Food Security

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The freedom of man, I contend, is the freedom to eat”. Food security that can be defined as the physical and economic access at all times to adequate amounts of nutritious and safe foods is one of the major problems that the world faces. With growing environmental concerns and an ever-increasing global population, land grabbing and sustainable smallholder farming emerge as possible solutions to food insecurity.

Since the green revolution, a wide range of environmental concerns has become more prominent and is now a threat to food security. They include atmospheric, water and land pollution, water scarcity and land erosion. Some of the major causes are urbanization and industrialization, the use of genetic engineering, pesticides and biofuels and the effect of monoculture. Deforestation is another major issue that could lead to biodiversity loss and an increase in pollution. All of these factors can influence and contribute to food scarcity.

Global Physical and Economic Water Scarcity

http://www.wri.org/resource/physical-and-economic-water-scarcity

In addition to that the world population is increasing very quickly which affects the availability of food. Every year, about there is about 80 million more people to feed and most of them are in the developing countries. The population is predicted to be of 9 billion by 2050. The food is inadequately distributed as the majority of the population lives in the developing world. Consequently, the demand for food increases as 25% of the global population is undernourished and 10% is starving. The higher demand for food will also result in a higher demand for meat. Animals need to be fed and lower the availability of food crops on the market. This is also one of the reasons for the increase in food price. This will be felt by millions of people and threaten food security.

World Population Distribution

http://www.dflorig.com/world2021.htm

To guarantee food security, some countries that don’t have arable land, take advantage of poorer countries to grow crops on their territory. Lang grab is however very bad for those countries’ economies because it forces the shift from small holder farming to large industry farming with low or no compensation to the farmers who have to relocate. Between 2008 and 2011, 200 million acres of land have been grabbed mostly by China, the Gulf States, South Korea and Japan to insure security.

Land Grab between 2000 and 2012

http://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/chart-of-the-day-the-great-global-land-grab/

A more legitimate but longer and more difficult option is sustainable smallholder farming, or “save and grow”. Crop production must be intensified to feed the world, and even doubled in the future years. The green revolution damaged soils and led to erosion, which cannot happen again with the current population growth. Farmers must therefore undertake sustainable crop production intensification.  The concept is to produce more from the same area of land but to conserve resources and to lower the negative consequences on the environment. Even though this seems like the best possibility for the future it is far from being done.

An Example of Sustainable Farming

http://save-as.org/GreenNews/News/multinationals-learn-about-sustainable-farming_2240

Relevant Sites

http://www.aplu.org/document.doc?id=3139

http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/143167/2/10%20EP%204%202012-11.pdf

http://www.cgiar.org/www-archive/www.cgiar.org/pdf/CCAFS_Strategy_december2009.pdf

http://www.ifpri.org/publication/threats-security-related-food-agriculture-and-natural-resources-what-do

http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/