• Food production - Promotion of agriculture activities, including provision of seeds and tools (vegetable garden, crops such as rice, corn, beans, peanuts, etc.); livestock, poultry, fisheries and aquaculture. This includes a large variety of activities such as shelter for livestock, work with veterinary services, including vaccination campaigns, stocking, destocking, distribution of fishing net, fishing gears, fries/alevins.
• Training of farmers.
• Rehabilitate agriculture infrastructures (dam, irrigation schemes, agriculture roads, etc.).

• Promote the use of CVA (cash and voucher activities) such as multi-purpose cash grants, cash for work, cash for food, vouchers for food. Food assistance in-kind when markets are not functioning.
• Livelihood activities such as income generating activities (small business, cash crops, etc.).
• Training for livelihoods, vocational trainings with special focus on youth. 
• Support food and livelihoods input market.  

• Joint activities with other clusters (nutrition, health, WASH clusters) on joint nutrition outcomes on provision of safe water and hygiene practices for food preparation (e.g. storage kits, food safety training), awareness sessions on household nutrition (e.g. cooking demonstration, infant and young children feeding practices) and complementary feeding practices.
• Work with the shelter/NFI cluster on cooking utensils/NFI kits and cooking fuel.
• Promotion of vegetable gardens.

• Actions against drought and crop failure as well as the protection of the environment and the sustainable use of natural resources like land, soil and water.
• Promotion of resilience of (rural) food systems can serve to increase household and community food security in the face of instability.
• The Coordinator can support policy and advocacy to ensure that:
  • Supply at household level remains constant during the year and in the long-term.
  • Access to market is stable specially in the relevant seasons.
  • Borders are open and allow food supplies to enter/exit.  
  • Food chain in general is not disrupted.
  • Steps are taken to ensure pre-disaster food access mechanisms are restored for the community.

Some examples of food stability activities:

• In order to inform responses also around stability, it is important to engage in and disseminate assessments to monitor the food security situation and needs, and the factors affecting the stability (of food supply, access and utilization). This includes food security needs assessments, thematic/technical assessments, market price monitoring, value chain assessments, etc.
• Facilitate/support IPC Acute Food Insecurity (AFI)/Cadre Harmonisé, which are the most accepted recognised tools to describe and evaluate the food security situation of the population over a period of time. (See also chapter 6).

The FSC Coordinator needs to understand the multi-dimensional character of food security. This will help him/her to promote the appropriate cluster strategic approach and response planning.

Examples:

• Availability: In Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, during the initial 2017 Rohingyas crisis response, the FSC mapped overall capacity (3W), designed a standard package of food assistance (cooked meal, in kind dry food, as per FSC standards). Some members did not have a full ration available (some had rice only, other partners, other food commodities), the FSC organised the food distribution by pairing them. In Afghanistan, during the drought in 2018/2019, the FSC designed a joint response where donors, partners and the government provided assistance to food insecure people using the government wheat reserve. At the same time, to protect livestock, the FSC worked with the government and donors to improve the targeting of livestock assistance between small and large holders. 
• Access: Also in Cox’s Bazar, the FSC coordinator led the organisation of the Cash Working Group (CWG) with OCHA and Oxfam. One of the first activities was to agree on the cash package (as designed by the national CWG) for cash for work activities and then to initiate a market monitoring exercise with CWG and FSC members as well as the other clusters. (See more on cash coordination in 4.3.4).
  In this response, transporting food rations was a difficult task for the most vulnerable (elderly people, pregnant and lactating women, people with disabilities) especially in the hilly areas of the camps. To address this, the FSC worked with the protection cluster on a Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and guidance document regarding porters (people carrying food between the food ration point and the house of the refugee).
• Food utilization: In many countries, cooking fuel is one of the main issues when there is a sudden arrival of refugees or IDPs. For example, in Mozambique, after Tropical Cyclone Idai in 2019, the population received rice through the food distribution but was regularly unable to cook it. In Cox’s Bazar, the Rohingyas cut the surrounding forest for firewood for their own cooking as well as to sell as a source of income. In Nigeria, distribution of cooking fuel is included in the HRP as an activity. In Cox’s Bazar, the FSC with the nutrition cluster developed a guidance note showing how to reduce the cooking time – especially for beans.

See details on types of modalities and activities in the sections on food assistance, agriculture assistance and livelihood assistance in 5.6.

Guidance: 

• Please refer to the FSC website for further guidance and tools related to the food security response in humanitarian emergencies, including food assistance, agriculture, and livelihoods response. 
• See also these Food Security Dimensions documents on Availability, Utilization and Access (Programme Quality Working Group, 2022).
• For more information on the right to food and the pillars of food security, see for example the report Food Security and Nutrition Building a Global Narrative Towards 2030 by Committee on World Food Security – High Level Panel of Experts.