A diversified diet is likely to be particularly beneficial to the health of women and children. This picture was taken in southern Mali. Photo：K.-U. Klinker

The basis of food security

The World Food Summit of 1996 in Rome defined food security as follows：

“Food security [...] is achieved when all people，at all times，have physical and economic access to sufficient，safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”（www.fao.org/index_en.htm）.

There are three core determinants of food security：

● Availability involves the production of a sufficient quantity of food that is available at the right time and in the right place.

● Access concerns the demand side，in particular the problems of people who cannot buy enough food even if it is available.

● Utilisation involves the correct storage，processing and combination of foods.

Very poor people often live in a situation of chronic food insecurity，while seasonal food shortages，price rises or the sudden breakdown of the supply infrastructure can lead to temporary food insecurity（BMZ，2003；www.fantaproject.org/focus/foodsecurity.shtml）.

It is estimated that at least 852 million people worldwide suffer from hunger and malnutrition；four-fifths of them live in rural areas（FAO，2005）. Tackling hunger has for many years been one of the issues at the heart of international cooperation. The eradication of extreme poverty and hunger is also named as the first of the eight UN Millennium Development Goals（MDGs）proclaimed in 2000.

Five years after the declaration of these goals，experts from 25 nations have stated that the conservation and sustainable use of the diversity of cultivated plants and domestic animal breeds is key to the attainment of the first MDG（IPGRI，GFU，MSSRF，2005）. It is this diversity that has in the past enabled people to settle in almost all the regions of the Earth and to provide food for themselves under even the harshest of conditions. This potential is currently underutilised and could turn out to be a vast treasure trove，especially for people dependent upon agriculture in marginal rural areas.