Access

Access by households/individuals to adequate resources (entitlements) for acquiring appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.

Accessibility

One of the four pillars of food security. A household's ability to physically, economically, and socially obtain a necessary amount of food on a regular basis by purchasing, bartering, borrowing, or receiving food aid or gifts. See also: availability.

Acute Food Insecurity

Agroclimatology

A field in the interdisciplinary science of agrometeorology, in which principles of climatology are applied to agricultural production systems. Its origins relate to the foremost role that climate plays in plant and animal production.

Agroecology

The study of agricultural ecosystems and their components as they function within themselves and in the context of the landscapes that contain them.

Analogue Year

Anomaly

Arbitrage

Taking advantage of a price differential. The two most common types of arbitrage related to food security are spatial arbitrage (where commodities are moved from areas or markets with lower prices to areas or markets with higher prices and the difference exceeds the transfer costs) and temporal arbitrage (where commodities are obtained, stored and sold at a point in the future when prices are expected to be higher and the difference exceeds the costs associated with the temporal transfer.

Assembly Market

A market where smaller quantities of a commodity are accumulated or aggregated usually from different farmers and small scale traders. Assembly markets facilitate marketing and the movement of commodities as well as reduce the costs of marketing. They can also enable sellers of smaller surpluses from more remote locations to reach distant buyers.

Atmospheric Circulation

The flow, or movement, of a fluid (e.g., liquid or gas) in or through a given area or volume.

Availability