According to the United Nations, Food Security is defined as meaning that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.

There is evidence of food security being a concern in Uganda more so in the Northern and Eastern Regions of the country. Individuals who are food secure do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Today, more than 90,000 people across the country go to bed hungry every night, most of them smallholder farmers who depend on agriculture to make a living and feed their families. Despite an explosion in the growth of urban slums over the last decade, nearly 75 percent of poor people in Uganda live in rural areas.
Growth in the agriculture sector from farm to fork has been shown to be at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors. Over the coming decades, a changing climate, growing global population, rising food prices, and environmental stressors will have significant yet uncertain impacts on food security. Adaptation strategies and policy responses to global change, including options for handling water allocation, land use patterns, food trade, postharvest food processing, and food prices and safety are urgently needed. Reductions in daily wage-earning opportunities, limited alternatives for earning income, and delayed and inadequate coverage of cash assistance from the government are expected to drive insufficient food access, this mostly affects poor households in urban areas.