Chapter 13: Poverty, Inequality, and Food Access: Poverty, inequality and accessibility

Global agricultural production has expanded significantly over the past few decades, yet widespread food insecurity persists. This reality exposes a fundamental paradox in modern development. Rather than treating hunger merely as a problem of insufficient supply, this chapter approaches it as a distributional crisis shaped by multidimensional poverty and inequality. Using Amartya Sen’s entitlement approach as a conceptual foundation, the discussion moves away from traditional, availability-centric models. Instead, it adopts a broader food systems perspective to illustrate how unequal access to assets, entrenched gender dynamics, spatial barriers, and weak institutional governance actively block populations from securing adequate nutrition. The analysis also examines the impact of overlapping external shocks. Climate extremes, macroeconomic instability, and geopolitical conflicts currently operate as powerful risk multipliers, frequently locking vulnerable groups into intergenerational cycles of malnutrition. Addressing this crisis requires policymakers to look beyond the simple maximization of crop yields. To achieve genuine and inclusive food security, future frameworks must focus on dismantling these underlying structural inequalities, protecting informal food economies, and fostering resilience at the local level.