CAPSA is the Centre for Alleviation of Poverty through Secondary Crops Development in Asia and the Pacific, of the Unitade Nations. Millions are food insecure in South Asia. Why? Because achieving ‘food security’ means not just ensuring that sufficient food is available in the system, but also that everyone has economic, social, cultural and physical access to it — and failures of access to food, particularly for the most marginal sub-groups of population, are largely hidden from the public view — and that food has adequate nutritive value. Achieving ‘food security’ also means people have the right physiological condition to absorb and utilize food, which is contingent upon, inter alia, access to potable water; availability of promotive and preventive health care.
