ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the types of policies that may be adopted to cope with such food insecurity, including the most obvious one, food aid. Food security is defined by the FAO as access by all people at all times to the food needed for a healthy and active life, while academic and political interest in food security has increased since the 1970s. In 1994 the FAO launched its Special Programme for Food Security, with the objective of helping low income, food-deficit countries. It was reaffirmed at the WFS in 1996, when the Rome Declaration on World Food Security stated that it is the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger. By far the most effective means of increasing food security appears to be an effective programme of rural development and poverty reduction.
