Which pillar addresses the risk of food shortage across seasons?

• A. Availability
• B. Access
• C. Stability
• D. Utilization

Answer: (C)

The main concept here is temporal resilience of the food system—the ability to keep people fed even as conditions change across seasons. The pillar that addresses the risk of food shortage over time is stability. It focuses on maintaining consistent food availability and access despite seasonal fluctuations, shocks, or other disruptions. Even when harvests are good at certain times, lean periods, price spikes, or income gaps can create shortages if the system isn’t stable. Stability encompasses measures that smooth supply and affordability across the year, such as storage, diversified production, price stabilization, and safety nets, so that shortages in one season don’t translate into hunger. By contrast, availability concerns whether food is present, access concerns whether people can obtain it, and utilization concerns how food is used and absorbed; none of these inherently address the seasonal timing of shortages.