One way or the other, Nepal is facing a grave problem of food insecurity despite over 70 per cent of population is engaged in agriculture accounting for more than 38 per cent contribution to GDP. Many factors are responsible behind such pitiable condition that has made over 50 per cent of country’s total population undernourished, and nearly half of all children below five are chronically malnourished.
With this alarming situation of food insecurity, there comes the new-age concept to tackle it –food sovereignty.The Concept was first formalized in the World Food Summit in Rome, 1996.Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate foods produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.
Food sovereignty emphasizes setting the goal while the latter is defining the way to realize it. Food security means that all people have physical and economic access to basic food at all times, as defined by the United Nations. The main determinant of food insecurity is the vulnerability of people, which in turn is induced by poverty which makes people unable to feed themselves leading to insufficient and inadequate food. Poverty eradication is, thus, a key factor for ending the abject situation of food insecurity, be it in Nepal or in any parts of the world.
Sushilbandhu 