Towards Zero Hunger – Food Security

Welcome to the module ‘Food Security‘ of Towards Zero Hunger.

Here, you can learn about the theoretical basics around food security for sustainable development.

This module is part of a series of online learning materials.

Towards Zero Hunger will give you insights into the potential of remote sensing technologies to support the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger.

What will you learn?

Achieving a state where all people have sufficient nutritious food to lead an active and healthy life is one of the big challenges of the 21^st century. Food security for all, therefore, is the second of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

But what does the term food security stand for?
How has it evolved since the first appearance of this concept in the 1970s?
How is it measured and which challenges are there to face?
And how can modern Earth observation technology support achieving the goal to feed the above 8 billion people on the planet?

In this module, you are introduced to key concepts around food security and its dimensions. You will learn about food system components, their interlinkages, and feedback effects with the bio-physical and socio-economic environment, which they depend on as much as they influence it. Lastly, you will get to know entry points where Earth observation and geoinformation science can help to improve food security and achieve better management of food systems.

Learning Objectives

Understanding the concepts of food security and food systems
Describing challenges to achieve food security globally
Knowing different Earth observation-based approaches to tackle world hunger

Workload

Choose your own learning pace.
Depending on your existing knowledge, it will take 1-3 hours to complete.

Introduce yourself

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For which SDG 2 targets is this module relevant?

Earth observation can contribute to reaching the goal Zero Hunger, particularly through targets 2.3, 2.4 and 2.C and indicator 2.4.1.

This module is relevant to all of these targets.

For which food production practices is this module relevant?

Towards Zero Hunger Modules

If you want to learn more about different food production systems, the role of EO, approaches, or applications for mapping and monitoring, you can choose from the courses below.

Fundamentals & Concepts Modules

Hands-on Tutorials

Hands-on Tutorials Companion

This module’s content is based on, among other sources, a series of keynote lectures on food security by prof. Andrew Nelson (ITC/University of Twente), kindly made available for this course.

More about the food security lecture series