There are four dimensions of food security: food availability, access to food, use and stability. Although at the moment they all cause concern, it makes sense to focus on the most critical of them

Food security is understood as the ability of the entire human community and individual states to meet the needs of the population in food products in the required volumes, range and quality by providing resources and creating appropriate economic conditions. In this case, the corresponding indicators are assessed in different chronological periods. According to FAO experts, in the medium and long term, the pandemic will not significantly change the general trend in terms of the main indicators, but will increase the vulnerability of the population due to both the supply of food and the demand for it.
There are four dimensions of food security: food availability, access to food, use and stability. Although at the moment they all cause concern, it makes sense to focus on the most critical of them.
If we consider the supply and demand for food in a market context, then in the first months of 2020, with a relatively stable supply for basic food products, a drop in demand is observed due to a decrease in per capita income and destabilization of the transport and logistics systems.
The decline in household incomes due to the limitation of economic activity in the context of a pandemic in developed countries led to a change in the structure of food consumption in the direction of simplifying consumer preferences. Closed catering establishments (restaurants, cafes), reduced freedom of movement within and between countries, fears of shopping in traditional distribution networks have led to a redistribution of food consumption in favor of places of residence and an increase in purchases in contactless mode. This has resulted in a drop in demand for perishable products and food with a high share of added value.
By the second half of May this year, a number of studies of the state and prospects of changes in food security have been carried out in the world community. This topic is most actively worked out in international organizations: FAO, World Food Program, OECD. Most of the reviews have a medium and long term depth of analysis and forecast. The main threats in this chronological dimension are associated with a slowdown in the growth of the world economy as a whole and with the destabilization of the market environment in the new economic and social reality.
Threats to food security in the short term, in addition to general economic ones, can be structured according to such groups as epidemiological (actual morbidity, forced isolation as the impossibility in a number of regions to ensure the availability of food), trade networks, trade and political (introduction of protective export duties and other export restrictions on the part of some countries and changes in the policy of food access to the internal markets of other countries).
In addition, in the countries most vulnerable to all of the listed indicators of food security, the situation is aggravated by such local phenomena as the plague of locusts in Africa, which is becoming increasingly difficult to combat in a pandemic.

Of particular concern is the limitation due to the pandemic of the normal functioning of the production process (adequate access of farmers to their fields, to resources, including seeds).

Another unfavorable factor for food producers is the general decline in prices for their products. According to FAO, in the first months of this year, the food price index declined and amounted to 165.5 in April 2020, compared to 170.7 in the same period last year, reaching its lowest level since the beginning of 2019.
In this aggregate index, only the grain index shows an upward trend, while for milk, meat, vegetable oils, and sugar - a downward trend. This situation can be regarded as positive for the consumer, but, being an effective aggregate indicator, such an index reflects a decrease in the level of consumer income and a deterioration in the conditions of economic activity of food producers.
In general, the situation with food security in the world in the short term can be assessed as alarming, and in a number of countries - as critical, which once again emphasizes the need to strengthen the interaction of the countries of the world in solving this global problem of mankind.