The status of people who live without hunger, fear of hunger, or starvation. ‘Food security depends on robust food systems that encompass issues of availability, access and utilization—not merely production alone’ (Gregory et al. (2005) Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 360, 21). ‘A key component of these newer definitions of food security is attention to building local capacity to produce and distribute food and control food supplies…[and] to keep decision-making power within the community rather than losing it through dependence on external sources of food’ (Anderson and Cook in J. Harris 2000).

India is a unique nutrition case study—despite enormous growth in economic and political power, in 2011 46% of Indian children were malnourished. ‘Food justice will not happen in India without recognizing the harsh reality facing the agriculture sector…the land rights of many are restrained by corporate interests and smallholder farmers play a crucial but forgotten role. A fair food system for India requires sound knowledge, transparent institutions, and, most importantly, the political will of leaders within India and globally’ (IDS Bulletin 17 July 2012).

Nally (2010) TIBG 36, 1, 37 explores the way a moral economy of hunger (viewing hunger as immoral and requiring intervention by governments and NGOs) is gradually being replaced by a political economy of food security that promotes market mechanisms as a better protection against scarcity. ‘The spectre of hunger in a world of plenty seems set to continue into the 21st century. It bears repeating that this is not the failure of the modern food regime (J. Edkins 2000), but the logical expression of its central paradoxes, particularly its reliance on over-production in some places and under-production in others. To think seriously about global hunger means addressing the legal, institutional, and biotechnical mechanisms—including trade tariffs, agricultural subsidies, enforcement of intellectual property rights, and the privatization of public provisioning systems—that directly restrict certain people’s ability to subsist.’ Slocum (2006) Antipode 38, 2, in a study of a community food coalition in New York, reveals that ‘people of colour disproportionately experience food insecurity, lose their farms, and face the dangerous work of food processing and agricultural labor’. See Hyman et al. (2005) Food Policy 30 on poverty and food security mapping; and P. Porter (2006).