Why Food Insecurity Occurs and How to Overcome it Study Case on ASEAN Countries

Developing countries that have large populations and complex geographic diversity experience challenges in ensuring sufficient food availability and accessibility due to various factors. There is a need for appropriate strategies to overcome food insecurity in each country. This research was designed using a quantitative research approach using non-participant observation data collection methods. This research uses descriptive and path analysis techniques. The results of this research include, food availability and access to food have a negative and insignificant effect on economic openness, food utilization aspects have a positive and significant effect on economic openness, food availability, access to food and economic openness have a negative and insignificant effect on food insecurity, and aspects of food utilization have a positive and insignificant effect on food insecurity. Based on the results of this research, it is hoped that each country in ASEAN can maximize domestic production, including diversifying food products and strengthening foreign relations to cover domestic production deficiencies. Apart from that, increasing life expectancy in each country is a challenge in itself, so that densely populated countries are expected to implement birth restrictions because food insecurity will tend to occur due to the increasing size of the country’s population as direct consumers. So, it is hoped that all countries that are members of ASEAN can have a sustainable food system.

Keywords: food insecurity, food production, GDP, life expectancy, openness