Access to food by individuals or households has become the central concern of food security analysis. Lack of adequate resources to purchase or grow sufficient food necessary for an active and healthy life has become the primary cause of hunger. Recent rapid increases in food prices across the developing world have resulted in significant expansion of food insecurity. By exploring the links between local food prices and external shocks, we have developed a site that seeks to present data and analysis that can improve our understanding of the impact of climate variability and international price variability on vulnerable, food-insecure populations in the developing world.  Created with funding from the US Agency for International Development, we have set up a website that allows for the exploration of the impact of environmental and international price shocks on local food prices:

http://foodsecurity.gsfc.nasa.gov

The food price-environment connection is further explored in research paper currently in review at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  We are also working with the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) to initiate a project to implement the food price model on food price datasets at the WFP.  We are also initiating a new collaboration with partners in Brazil to extend this work to food price data there.