ABSTRACT
The most widely accepted definition of food security is “a state in which 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” (Food and Agriculture Organization 1996). But it was not always conceived this way, nor was there always such agreement. In the 1990s, Maxwell and Frankenberger identified over 200 variations of the definition, many of them similar but emphasizing different elements of the complex construct (1992). In fact, the food insecurity definition, and the policy focus that emerged from it, has evolved tremendously since the 1970s when the term was first used to describe a problem of national and global food availability. By the 1980s, the focus of definition (and the emphasis of the policy response) shifted to describe problems of food access (World Bank 1986). The 1990s ushered in an increasingly holistic definition, both in the United States and internationally, that incorporated elements of preference, quality, safety, and an emphasis on the stability of food access. Food insecurity was increasingly viewed as a more dynamic concept in the context of risk and risk management, with distinctions made about its severity, duration, and periodicity.
