Food Security: The Concept’s Evolution and its Coverage

抄録

This paper focuses on the concept of food security, its evolution, and the coverage of its temporal aspect, that is, its stability. Food security was only conceptualised quite recently in the mid-1970s. The adopted definition at the World Food Summit in 1996 described four dimensions, one of which is stability, which are crucial for the achievement of food security. During the process of conceptualising, both non-political and internal political factors are well reflected in the evolving concept. However, after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, there were no changes made to cover the external political forces, that is, the rising trend of sanctions imposition by states and international organisations and institutions. Therefore, the temporal dimension in the adopted definition exhibits a critical issue of coverage of the circumstances, which can impact the achievement of food security. Therefore, this article will look at the chronological evolution of the concept since the emergence of the world food crisis and examine the impact of the external political forces on the four dimensions of food security in Iraq. Then, it will explain the deficiency and what was neglected when adopting the final version of the food security concept.