*4.3. Ensuring Food Security*

Providing a food base is the basis of food security for each country. The definition of food security adopted at the Food Safety Summit covers four aspects: food availability, access to food, food use and stability [1,2,11]. Food security can be analyzed on several levels (security dimensions): individual or family security, also referred to as food security of households, national food security and international food security [2,65]. Economic globalization justifies the use of the concept of global food security [66]. Particular attention is now paid to the food security of households. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) defines them in such a manner that all households have physical and economic access to sufficient food for all members, and there is no risk that they will lose this access [2,65].

In the legal sense of "food security", it is said that food security is an optimal state assumed by the legislator. The means that the relevant provisions of national and EU law and, above all, the provisions of international law are required to achieve food security. According to the FAO/WHO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), food security means a state in which all people have access to food that is safe for health and value. In legal terms, the concept of food security is related to the human right to food and the need to combat hunger [2,4].

In turn, from a philosophical point of view, "food security" is expressed in the fact that society should not allow any of its members to starve. In this approach, the opposite of food security is hunger related to the body, which can result in the loss of human dignity [4].

Food safety is considered in a production context, especially potato production. Food safety mainly depends on the health quality of food. The Act of August 25, 2006, as amended (2020/2021) on food and nutrition safety, specifies the requirements and procedures necessary to ensure food and nutrition safety in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 2002 establishing the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures for food safety (Journal of Laws EC L 31 of 01.02.2002, p. 1; EU Journal of Laws), called "Regulation No 178/2002", "by regulation No. 1935/2004" [67–70]:

	- (a) Food—within the scope not regulated in Regulation (EC) No. 852/2004 of the European Parliament (Journal of Laws UE L 139 of 30 April 2004, p. 1),
	- (b) Materials and articles intended to come into contact with food—within the scope not regulated in Regulation (EC) No. 1935/2004 of the European Parliament of 27 October 2004 on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food (Journal of Laws UE L 338 from 13 November 2004),

The results of the research by Otekunrin et al. [4] carried out in Nigeria revealed that only 12.8% of households had food security, while 87.2% had varying levels of food insecurity. In Europe, food security is at a higher level than in developing countries, but there are large regional and national differences indicated by FAO/WHO [2], Otekunrin et al. [4,54], Yuen [10], Karaczun [45], Scott et al. [70] and Tripathi et al. [71]. The main objectives of the European food safety policy are to protect human health and consumer interests and to support the smooth operation of the European single market. Thus, the European Union supervises the legal status, the establishment and compliance with control standards in such areas as follows: hygiene of feed and food products, animal health, plant health and the prevention of food contamination by external substances. In addition, the farm-to-fork approach in the EU aims to ensure a high level of safety at all stages of the production and distribution process of all food products placed on the EU market, regardless of whether they are produced in the EU or imported from third countries. This piece of legislation is a complex and comprises an integrated system of rules governing the entire food chain. These rules will be further developed in the context of the Commission's Farm to Fork Strategy, which was launched in 2020 as part of the European Green Deal. Nevertheless, the level of food security is clearly differentiated between European countries, and Europe is ranked behind North America according to the Global Food Security Index created in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit [4,72]. The first "20" of the index includes eleven EU countries, with Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands at the fore. Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary ranked lower; 44, 40 and 36, respectively, Poland was placed 25th in this ranking. The need to implement more solutions that will provide people in need with access to a wide range of food resources is stressed. This variation in food safety is due to an internal discrepancy. The level of food security in the EU is therefore not uniform, as the results of both Mediterranean and Central and Eastern European countries are much weaker than in Western Europe or Northern Europe. Currently, the EU's food system is dominated by other challenges such as food waste, over-consumption, obesity and the environmental impact of food production [72].

The results presented by the United Nations [3] indicate that age, years of education of the household head, gender, farm size, farm experience, non-farm income, food expenditure and access to advisory services significantly contribute to food insecurity among farms. The state's efforts should, therefore, be directed towards promoting education-related household intervention programs in order to broaden their knowledge of nutrition, which may improve their food security status. In addition, rural infrastructure facilities should be provided, such as water supply, rural gasification, internet services and healthcare services that promote healthy lifestyles and increase agricultural productivity in households.

The relationship between food safety and food security is also important. The food law does not explicitly state the relations between the two concepts in question, although both are legal concepts. However, the literature on the subject indicates that food safety is an element of a wider issue, which is food safety. Food safety in the legal sense seems to correlate with the aspect of "Food availability" as part of food security in economic terms. Food safety is primarily related to its health values, and "food security" in the "Food access" dimension also means the need to provide food that is safe for health. Therefore, both of these terms draw attention to the need to eliminate pathogenic substances that are dangerous to human health from food products. Thus, it can be said that (in the indicated aspects) the terminological scope of food safety is wider than the terminological scope of food safety and covers it.

The research carried out was innovative as it combined the assessment of climate change with food and food safety. This will allow for better planning of the supply of food raw materials, forecasting possible drops in the potato yield based on the monitoring of potato blight and ensuring a healthy raw material, both for direct consumption and food processing in the southeastern part of Poland.
