The objective of this paper is to inform DFID’s position paper on social protection about the ways in which food security issues should be taken into account in developing social protection policies, strategies and programmes. Interestingly, the international debates surrounding food security have already covered much of the territory now being explored for social protection: risk, vulnerability, hazards; differences between acute and chronic; behavioural response to risk; recovery and non-recovery processes; state and non-state responses; targeting; etc.