nutrition

Food Security

Providing food assistance has been a major focus of CARE's since our founding in 1945. The first CARE Packages sent to survivors of WWII in Europe and Asia were mostly food parcels, and we went on to develop expertise in emergency famine relief, first in Bihar, India, in 1966-67, and throughout the 1970s and '80s in Asia and Africa. Today, one of CARE's goals is to improve the food security of poor families. CARE uses donated food commodities to respond to emergencies such as natural disasters and/or civil conflict and to make the transition to self-sufficiency. For example, CARE uses our food resources to support transitional development programs such as food-for-work programs that build roads, bridges and schools. We also improve food security by targeting those most at risk -- young children, pregnant women and mothers. CARE also sells donated food commodities -- a process known as "monetizing" -- to help fund development programs. CARE is committed to using food resources as a means of meeting emergency needs, improving family health, and building self-sufficiency and long-term food security.

What is Household Food Security?

Households that are "food secure" are those that are able to provide each member of the family, no matter what their sex, age or physical condition, with an adequate supply of nutritious food on a sustainable basis. Food may be procured from home production, through purchase, through gathering, or through gifts or some other means of transfer. Households must be able to have stable access to food across seasons and transitory shortages.

A number of conditions influence the adequacy, stability and sustainability of household food supply. Any analysis of a household food situation must take these interrelated factors into account:

1. The potential resource base, including the agro-ecological setting and existing marketing systems which would mold the potential systems.
2. The socio-economic structure of the given society, which determines the nature of the production system and the household's resource allocation decisions within the food system.
3. The strategy that a household follows in food procurement, which is affected by access to resources, management of resources and the nature and extent of social support.
4. What foods are available from different sources in a given area, and the problems households confront in procuring food from each source, constitute the household food base.
5. Food storage, conservation and processing practices influence the composition and longevity of the food supply.

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