Population food security assessment – a methodological approach

The paper approaches the different dimensions and analysis levels of the food and nutritional security, presenting the sets of indicators and methodologies used by the national and international organizations for its assessment. The sources used refer to the indicators and studies elaborated by FAO, OECD, IFPRI, Eurostat, EUI, Defra, the Ministry of Health and NIS. In the recent years, the population food security issue came to the foreground again, due to the challenges at global level, among which we can mention the food demand increase from the new emergent countries, the non-food uses of agricultural production by biofuel production, as well as the impact of climate changes, on agricultural production and on food supply. Food security is a concept that widely evolved in the last decades, while its complexity gradually increased. Practically, at present, in order to evaluate the food security from the different countries of the world, the specialized institutions or research teams use dozens of indicators, in order to measure the multiple dimensions of the food security concept. In this respect, the paper also contains an assessment of the population food security in Romania, as reflected by the most representative indicators presented.