Capturing food insecurity data and implications for business and policy

Food insecurity (also known as food poverty) is the inability to afford or access a healthy diet (Radimer et al., 1990). It has become a public health emergency (Furey, 2020) and is a priority in the context of the environmental, geopolitical and socio-economic implications on businesses, households and civic society because a poorly nourished population is also less economically productive limiting the business world’s chances for maximising economic activity (Beacom et al., 2021). Data about its prevalence are critical for informing cross-sectoral government policy and action to ensure Government cross-departmental
understanding and action on hunger and implement strategies for improvement and monitor progress. In order to understand the prevalence and severity of food insecurity, it is incumbent on governments to measure and report on food insecurity at national, regional and global levels. This is important in the context that the UK has signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015) that call for an end to poverty (No poverty) in all its forms everywhere to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition (Zero hunger) (Caraher and Furey, 2018, p.38).Despite food insecurity achieving growing attention in the food policy arena, efforts to eradicate food poverty thus far have tended to be downstream rather than policy-level responses. Food insecurity data, whether that be measurement or mapping data can support the targeting of food and economic aid by directing public spending effectively and efficiently. Qualitative data about the lived experience and the efficacy or otherwise of intervention
strategies can help to change public attitudes towards the phenomenon and indeed supportive its framing in popular and political debate. Food insecurity requires a long-term, sustainable solution that addresses the policy issues
under focus: low income, under/unemployment, rising food prices and Welfare Reform, informed by routine, Government-supported monitoring and reporting of the extent of food poverty among our citizens. Importantly however, its measurement should not be considered to be a solution to food insecurity. While measurement is an important and necessary contributor to the research
agenda around food insecurity and to plan and inform cross-sectoral government policy and appropriate policy and other interventions, in and of itself it does not provide solutions but contributes importantly to understanding its extent and severity. There, therefore, needs to be a balance between measurement of the problems, devising solutions and evaluating the solutions (Caraher and Furey, 2018, p.7). Critically, we need research and policy solutions that complement each other so that we do not merely continue to describe
food poverty occurrences but effect meaningful change amidst our communities to make life better in a timely way for those experiencing acute and chronic hunger. Addressing the structural causes of food insecurity through economically, socially and culturally fair and appropriate policy levers provide the greatest chance to address the gap between income and food costs and lift our most vulnerable citizens out of food insecurity.