Review of food security indices in Iran and the forgotten role of soil

Food security is a multidisciplinary concept aimed at assessing the individuals' access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. Achieving sustainable food security requires simultaneous consideration of a vast range of environmental, economic, social, and political aspects and their possible interactions. Accurate assessment of the present situation of food security at regional, national, and global levels is the prerequisite to the adoption of targeted strategies in future. Given the pervasiveness of food security, multiple indices have been developed by certain international organizations to measure the degree of food insecurity. Yet, what these seem to share is their neglect or even total ignorance of the role(s) natural resources, especially soil, play in food production. Application of such indices should consequently lead to inaccurate and misleading results, especially in areas confronted with environmental constraints and land degradation problems. Accordingly, the present paper aims to review and identify the indicators used in every index in an attempt to evaluate the extent to which the food security indices most commonly used in Iran address food production. Furthermore, the study pursues to determine accurately the impact of each single aspect of soil degradation on food security dimensions and, thereby, stress the necessity for paying heed to the key role soil plays in achieving food security, especially in Iran.