Food security in the European countries

Food security is defined by the World food summit of 1996 as follows: „when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. Such definition includes several aspects, therefore it is necessary to use multidimensional view to its investigation. This concept is based on three pillars: food availability, food access and food use. This issue is hence complex sustainable development issue closely connected to health, economic, environmental and other issues. Presented paper is focused on the food security analysis in European countries. For this purpose are used data from Global food security index 2015 database by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and sponsored by DuPont about food security indicators. In the first part of the paper is analyzed recent development of the food security indicators in the European countries, then multivariate analysis is used to reduce dimension of the data. Countries were sorted into classes according their food security performance. Results suggest positive tendency in the European countries from the perspective of increasing welfare, food accessibility and its distribution. On the other side, economic development and sufficient supply of food brings another phenomenon which can significantly reduce quality of life and is connected with prevalence of obesity in most of the European states.


Introduction
During the last few years, food security became important challenge for every country.This issue has an interdisciplinary character because there are many factors which influence global food security.In accordance to economic, social, environmental and technical development, every country has possibilities which could lead to improvement of food security indicators.The fact is, that many countries have sufficient food production but worse food allocation.Improvement of the food allocation is only one from variety of solutions which could lead to improving of food security situation.
For the purpose of measuring food security was developed many global indexes.One of the most often used is global food security index (GFSI) by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).The index is a dynamic quantitative and qualitative benchmarking model, constructed from 28 unique indicators that measures drivers of food security across 109 developing and developed countries.Index considers three core pillars of food security -Affordability, Availability and Quality & Safety.This index was first time published in 2012 and from that time has been many times modified to the present form.
On the other hand, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) uses a different set of indicators to measure various aspects of food security.Indicators allow comparisons across regions and over time.They can be divided into four dimensions of food security -availability, access, utilization and stability.An initial set of indicators was developed in 2011.
World Health Organization explains tree pillars of food security as follows.Food availability -sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis.Food access -having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.Food use -appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation.There also exist some critics, who argues that trade liberalization may reduce a country's food security by reducing agricultural employment.CIRAD, the French agricultural research and international cooperation organization defines four basic pillar of food security -Access, Availability, Food quality and Stability.According to research of this institution, is important to apply three main principles.First is increasing agricultural production, second is improving competitiveness of farm production and incomes of farmers and other agro-food sector actors and third is improving food safety as well as food quality, and by adding value to traditional local products.
Both database obtained from EIU and FAOSTAT use wide range of indicators and includes data from various sources as World Bank, International Labor Organization, and National Statistical Offices´ publications, WHO, FAOSTAT and many others with regards to objects of interest.The set of chosen indicators is extended with background variables including economic development, welfare, lifestyle and social phenomenon strongly linked with measuring and improving food security.
Various ways of analyzing and measuring food security lead to different views of global food security and different attitudes to solve global food security problems.Michiel van Dijk et al. (2016) used scenario analysis to investigate food security.They present four scenarios to explore global food security up to 2050.They described process, storylines and drivers designed for food security modelling.The six key long-run drivers are population growth, GDP per capita, cereal yield, nominal rate of assistance, meat consumption and land use.Key drivers used in scenarios analysis are also used in a set of indicators in the Global Food Security Index.
Another team of authors (Qureshi, Dixon and Wood 2015) analyzed different types of public policies which can influence food security situation at country's level.They conclude that the effectiveness of food security policies is determined by selecting the best bundle of policy instruments for the specific context and country and that tradeoffs between policy instruments should be well-understood, in order to achieve the right goals and avoid perverse outcomes.
On the other hand, Firel and Ford (2015) argue, that food security is not just a food policy issue.These influences operate both directly through the food system and indirectly through political, economic, social, and cultural pathways -peoples' dietary behaviors are a response to the broader daily living conditions in which they are born, live, learn, work and age.They propose that to address food insecurity and diet-related death and disease, policy must tackle the systemic problems that generate poor nutrition in all its forms, and reflect how our food systems are making people sick.This has implications for economic, agriculture, food, social and health policy at the global, regional, national and local levels.
Godfray, Beddington, Crude et.Al. (2010) claim, that growing competition for land, water, and energy, in addition to the overexploitation of fisheries, will affect ability to produce food, as will the urgent requirement to reduce the impact of the food system on the environment.The effects of climate change are a further threat.But the world can produce more food and can ensure that it is used more efficiently and equitably.They emphasize, that multifaceted http://dx.doi.org/10.15414/isd2016.s2.06 and linked global strategy is needed to ensure sustainable and equitable food security, different components of which are explored here.
The main objective of the presented paper is the analysis of current food security situation in selected European countries.This objective is accomplished by comparing countries with regard to analyzed indicators in the first part.In the second part are investigated countries clustered into different groups according analyzed indicators.Finally, created groups are compared and most different factors are identified.In the conclusion are identified the most and least positioned countries according their performance in food security indicators.

Data and methodology
Source of the data was Global food security index 2015 database by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and sponsored by DuPont.Variables were selected according to pillars of food security (affordability or access, availability and food quality and stability which some sources define as a use of food) and include also background variables which can influence food security situation.With regards of analyzing a set of developed European countries from the total number of 36 indicators were selected variables which can be considered as important factors in Europe and represent individual pillars of food security.Following variables across 26 European countries (this was influenced by the availability of data) countries for the period of year 2015 were selected:

Food loss
total waste/total domestic supply quantity (tonnes) post-harvest and pre-consumer food loss as a ratio of the total domestic supply of crops, livestock and fish commodities 1 expenditure on agricultural R&D is a proxy for agricultural innovation and technology that increases market efficiency and access.

Indicators Formula Description
Diet diversification % of non-starchy foods (%) the share of non-starchy foods (all but cereals, roots, and tubers) in total dietary energy consumption

Indicators Formula Description
Human Development Index (HDI) In the first part of presented research results were applied descriptive statistics to present current situation across investigated countries.Then a multivariate analysis of principal components was applied to reduce dimension of the data and remove collinearity among variables.Results of this analysis were four standardized principal components which were obtained as the linear combination of the original variables.The main objective was fulfilled by classification of analyzed countries into clusters which represents similarity in relation to food security indicators.

Results and discussion
Situation in the Europe is first characterized by descriptive statistics of indicators which can significantly influence food security situation.Indicators are ordered according to pillars.At the end of this part are described background variables which are not included in the pillars but they are closely connected with the food security.Summary of the descriptive statistics is in the Table 1.The only indicator from the pillar 3 included in presented analysis is diet diversification.Average value of this indicator was 66.81% with the standard deviation 6.25%.50% of analyzed countries exceeded 68.5%.Highest share of non-starchy foods in total dietary consumption was in Switzerland (76%), Spain (75%), Austria (74%), Netherlands (73%) and Germany (72%).All of these are developed countries where population prefer healthy lifestyle.On the other side, the least share of non-starchy food in total dietary energy consumption was recorded in Turkey (53%), Romania (55%), Bulgaria (57%) and Ukraine (58%).Central European countries with the result over average were Hungary (70%) and Czech Republic (69%).Slovakia (65%) and Poland (59%) performed under the mean.Diet diversification is connected not only with food supply, economic development but also with eating habits in analyzed countries.
All variables described above were included in the basic three pillars of food security.In our research work we also analyzed background variables closely linked with food security -Human Development Index, Global Gender Gap Index, EIU Democracy Index and Prevalence of Obesity.Average value of HDI in the set of analyzed European countries was 0.85 with standard deviation 0.06 which means well developed countries with low variability.50% of the countries reached level above 0.87.Most developed countries are Norway (0.94), Switzerland (0.92), Netherlands (0.92) and Germany (0.91).On the other side, least developed in the analyzed set of countries were Ukraine (0.73), Serbia (0.74) and Turkey (0.76).The only central European country which performed over average value was Czech Republic (0.86).Then followed Poland and Slovakia (both 0.83) and Hungary 0.82.
Another background variable is Global Gender Gap.This indicator is also connected to almost all sectors including agriculture.We can expect more gender equality in more developed countries.Average value was 0.74 with standard deviation 0.05.50% of countries performed under 0.73.Highest value of this index were recorded in northern European countries Finland (0.85), Norway (0.84) and Sweden (0.82).Least gender equality was found in Turkey (0.62), Czech Republic (0.67), Hungary (0.68), Greece (0.68) and Slovakia (0.68).All central European countries performed under average, best result was in Poland (0.7).The rest of the central European countries was among the worst in the Europe.
Another variable which can indirectly affect food security (especially access to food) is the state of democracy, in this case quantified using EIU Democracy Index.Average value of this index in the set of analyzed countries was 7.74 with the standard deviation 1.41.50% of the countries reached even higher value than 7.94.This means good status of democracy in most of the analyzed countries.Best situation is in Norway (9.9), Sweden (9.7), Denmark (9.1), Switzerland (9.1) and Finland (9.0).Most of the countries with the highest democratic score is http://dx.doi.org/10.15414/isd2016.s2.06 situated in the Northern Europe.Worst state of democracy was recorded in Belarus (3.6), Turkey (5.1) and Ukraine (5.4).Best result in central Europe was recorded in Czech Republic (7.94), which is actually value of median.The rest of central European countries performed under the average were Poland, Slovakia and Hungary (7.5, 7.4 and 6.9 respectively).
Last indicator used in the presented analysis was the prevalence of the obesity.This indicator can influence consumption and therefore sufficiency of the food.Indicator can be also used as the measure of the quality of diet.Average value of the indicator was 20.92% with the standard deviation 3.88%.50% of countries recorded more than 20.7% of obese population over 20 year of age.Highest share of obese population was found in Turkey (29.3%) and Czech Republic (28.7%).On the other hand, the least share of obese population was found in Switzerland (14.9%) and France (15.6%).All central European countries scored among most obese nations.There are Slovakia, Hungary and Poland (24.6%, 24.5% and 23.2% respectively).Relationship between prevalence of obesity and average food supply is on the figure 2. The logic of the figure is the same as was in the previous case (figure 1).There cannot be found clear relationship, but on the other side is obvious which countries are above or under average.There can be also identified countries with low prevalence of obesity despite of high food supply and on the other side, countries with high prevalence of obesity despite of high food supply.
Obesity seems to be problem in most of the developed countries.Factors which can influence this fact can be various.One of them could be possibly also diet diversification.Relationship between diet diversification and prevalence of obesity is shown on the figure 3. Between countries with higher prevalence of obesity is also Spain despite of great diet diversification.

Classification of the countries by food security indicators
We applied multivariate analysis of principal components to reduce dimension of the data and remove collinearity among variables.Cluster number five includes only two countries: Turkey and Bulgaria.These two countries report highest rate of poverty among analyzed set of countries.There is also very high rate of corruption, great volatility of agricultural production and very high food loss.These countries can be also characterized as less developed with bad diet diversification, poor state of democracy according index and great gender gap.In spite of less development, there is evident high prevalence of obesity.
Sixth cluster includes Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary, Spain, United Kingdom and Czech Republic.In most of these countries is still present poverty.Other common characteristics of these countries includes low food supply, good diet diversification and high prevalence of obesity.Last two facts are probably reason why Great Britain was surprisingly classified into this cluster.

Conclusion
The main objective of the presented paper was to offer general overview of the food security situation in selected European countries and indicators which can influence it.After detailed analysis of indicators relevant for the situation in Europe can be concluded that food security situation in Europe is stable in relation to all pillars of food security, but there are still some weak spots especially in less developed countries.
Main problem which can influence especially affordability and availability of food in sufficient amount is poverty which is still present in some countries despite of relatively good situation in Europe.This is actual problem especially in Bulgaria, Spain, Turkey and Romania.This problem can be even deeper in the future when will be connected with current immigration crisis.In contrast with obesity can be concluded serious problem with allocation of food supply.
Another important problem is low efficiency of food use and huge food loss especially in Turkey and Bulgaria.High food loss problem concerns also European commission and is also mentioned in the European action plan for the Circular Economy (European Commission 2015), which suggest certain actions on this field.However, this problem is still actual in the entire Europe.Overall European mean (2,86) is according Global Food Security Index records (2012) much higher than average food loss in the United States (0,9) .
Development is connected with efficient use of available food in adequate quality, quality of food influence wellbeing and quality of life of the population.Last few years, especially in developed countries raised new problem, which is not connected with insufficient food supply, but with prevalence of obesity which decrease quality of life in many developed countries.Average prevalence of obesity in analyzed countries was 20,92%, which is accounted only for population in the age over 20.Solving of this problem is challenge and is also connected with promotion of healthy lifestyle and adequate food allocation.

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Prevalence of obesity vs. Average food supply

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Classification of European countries by similarity in food security indicators

Table 1 : Descriptive statistics of the selected food security indicators
Source: author´s work based on database by The EconomistIn the food consumption could be expected higher values in case of less developed countries with lower income level, and low values in developed countries with high income.Average share of food consumption was 18.13% with the standard deviation 10.02%.Almost half of the analyzed countries exceeded 14.12% share of the food consumption.Minimum value was in the United Kingdom (9.This value suggests big differences in economic development across Europe.This is confirmed also by coefficient of variation, which means that standard deviation is almost 42% of average.Most developed country in the central European region is Czech Republic (29170$ per capita), then Slovak Republic (27640$ per capita), Hungary (24570$ per capita) and Poland (24470 $ per capita).All central European countries performed below mean value.Another important food security indicator is the average food supply.The average value of this indicator in the European countries was 3341 kcal/capita/day with standard deviation 267.21 kcal/capita/day.More than 50% of the analyzed countries reached food supply over 3388 kcal/capita/day.Highest value of food supply was in Belgium (3793 kcal/capita/day), European countries are well supplied.Situation in the central European region is similar.Highest food supply in Central European region was in Poland (3485 kcal/capita/day), which is only central European country above mean value.The rest of central European countries performed under average (Czech Republic 3292 kcal/capita/day), Hungary (2968 kcal/capita/day) and Slovakia (2902 kcal/capita/day).Relationship between average food supply and GDP is shown on the figure1.Orange lines on the figure refers to average value of the indicators and create four quadrants.In the left bottom quadrant are countries with under average value of both indicators.In the upper right quadrant are localized countries with over average value of both indicators.The right bottom and upper left quadrant is for countries with the under average value of one indicator and over average value of the other.://dx.doi.org/10.15414/isd2016.s2.06 value of this rating in European countries was 1.62, with standard deviation 1.15.50% of countries performed over value 1.5.Highest risk of corruption was found in Ukraine (rating 4).Then followed Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Italy, Turkey and Greece (rating 4).Lowest risk of corruption (rating 0) was found in Switzerland, Netherland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.Risk of corruption in all central European countries was evaluated by rating 2.Last indicator in the pillar 2 is food loss.Average value of this ratio in the analyzed set of countries was 2.86 with standard deviation 2.01.50% of countries recorded food loss above 2.28.Highest food loss was in Romania (9.17) and Turkey (8.98) which clearly exceeded the rest.Then followed Greece (4.57) and Serbia (4.28).This result suggests low efficiency of food industry in these countries.On the other side, lowest food loss was in Finland (0.19) and Switzerland (0.39).The only central European country with food loss value over average is Poland (3.75).Then follows Hungary (2.74) and Slovakia (2.36).Least value of food loss in region was found in Czech Republic (1.36).
(5)) and Switzerland (9.26%).The highest value of food consumption was in Romania (49%) where people spend almost half of their expenditure on food.High values were also recorded in Belarus (39.2%),Ukraine (38.9%) and Serbia (27.4%).Most of the analyzed countries recorded value of food consumption share under 30%.Food consumption in Slovakia represent 17.36% which is slightly under the European mean and similar to the rest of central European countries (Czech Republic 15.4%, Poland 18.5% and Hungary 17.6%, all countries are below European mean).The difference between highest and lowest food consumption is 40.24p.p.Variability expressed by coefficient of variance was 55%, which means great differences across European countries in food consumption between European countries.Second indicator expressed proportion of population under global poverty line.In most of the analyzed countries was value of this indicator close to 0. Significantly different values from 0 were recorded in 9 countries: Ukraine (0.03%), Poland (0.11%), Hungary (0.17%), Serbia (0.47%), Slovakia (0.49%), Romania (1.59%), Turkey (2.56%), Spain (2.67%) and Bulgaria (3.92%).Most frequently used measure of economic development is GDP per capita.Average value of GDP per capita in the analyzed set of countries was 34131$ per capita with standard deviation 14208.83$percapita.Half of the countries reached less GDP than 34405$ per capita.Difference between country with highest (Norway 68040$ per capita) and lowest GDP (Ukraine 8400$ per capita) is 59640$ per capita.Austria (3784 kcal/capita/day) and Turkey (3680 kcal/capita/day).Lowest food supply was in Serbia (2742 kcal/capita/day), Bulgaria (2877 kcal/capita/day) and Slovakia (2902 kcal/capita/day).Variability expressed using coefficient of variation was 8% which mean low difference in food supply among analyzed countries.There can be concluded that all Source: author´s work based on database by The Economist Expenditure on agricultural research and development is another indicator belonging to second pillar of food security.Average mark among evaluated countries was 2.68.Highest spending on agricultural research and development was recorded in Ireland and Netherland (both 8) which clearly over performed the rest of the Europe.Second place belong to France, Germany and Spain(5).The worst result (evaluated 1) was recorded in Norway, Greece, Denmark, Romania, Czech Republic, Belarus, Sweden, Ukraine, Hungary and Serbia.Best result in the expenditure on agricultural research and development in central European region was in Slovakia (4) and Poland (2).Republic (0.12).This result means stable agricultural production in central European region.Another factor which influence availability of food, especially in less developed countries, is corruption.This factor is also important for overall development of the country.Average http Result of this analysis were four standardized principal components.First component can be characterized as the Economic and development factor.Highest weights in the first component have variables: HDI, GDP, Democracy index and Diet diversification.Highest negative weight has corruption and food expenditure.Second component is connected with agriculture, because highest weights have variables expenditure on agricultural research and development, food loss and food supply.Significant role in this component plays also poverty and prevalence of obesity.Third component is closely connected with negative factors with highest weight on poverty and volatility of agricultural production.Significant role in this component play also Global Gender Gap Index.Last component is connected especially with food usage.Highest weight has Average food supply and Food expenditure.Highest negative weight in this component has Prevalence of obesity.Estimated four components were used as the inputs into cluster analysis.This analysis was used in order to classify countries into different clusters according their performance.Countries in the same cluster should be similar in terms of analyzed indicators, on the other hand clusters should be as different as it is possible.Countries were classified into six clusters presented on the figure 4.First cluster includes 5 countries: Austria, France, Germany, Ireland and Netherlands.All these countries can be characterized as developed countries with great quality of democracy and human development, and also low gender, no poverty, very low rate of corruption and obesity.From the point of food security view, all these countries have high food supply and high investment into agricultural research and development with great diet diversification.Second cluster includes four countries: Greece, Poland, Portugal and Italy.All of these countries have great food supply and low rate of volatility in agricultural production.Despite of well evaluated state of democracy in these countries it is there present significant rate of corruption.Third cluster includes countries: Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and Belgium.All of these countries are developed countries with high value of GDP per capita and low rate of obesity and corruption.The only difference with the first cluster is in lower food supply and very low rate of food loss.Fourth cluster includes Belarus, Ukraine and Romania.These countries recorded highest share of the food expenditure, low GDP, very low investment into agricultural research and development, low level of human development and democracy.All these countries are characterized also by the presence of poverty and very high rate of corruption and high rate of volatility of agricultural production.