What's a marine biologist doing talking about world hunger? Well, says
Jackie Savitz, fixing the world's oceans might just help to feed the
planet's billion hungriest people. In an eye-opening talk, Savitz tells
us what’s really going on in our global fisheries right now — it’s not
good — and offers smart suggestions of how we can help them heal, while
making more food for all.
The
most important thing to know about the global food system is also one
of the least appreciated: there is enough food for everyone on the
planet to live a healthy and nutritious life. In fact, the UN tells us
that there is about 2,800 kcal per person per day available.
But, the global food system is deeply inequitable. There are about 842
million people hungry on the planet, while at the same time there are
about 1.5 billion who are overweight or obese.
2. Price volatility
The price of food is wildly volatile. In 2008, the United Nations Food Price Index
almost doubled in less than a year before crashing in 2009. Prices then
shot up again in 2010 and 2011. Despite this volatility, our supply of
food stayed stable throughout this period. This suggests that the price
of food is not determined by our ability to produce food at a global
level.
3. One third of food is wasted
Approximately one third of the world's food is wasted before it is consumed
(pdf). In the developed world most of the waste happens at the consumer
end, when food spoils in grocery stores or in refrigerators. Most of
the waste in the developing world happens on the farm as a consequence
of inefficient storage and processing facilities.
4. Food for fuel
Not all food grown on our planet is being used as food. For instance, about 40% of the corn grown in the US is being turned into first-generation biofuels
(pdf), such as ethanol. However, creating bioethanol only uses the
sugar in the corn. This leaves a protein rich byproduct called dried
distillers grain that can be fed to livestock.
5. Land buy ups
The landscape of who owns our food system is changing. Since 2008, more than 56m hectares of land (the size of France) has been purchased
in the global south by international companies. Some believe that this
represents meaningful foreign direct investment in places such as rural
Africa. Others are worried that the companies are exploiting the land
and labour of Africa to make rich countries to grow richer.
6. Corporate control
A very small number of corporations control the vast majority
of the world's food trade: four companies produce more than 58% of the
world's seeds; four global firms account for 97% of poultry genetics
research and development; yet another four produce more than 60% of the
agrochemicals farmers use.
7. Impact of agricultural policy
While
we all know that people are eating more junk food, dairy and meat, we
don't always appreciate that one of the causes of this rise is US
governmental farm policy. In the early 1970s, the US started paying
maize farmers to produce grain, resulting in overproduction. Between 1995 and 2012 maize subsidies totalled more than $84bn (£49.8bn).
Enterprising farmers learned they could feed this extra to cows, pigs
and chickens. This drove down the price of these produces and created
the conditions for intensive livestock production. It was also
discovered around this time that the sugars from corn could be removed
and turned into high-fructose corn syrup. This has given rise to the
junk food industry.
8. Environmental impact
The
way we're producing our food is impacting our environment. Agriculture
is responsible for 75% of deforestation worldwide, and is the largest contributor of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. We're also rapidly losing marine food sources. In 2010, 53% of fisheries were fully exploited (pdf), 28% were overexploited, 3% were depleted, and 1% were recovering from depletion.
While there may be enough food for everyone on the planet today, this may not be the case in the future. Recently published scientific work
suggests that climate change may reduce crop yields by 2% per decade
over the next 100 years. These reductions won't be the same everywhere.
The poorest regions of the world are expected to be the worst hit.
Whether these crop reductions happen, however, depends a lot on if
farmers are able to use the tools they need to adapt to changing weather
conditions.
10. Increased demand
Recent
studies suggest that the farmers of this world will have to produce 50%
more food by 2050 in order to meet global population growth. This will
have to be done against a backdrop of rising energy prices and climate
change that is set to make food harder and more expensive to produce. Evan
Fraser holds the Canada research chair in Global Food Security in the
department of geography at the University of Guelph. He is the author of
Empires of Food: Feast Famine and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. Elizabeth Fraser is completing her MA in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo The
food hub is funded by The Irish Food Board. All content is editorially
independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out
more here.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014 5:30 PM - 8:00 PM Public Affairs Third Floor Terrace UCLA By the time today's UCLA undergraduates hit middle age, the world will
hold almost 10 billion people, most of them affluent by historical
standards. Dinner for the 10 billion, agronomists say, will be a huge
challenge: We are running out of arable land, water supplies are
stretched, and the advances of the “green revolution” are fading.
Researchers have
proposed two broad solutions: maintaining the current system of
large-scale industrial monoculture or switching over, at least in
substantial part, to a much more localized, diverse system. The former
involves extensive deployment of genetically modified organisms (GMOs),
heavy chemical use and even heavier computer monitoring. Meanwhile, the
small, highly productive farms touted as a model require vastly more
labor—that is, vastly more people working on the land. The choice of
system, a key task of the next generation, will have enormous impact on
the kind of lives people lead tomorrow.
Charles C. Mann is the author of 1493, a New York Times best-seller, and 1491,
which won the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' Keck award for the
best book of the year. A correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, Science
and Wired, he has covered the intersection of science, technology and
commerce for many newspapers and magazines here and abroad, including
National Geographic, the New York Times, Vanity Fair and the Washington
Post. In addition to 1491 and 1493, he is the co-author of five other books, one of which is a young person's version of 1491 called Before Columbus.
