Food Self-Sufficiency: Opportunities and Challenges for the Current Food System

Abstract

Food Self-Sufficiency (FSS) is defined as the ability of a household or region to maintain its own food requirements, which can be measured at different levels, and it began to take relevance around 2007-2008 food price crisis. The FSS all-together with food price volatility has become a high priority political agenda for governments all around the word, helping them determine the number of households that can supply their food by own production. Generally, a population depends on natural resources and available foods to meet their daily food demand, so a region can increase the stability of its food system by building its own FSS. Moreover, the pre-technological urbanism, consider the FSS as a strategic factor in the advancement and independence in localities. Since food systems operate at different scales, one way to reduce risks is to get smaller space units to maintain a degree of FSS. Therefore, it can ensure a level of FSS by supporting the agricultural sector focusing on improving production efficiency in countries with food insecurity. It is also necessary to work on research that allows the development of production models with the presence of FSS to avoiding isolating them from the reality in which it is developed