Affordability of food as a key condition of food security of households

Abstract

Introduction. An analysis of available statistical information gives grounds to assert that the right of a significant number of Ukrainian citizens to adequate and affordable food is systematically violated. We mean those people who are in the state of constant food insecurity due to excessive costs required to purchase food. The problem of food security of the population, and thus food safety, has deep social background. Food insecurity, viewed as a lack of food safety, is inextricably linked with another equally pressing problem which is poverty. The purpose of the research is to find evidence that excessive costs that Ukrainian households spend on purchasing food (objectively as well as in comparison with the other countries) is an obvious sign that they are in a state of food insecurity and to conduct a critical analysis of the official boundary value indicator of affordability of food as a key condition of food security of Ukraine. Results and Conclusion. Poverty is the root cause of malnutrition and hunger. According to the methodology developed by the United Nations, about 78% of the population in Ukraine was below the line of poverty in the second half of 2016. The poverty of the Ukrainian population automatically generates the problem of food affordability: the value of the affordability of products indicator did not fall below 50% in the period from 1999 to 2016 (except for 2008). The 60% regulatory limit of the value of the affordability of products indicator is unreasonably high. This is confirmed by the comparative analysis of the practical experience of food security of the population and the methodology for determining the threshold of food affordability in other countries and international organisations.