Constructing a composite index to evaluate multidimensional variations in food security over different regions.

Area of Science:

• Agricultural Economics
• Global Food Security Studies
• Spatio-temporal Analysis

Background:

• Global food security assessment requires large-scale understanding and timely risk warnings.
• Current regional analyses lack sufficient spatiotemporal distribution and multidimensional comparisons.
• Existing methods may not fully capture the complex, multidimensional nature of food security.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel composite index for multidimensional food security measurement.
• To explore the spatiotemporal evolution of food security across different dimensions globally and regionally.
• To provide a more comprehensive tool for assessing regional food system risks.

Main Methods:

• A hybrid weighting technique combining the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) methods was employed.
• A new Food Security Composite Index (FSCI) was developed.
• Panel data from 2001 to 2020 was utilized for global and regional analysis.

Main Results:

• The FSCI demonstrated stable variations in the quantity dimension across all regions.
• Significant improvements in economic security were observed in Europe and the Latin America and Caribbean region.
• Asia exhibited an upward trend in the resource dimension of food security.
• Europe showed a pronounced advantage compared to the global average, while Sub-Saharan Africa faced a significant disadvantage.

Conclusions:

• The developed FSCI offers a robust, multidimensional approach to assessing food security.
• Regional disparities in food security persist, with notable differences in economic and resource dimensions.
• The findings underscore the need for targeted interventions to address food security challenges in vulnerable regions like Sub-Saharan Africa.