Summary:
The food and nutrition security policy provides strategies, actions and a framework for addressing the critical issues on this field.
Description:
The food and nutrition security policy has four sub-sections namely:
- food availability,
- stability of food supply,
- food access and
- food utilization.
Regarding FULL priority policies, those are some highlights of this document:
- The food availability pillar provides the enactment of a Food Security Law.
- This law will be responsible for ensuring the domestic production of a minimum threshold of a selected basket of foods.
- For this situation, the production capability and national comparative advantage have to meet domestic food, nutrition and health goals.
- The food stability pillar seeks to “ensure that all people in Jamaica have access to adequate, safe and nutritious food at all times”.
- The food utilization section recognizes the potential of state institutions and schools as entry points for interventions to prevent and control some of the identified nutrition conditions as well as to influence food tastes and preferences.
- For instance, it also recommends addressing early childhood institutions, primary and secondary schools. In this sense, the documents predicts, among other approaches, the following:
- the provision of support for the development of curricula at different levels of the education system;
- the development of national social marketing campaigns to encourage nutritious food choices in schools and communities.
- For instance, it also recommends addressing early childhood institutions, primary and secondary schools. In this sense, the documents predicts, among other approaches, the following:
The right to food is also recognized as one of the guiding principles of the policy. Furthermore, it addresses how unhealthy diets are shaping the jamaican population, and its correlation with obesity. Regarding this, it points out how obesity is a major risk factor and a driving force in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases.