Food security is a concept defined by the access of all individuals in a population to quality food in sufficient amount to meet their basic needs. This concept includes the right to food, food justice and food risk. In an agroecological conception, it implies building sustainable and resilient food systems.

Indeed, food systems must guarantee the right to food, which means access to food for each individual, satisfying their physiological requirements and their socio-cultural choices. They must also allow food justice, in other words equal access to resources regardless social and spatial factors. Finally, food safety must reduce food risks and fears through better traceability to achieve food safety objectives.

From an agroecological vision, food products may originate from production, processing and marketing systems favoring a local scale and respecting cultural traditions. This agro-food system contributes to the development of territories by supporting local sectors. Ensuring a fair economic distribution among all the actors, from producer to consumer, this food system can thus be economically viable. These actors implement agroecological practices adapted to the productive potentials of the territories. This ecologically intensive agriculture minimizes fossil fuel consumption and maximizes ecosystem services. Such systems are similar to the agriculture developed in Cuba in the 1990s, due to the blockade of the United States of America and the fall of the Soviet bloc. This particular context therefore required going back to an insular food system based on agroecological techniques in order to meet the basic needs.

Because of its social, economic and environmental dimensions, agroecology can thus be the key of sustainable food security for present and future generations.