Global Food Insecurity

Welcome back to the Global Hot Potato! For the first few weeks of our blogging journey, we will be looking specifically at one side of the coin: how food production practices impact the environment. So make sure you strap in, as we will be exploring a combination of research, articles, reports, and environmental models to measure past/present impacts and predict future events. But, before we delve into the gritty details of the food production industry, we should first take a brief look at the current challenges we face today when it comes to feeding the planet.

To adequately address these challenges, we must first consider what it means to be without them, i.e. food security. In 2002, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation defined food security to be “a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.[1]  We know through the prevalence of poverty across the globe that this has not yet been achieved. But why? Are there too many of us? Is there not enough food? What’s going on here?

A growing population has a massive impact on global food insecurity. Although it is hard to predict the potential carrying capacity of the Earth, the World Food Programme states that there is enough food produced globally to feed the entire population, which was last measured to be nearing 7.4 billion people. Yet, despite this, an estimated 793 million people live undernourished and in food poverty. Although there has been a decline since 1990-92 (Fig.1), that's still a whopping 10% of the world population!!! But, if there isn’t a global shortage of food, then why are there so many people living in food poverty?

Fig. 1: a comparison between the proportion and location of people in food poverty in 1990-1992 and 2014-2016

Image Source: Food and Agriculture Organization

The World Health Organisation considers there to be three cornerstones affecting food security: access, availability and use.

• Limited access to food can be largely attributed to increased poverty, where individuals do not possess the resources necessary to obtain sufficient nourishment. This was a particular topic on concern in 2008, when food prices reached an all-time high, seeing many people with decreased access to healthy, nutritious food across all parts of the planet. However, in today's world, approximately 98% of the malnourished population are living in less economically developed regions (Fig.1), showing us that the economy plays a huge role in global food security. 

• One of the biggest factors influencing the availability of food is climate change. Certain regions are experiencing increased drought, flooding and unprecedented natural disasters, which is having a major impact on our ability to grow certain food in affected areas and decreasing potential yield. Not to mention that food production itself is contributing  largely to climate change, creating a unsustainable cycle of food insecurity (but I will get into that more later).

• The way food is used can refer to the knowledge and care for our food, (e.g. understanding nutrition and food hygiene). It can also refer to what we actually DO with our food. Did you know that one third of all food produced is thrown away? ONE THIRD!?!?! What?!?! We destroy landscapes, produce tonnes of greenhouse emissions and waste precious water to produce our food just to throw ONE THIRD of it all away?!!! I can't help but find that truly horrifying…

It seems clear that our current methods of food production are unsustainable. With an increasing population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, how do we intend to cope with this increasing demand sustainably, without irreparably damaging the Earth, and without leaving millions in food poverty? Before we can even begin to contemplate this huge question, we will need to take a look at what current food production practices are being utilised across the global and evaluate the environmental and social impacts these practices have. We will then consider the role modelling has in measuring these impacts and predicting the future. In my next post, I will starting by focusing on the industrial livestock production: past, present and future.

Follow me on Twitter: @chlobular for extra snippets regarding food production and climate change!

[1] FAO. 2002. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2001. Rome.