GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY: SECURITY FACTORS AND CURRENT TRENDS

Abstract

The issue of ensuring global food security remains one of the leading and decisive issues for all countries in the world, without exception. The implementation of the goals of sustainable development, which have become a strategic priority for society, has separated the problems of overcoming hunger and ensuring the health of the population as key and the main priority for the further existence of humanity. The article examines the essence of the category "food security" from various scientific and methodological positions and conducts a comprehensive review of the prominent trends that accompany the aspects of solving the issue of achieving food security on a global scale. The main elements of the agro-food system as a resource base for ensuring global food security are separated: 1) a sufficient amount of safe, high-quality food; 2) healthy nutrition of the population; 3) inclusive distribution of income and expenses of the population; 4) prevention of climate change, sustainability and conservation of biological resources. A set of key factors influencing the possibilities of ensuring global food security has been identified: population size, science and technology, climate change, imperfect global food distribution mechanisms, problems of gender inequality, urbanization processes, and inclusive gaps between the living conditions of the population, the growing scale of political and military conflicts The model's architecture, which contains the essential characteristics of achieving global food security, is outlined. Critical trends for achieving global food security were identified and assessed. Among them: the relative stability of the problem of world hunger, in particular, in individual world regions; increasing the level of dependency, hunger, and gender inequality; the growth of inclusive gaps in the economic availability of food; increase in the level of urbanization of the population; the health problem of a large part of the world's population and the strengthening of the trend of healthy eating. Ukraine, a significant player in the global agri-food market, holds substantial potential to combat the world's hunger crisis. The key to unlocking this potential lies in resolving the ongoing military conflict within Ukraine's borders and restoring the country's agricultural resources and production capabilities through sustainable development.