Food and Energy Security

Energy security is the association between national security and the availability of natural resources for energy consumption. Access to cheap energy has become essential to the functioning of modern economies. However, the uneven distribution of energy supplies among countries has led to significant vulnerabilities. Renewable energy resources and significant opportunities for energy efficiency exist over wide geographical areas, in contrast to other energy sources, which are concentrated in a limited number of countries. Rapid deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency, and technological diversification of energy sources, would result in significant energy security and economic benefits. Food security is a condition related to the supply of food, and individuals’ access to it. Concerns over food security have existed throughout history. There is evidence of granaries being in use over 10,000 years ago, with central authorities in civilizations including ancient China and ancient Egypt being known to release food from storage in times of famine. At the 1974 World Food Conference the term “food security” was defined with an emphasis on supply. Food security, they said, is the “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”. Later definitions added demand and access issues to the definition. The final report of the 1996 World Food Summit states that food security “exists 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”. The water, energy and food security nexus means that the three sectors ― water security, energy security and food security ― are inextricably linked and that actions in one area more often than not have impacts in one or both of the others. These linkages have always been present, but as the world population hurtles towards 8 billion with increasing demands for basic services and growing desires for higher living standards, the need for more conscious stewardship of the vital resources required to achieve those services and desires has become both more obvious and urgent. I hope this book will explain more to people about food and energy security that affects their daily life, I like to think that this could help in understanding the complex of food and energy.