ROMA – In the last two years – we read in the introduction to the report ActionAid entitled “The numbers of food poverty in Italy, starting from official statistics”, edited by Giulia Ciancimino and Roberto Sensi – global food security has been hit hard by the combination of pandemic, climate and geopolitical crises. In Europe, inflation has reduced the purchasing power of families, hitting those on low incomes hardest. In 2023, 9.5% of the European population did not have access to a full meal every two days, with a more marked increase among people at risk of poverty, who have an incidence of 22.3% (Eurostat, 2024 ).
The immaterial aspect that adds to the problem of needs. But, as Roberto Sensi, one of the editors of the dossier, underlines, it is not only material needs that burden the state of poverty, there is an additional problem. “Food poverty, as a phenomenon – underlines Sensi – is poorly measured. We are faced with multidimensional trafficking and we must keep in mind that there is also an immaterial level to consider: cultural, emotional and relational aspects, such as freedom of choice and then the stigma of being considered and seeing oneself as poor. Well, all of this is not considered in the measurement, even though these are all elements that have a significant impact.”
The situation in Italy. In Italy, absolute poverty grew, affecting 5.7 million people, and the country recorded the most significant drop in real wages among the major OECD economies. Despite the partial economic recovery and reduction in inflation in 2023, food prices continued to rise, leading to a 9.5% increase in the cost of the shopping cart compared to the previous year (Istat, 2024). To maintain their standard of living, Italian families have dipped into their savings, causing the gross savings rate to fall to its lowest level since 1995.
The 8 questions to understand. In Italy, the introduction of Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) – that is, the system for measuring the severity of the food insecurity condition of an individual or family – it marked a significant step towards monitoring food insecurity. Developed by FAOthis tool consists of eight questions regarding access to food. According to Istat, in 2023, 1.5% of the population was in moderate or severe food insecurity (-0.8% compared to 2022), with a gap between the South (2.7%) and the Centre- North (1% and 0.8%). Areas with intermediate population density have a higher rate (1.8%).
It is difficult to identify vulnerable social groups. However, the absence of FIES data in the micro-data made available by Istat does not allow us to better identify vulnerable social groups. Especially starting from the consequences of the economic and financial crisis of 2007-2008, attention towards the problem of food poverty has progressively increased in Europe, without however translating into specific monitoring of the phenomenon in most countries. Even in Italy, to date, there is no effective system for monitoring the phenomenon capable of restoring the necessary complexity, thus preventing effective orienting of contrast interventions1
The 3 tools to understand the diffusion of the phenomenon. This relationship of ActionAid, so, questions the official statistical sources with the aim of understanding more deeply the characteristics and diffusion of the phenomenon of food poverty in our country, considering both the material and social factors linked to economic access to food. For this reason, three tools have been developed:
1) – the Material and/or Social Food Deprivation index (DAMS)
2) – the risk of food poverty
3) – relative food poverty.
The analysis concerns the data of the last five years, observing the effects of the pandemic and inflation, following a progressive in-depth analysis from a territorial point of view, starting from the differences between the European Union and Italy up to analyzing the individual contexts regional.
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