Today is Blog Action Day 2011 and the subject is food.
Food has a huge impact on our very existence, from the state of our countryside to the length of our lives. And in recent years food security has become a major security risk for everyone, alongside terrorism and arms proliferation – a problem we thought was limited to the poorest countries and failing states. Not only have we failed to eradicate starvation on our planet, but the developed world is realizing that its own food supply is becoming increasingly vulnerable. The reasons are numerous. They range from “exogenous” factors (extreme weather, plant and animal diseases, population increase, soaring energy prices) to “endogenous” factors such as those stemming from unhelpful trade policies and speculative or protectionist economic actions. The resulting food price increases have put food security squarely on the international agenda – the fear is that food crises may become structural or cyclical.
The Hungarian government has talked a great deal about the importance of food security recently. In listening to their concerns, I have concluded that our approach to climate change is likely to have the greatest influence on food security for the foreseeable future. It certainly provides the right context in which we can develop sustainable food solutions.
Agricultural practices and land use contributes directly to climate change. And all too often they can lead to systematic destruction of ecosystems. Agriculture is heavily dependent on water and fuel. Both are scarce resources and our approach to climate change will have a major impact on their management. In addition, we waste huge amounts of water and food unnecessarily as well as shipping foodstuffs long distances instead of sourcing as much local produce as possible. (I realise there are complications and exceptions to the rule.) At the same time unhealthy diets in the developed world are causing unnecessary extra costs to the economy. So if we made better choices, this would benefit our health, the climate and those 1 billion plus people globally who face hunger and undernourishment. And in the longer term it could help avoid such extreme eventualities as the disruption of social order or international conflicts over scarce resources.
Of course we need a multifaceted approach to address food security – including improving agricultural productivity, conservation of natural resources, expansion of rural infrastructure, improvement of food processing, knowledge dissemination, assistance for the needy. But above all we need effective and comprehensive climate adaptation measures: these provide the logical context and the basic premise for all of the above. For example we must continue to invest in sustainable technologies and infrastructure in times of credit squeeze. And the agricultural sector is no exception.
The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) says we can produce enough food even for a fast-growing world population. But to do so we must seriously restrain the use of resources and switch to greener practices and technologies. Some call it a second green revolution – similarly to the one in the 1970s when food technology transformed crop yields. But this time we should put resource efficiency at the core of research, policy and action.