IV International Symposium „Agrosym 2013“ 47 10.7251/AGSY1303047C WHEN ECONOMICS MATTERS IN MEETING FOOD SECURITY CHALLENGE: FOOD AFFORDABILITY AND ACCESSIBILITY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN Roberto CAPONE 1 , Hamid EL BILALI 1* , Philipp DEBS 1 , Gianluigi CARDONE 2 1 Department of Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Rural Development 2 Department of Mediterranean Organic Agriculture; Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari; International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM), Italy; (Corresponding author: elbilali@iamb.it) Abstract Food security is built on four pillars: availability, access, utilization and stability. For most Mediterranean people affordability is a key factor determining access to food. This is dependent not only on food cost but also on the disposable income that can be spent on food. The paper aims at analysing food accessibility in the Mediterranean region. Secondary data from different sources (e.g. FAO, World Bank) were used to analyse the trends of different indicators: food affordability; food consumer price index; household food expenditure; and cereals imports dependency. According to the Global Food Security Index, food affordability is still a challenge in the Mediterranean. In March 2013, food affordability score ranged from 34.8 in Syria to 86.5 in France. The share of food consumption expenditure in total household expenditure is high; 67.3% and 43.9% in Albania and Algeria, respectively. FAO food price index increase was higher than consumer price index increase in the period 2000-2011. During the period 2005-2011, the highest increase of the food consumer price index was recorded in Egypt followed by Turkey and Algeria. FAO consumer cereal price index increased more than meat price index in the period 2004-2012. Cereals import dependency is high in all Mediterranean Arab countries; up to 80% in drought years in Algeria. Accessible and affordable diets should not be taken for granted in the Mediterranean. Adequate and consistent economic access to safe, nutritious and high quality food, even in times of crisis, is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable food and nutrition security in the Mediterranean. Keywords: food affordability, food security, Mediterranean region Introduction Recent debates on food security, nutrition and health have contributed to moving these topics higher up in the list of development programme priorities (Hassan-Wassef, 2012). The 1996 World Food Summit definition of Food security was reaffirmed and amended officially in the 2009 Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security: “Food security exists when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.“ (CFS, 2009 in CFS, 2012). Food and Nutrition Security is a term that has been used more frequently during the past years to emphasise the need for greater integration of nutrition into food security policies and programmes (CFS, 2012). Food security is built on four pillars (CFS, 2012): (i) Food availability: sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis; (ii) Food access: having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet; (iii) Food use: appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care; and (iv) Stability in food availability, access and utilization. Food security - including food availability, food affordability and food quality and safety - is still a challenge in many Mediterranean countries especially southern and eastern ones (The Economist, 2012). For most people a key factor determining access to food is its affordability (Ingram, 2011). The accessibility dimension embraces Sen’s core thesis that food availability does not