ABSTRACT
Food security is a complex, contentious, contested and politically loaded term, and its usefulness as a policy approach has been called into question. This chapter presents an overview of food security since 1974 by focusing on food security as discourse and tracing its evolution through to the food price spikes. It also presents the chronology of multilateral actions around food security, illustrating the volume of activity and identifying international priorities for addressing the problem. The chapter highlights the role of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) within this changing architecture. Examining the international reaction to the food price spikes, it becomes clear that there has not been a shift to a new era of food security and nor has there been an emergence of a new paradigm. However, food security policy discourse is increasingly contested terrain and multiple actors are now seeking out ways to redefine it.
