Agriculture, food, and rural livelihoods
Food Security and Nutrition in Liberia
Liberia Civic agriculture collection
Food security exists when people can consistently obtain enough safe and nutritious food for an active, healthy life. It depends on farms and fisheries, but also income, prices, roads, storage, health, water, sanitation, care, and resilience to shocks.
Four connected dimensions
Availability
Food supplied through domestic production, fishing, stocks, commercial imports, aid, and functioning markets.
Access
Whether households can physically reach food and afford it with income, production, exchange, or support.
Utilization
Dietary diversity, food safety, clean water, health, feeding practices, and the body’s ability to use nutrients.
Stability
Whether availability, access, and utilization endure through seasons, price changes, floods, disease, conflict, or crop losses.
How food insecurity is measured
- Household food consumption and dietary diversity
- Food prices, income, market access, and coping strategies
- Crop forecasts, rainfall, pests, stocks, and import conditions
- Child growth, anemia, maternal nutrition, and other health indicators
- Differences among counties, rural and urban areas, seasons, ages, and genders
From evidence to action
Responses may combine support for production, school meals, maternal and child nutrition, cash or food assistance, market access, storage, water and sanitation, social protection, and early-warning systems. Emergency relief and long-term agricultural development solve different parts of the problem and should be clearly distinguished.
Official starting points
The Ministry of Agriculture’s Food Security and Nutrition Division supports data, forecasting, early warning, dietary diversity, and nutrition-sensitive agriculture. The national framework is set out in the National Agriculture Development Plan 2024–2030.
Household resilience
Diversified crops and income, savings, community support, safe storage, access to information, and reliable local markets can reduce vulnerability. Nutrition work should prioritize infants, children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, older people, persons with disabilities, and households facing displacement or crisis.
← Return to Agriculture, Food, and Rural Livelihoods in Liberia