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All documents related to the Food Security Standard Project.

Food security is a human right. Hunger and malnutrition persist in many countries of the Global South producing agricultural commodities for global markets. The Food Security Standard (FSS) helps companies involved in such agricultural production chains to fulfil their social responsibilities and comply with mandatory due diligence from the very first point in the supply chain. Applying the FSS in sustainability certification systems ensures that farmers, workers, and neighbouring communities are food secure.

Up to now, food security has been seldom addressed in sustainability standards and certification schemes. The Food Security Standard (FSS) closes this gap. It provides a set of practicable and measurable criteria and audit tools that can be incorporated into sustainability standards and certification schemes. The FSS is rooted in the human right to adequate food and is structured according to the Right to Food Guidelines of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The FSS Project

The FSS Project started in 2017 as a cooperation of the Center for Development Research (University of Bonn, Germany) and the NGOs Welthungerhilfe (Bonn, Germany) and WWF (Berlin, Germany), funded by the German Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture (BMEL) via the agency “Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe” (FNR).

The project group jointly developed, tested and established the FSS. Since then, the FSS criteria, indicators and the related tools have been successfully tested in cooperation with local producers and several certification schemes (ISCC, RSPO, CmiA, UTZ/Rainforest Alliance) within the framework of regular sustainability audits. The Pilot Audits were held in food insecure regions in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Together with stakeholders in the respective producing countries and in Germany the project group demonstrated that the FSS is a viable and valid tool to integrate the human right to adequate food as a new building block into existing sustainability standards and certification schemes. The FSS Project intends to increase the application and demand for the FSS by companies, producers, society and governments. A handbook for auditors, food security monitoring tools and training materials have been developed to enable a smooth adoption into certification practice.

Meo Carbon Solutions and Welthungerhilfe have now joined for the purpose of taking the FSS forward and to establish it in sustainability certified agricultural value chains.

Contact

If you want to learn more on how the FSS works and how it can contribute to local food security, we invite you to visit the Food Security Standard Homepage or to contact us directly.

Lisa Heinemann, FSS Senior Project Manager
Contact via email or call +49 (0)228 2288-113

Theresa Heering, Senior Advisor FSS Partnerships & PR
Contact via email