ASSESSMENT OF FOOD SECURITY IN COUNTRY OR GEOGRAPHIC REGION: MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION

Nowadays, the problem of food security remains one of the most global challenges in the world. Governments seek to ensure and manage food security to provide enough food for all citizens to live a healthy life. To improve food security management food insecurity reliable indicators useful to policymakers are of high demand. With this purpose, various integral indicators or indices of the level of food security of population are commonly used, including the Global Food Security Index and the Global Hunger Index. Despite copious methods, indicators and indices used worldwide, there's lack a common and unified methodology allowing to evaluate food security. With the purpose of the study, by way of descriptive, comparative, grouping, monographic, economic, and statistical analysis methods various methodologies, indicators and indices of food security / insecurity evaluation were investigated. The Global Food Security Index 2019 and the Global Hunger Index 2019 were investigated both from methodology and countries' indicators perspective. In course of the study, a unified system of food security indicators for a country or region was developed. The concise and informative system is based on indicators of current and target condition of food security / insecurity, and indicators of food security risks and threats which can adversely affect food security in medium- and long-term perspective. The proposed set of indicators and criteria for food security can be adjusted by additional criteria and indicators depending on the agricultural orientation of the country and its agricultural production. The suggested system of indicators can be used by authorities for quick and reliable assessment of food security of risks thereto in course of planning and development of national and regional agri-food policy