Social Capital Contributions to Food Security: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Abstract

Social capital creates a synergy that brings many benefits to members of a community. Thus, the main objective of this article was to examine whether social capital can improve a society's food security. If yes, how? To answer these questions, a systematic literature review was conducted using the Prisma approach. The output of this method led to finding 39 related articles. Precise studying these articles illustrated that social capital improves food security through two mechanisms of knowledge sharing and product sharing (i.e., sharing food products). It revealed that social capital through improving the food security pillars (i.e., food availability, food accessibility, food utilization, and food system stability) affects food security. In other words, the interaction among the members of the community results in sharing food products and information among community members, and this facilitates food availability and access to food. There are many shreds of evidence in the literature that sharing food and food product among the community member decreases household food security and provides the healthy nutrition to the vulnerable families and improve the food utilization pillar of food security. In addition, it is disclosed that belonging to the social networks increases the resilience of the community members and decreases the vulnerability of the community that subsequently strengthens the stability of a food system. This study contributes to the common literature on food security and social capital by providing a conceptual model based on the literature. In addition to researchers, policymakers can use the finding of this study to provide solutions to address food insecurity problems.

Food security status in Cirebon Regency and how it could lead To sustainability

“…For example, social media can play a role in increasing food security by sharing knowledge and sharing food products. This supports the improvement of the four pillars of food security (food availability, food accessibility, food utilization and food system stability) [18].…”

“…The demands of land and food we place on the earth may be growing, its available resources of land, water, minerals are finite. The difficulties presented by this demand-supply imbalance are compounded by changing environmental conditions which make food production increasingly difficult or unpredictable in many regions of the world; and production systems that not only undermine aspects of the ecosystem, such as biodiversity and water quality, upon which we ultimately depend, but also exacerbate zoonotic diseases and other risks that directly affect our health , these are factors that have trigger [11,18].…”

“…It is known, that vulnerability to food security increases significantly from year to year. Rapid population growth, changes in lifestyle, and efforts by international institutions to eradicate poverty are factors driving increased demand for food [18].…”

“…Most researchers in their articles put forward a definition of food security as is a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life [1,11,18].…”