methods for food production may become unsustainable for farmers in the future

  • This requires a balance between cost and food provision