@Anti-Poverty Week is an event held every October to raise awareness and understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty in Australia, and to encourage action to end it. In today’s blog, Life Course Centre (@lifecourseAust) Research Fellow Dr Chandana Maitra from the University of Sydney (@Sydney_Uni) highlights food insecurity which is a hidden and overlooked socio-economic problem in Australia.
As the cost of living soars, a growing number of Australians are reportedly struggling to put enough food on the table. Food insecurity isn’t a problem many associate with Australia, but ongoing economic pressures have seen around 3 million (11.04%) people living in Australia experience moderate to severe food insecurity during 2020-22, according to the eight-item Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) – the official indicator to globally track the Sustainable Development Goal of ‘zero hunger’. Between 2014-16 and 2020-22, severe food insecurity increased from 2.8% to 3.4% (roughly 880,000 people). Food charities claim that they are experiencing unprecedented demand for services, with a large proportion of people seeking help for the first time.
What is food security?
Food security, a social determinant of health, is a complex and multifaceted concept. The most acceptable definition of food security was agreed at the 1996 World Food Summit – food security exists if and only if “all people at all times have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” Therefore, food insecurity exists when people do not have adequate physical, social or economic access to food as defined above.
It’s important to recognise the subtle differences with the closely related concepts of hunger, undernourishment, or malnutrition which are typically outcomes of food insecurity. The core dimensions of food security are availability (food supply), access (affordability), utilisation (capacity to absorb and utilise the nutrients in the food consumed), and stability (over time).
Food insecurity can be chronic – driven by continuing poverty or low income, or transitory – where people experience periods of food deprivation. Regardless, vulnerability is a key notion embedded in the concept of food insecurity; even if a household/individual is food secure today, it may become food insecure tomorrow.
Who are the food insecure in Australia?
Access to food, which captures the demand side of food security, is the closest to the concept of well-being. Lack of access to enough nutritious food (even for a temporary period), is associated with children’s behavioural, academic and emotional problems beginning as early as infancy.
Australia measures economic access to food using a single‐item measure which was asked in the earlier rounds of National Health Surveys (NHS) and is now included in the Australian Health Survey (AHS): “In the last 12 months was there any time you have run out of food and not been able to purchase more?” Respondents who answered ‘yes’ to this question are considered food insecure. These respondents were asked a follow-up question on whether they or other members of the household had gone without food. Those who answered affirmatively were identified as severely food insecure.
The most recent official statistics on food security was reported in the 2011/13 Australian Health Survey. At the time, it found one in 25 people lived in food insecure households, with roughly one in 50 living in severely food insecure households. However, according to more recent information based on FIES data obtained from the 2020 Household Income & Labor Dynamics (HILDA), roughly one in seven households comprised one or more food insecure members.
Increase in cost of living and food insecurity
According to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), all household types recorded an increase in living costs in the June 2024 quarter. Even though food prices eased compared to the peak in December 2022, they remain high compared to the pre-pandemic level. Fruits and vegetables prices had the biggest jump – 3.7% higher compared to 12 months ago.
What are the implications for food insecurity? First, when prices of healthy food items increase, they become more unaffordable, potentially pushing more people into food insecurity. To make things worse, rising food prices may affect other aspects of well-being such as financial well-being, since food insecurity often coexists with other forms of deprivation, such as housing stress or low level of social support.
For those facing food insecurity, a potential adverse consequence of these healthy food price rises is obesity. A typical coping strategy for low-income households is to rely on lower-cost sources of dietary energy such as refined grains, added sugars, and added fats as opposed to the relatively expensive but more nutrient-dense lean meats, fish, fresh vegetables and fruit. This shift in dietary behaviour can also occur with general cost-of-living pressures, and households are required to balance the cost of essentials such as rent, food and housing.
Low-income households also often face higher living costs because they lack the means to shop more efficiently, for example through buying groceries in bulk, or they pay more for food because they need to travel due to living in remote areas. Reduced food security can also occur due to the fact that, typically, low-income households are more reliant on small stores as opposed to supermarkets which offer lower prices and a wider range of products but are more likely to be located in cities as opposed to rural areas. Therefore, in areas where food choices are limited due to the kinds and locations of food stores, low-income households may face relatively higher food costs when prices rise. Otherwise, they may cope by selecting more economical foods and reduced grocery spending.
Tackling food insecurity in the long run
Sustainable food security will require a twin-track approach, which entails paying attention to immediate needs of the food deprived (short run) as well as building resilience to deal with future shocks (longer term).
In the long run, food insecurity can be tackled by a combination of investment in agriculture to drive productivity growth on the supply side plus extensive social protection on the demand side (e.g., expanded employment, safety nets provided through cash or food-based transfers). For example, increased investment in agri-food R&D could drive down the relative prices of healthful foods such as fruits and vegetables. Expanding the per capita supply of healthful foods may also require significant reallocation of lands from starchy staples and feed to more nutrient-dense commodities such as horticultural crops.
To deal with health consequences such as obesity, it is possible to go beyond conventional economic factors such as income-prices, and directly influence dietary behaviour by attempting to change consumers’ “food choice environment” through strategies such as nutrition labelling.
Finally, regular monitoring is essential for enhancing food security in the long run. Better data is critical to bridge the gap between research and practice.