Access to adequate food is considered a fundamental human right. Yet, despite a global food surplus, millions of people around the world face chronic hunger. Why does this happen? Food insecurity is caused by the interplay of many different factors, from environmental and socio-economic shocks to our current food system. Finding ways to improve global food security is therefore a matter of social justice as well as environmental justice.
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According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food security is achieved when “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe, nutritious and healthy food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”
It is estimated that one in ten of the world's population is currently food insecure, with more than 780 million people worldwide suffering from chronic hunger – figures that have risen steadily over the past decade. Around one third of those affected have little to no food, putting their lives and livelihoods at immediate risk.
Malnutrition rates become even more alarming when considering the growing world population, which is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. To meet demand, the United Nations predicts that food production will need to increase by 70 percent compared to 2009. However, food security is already at risk from a variety of factors, many of which are set to worsen in the coming years.
Let's look at the biggest threats to global food security and how we can mitigate their negative impacts.
More on the topic: What is global food security and why does it matter?
The climate crisis and our food systems
In theory, we produce enough food to feed the entire world population. Over the past few decades, food production has become larger and more efficient than ever before, and the amount of food grown around the world has increased dramatically. Despite this, why are more and more people going hungry?
Food waste
One major contributor to this problem is food waste. An estimated 30% of food produced worldwide is wasted – either on the way from harvest to retail, or later in homes, supermarkets and restaurants. The total amount of wasted food is enough to feed approximately 1.26 billion hungry people.
In recent years, growing awareness of the problem has seen various projects spring up to fight food waste. These include community projects such as food rescue and sharing initiatives and public fridges, as well as campaigns to raise awareness among consumers to avoid food waste. Startups such as Too Good To Go are helping both retailers and food service providers sell leftovers at discounted prices. Technological approaches are also being tested. In Saudi Arabia, for example, a hydroponic farming model aims to reduce the country's dependence on imported food by allowing fruits and vegetables to be produced on demand, saving resources and reducing waste in the supply chain. In Asia, new schemes turn discarded or rotten crops into saleable food ingredients.
Food waste has economic and social impacts, as well as environmental impacts, making it even more urgent to address it. Food waste contributes significantly to the environmental impact of our diets and is a major driver of food insecurity. According to a 2021 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), food waste accounts for up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, further exacerbating the environmental impact of our already resource-intensive diets.
Resource-intensive meals
Feeding a growing world population requires a massive increase in food production, but our food production methods are already exceeding the planet's limits, so something needs to change. Half of the world's vegetation is used for agricultural production, and food production accounts for 90% of deforestation and about a third of total carbon emissions. This makes our food system a major driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. Simply intensifying agricultural production, using more land and increasing emissions, is not a viable solution to improving food security.
Instead, we need to look at what we eat. Over the past few decades, our diets have become increasingly resource intensive, mainly due to increased intake of animal proteins, especially meat. The availability of a wide variety of foods has led to an increasingly homogenous diet around the world, with the traditional Western diet now becoming the standard diet for the majority of the world's population. This has negative consequences for the planet, as the production of animal-based foods is much more resource intensive than the production of plant-based foods.
The majority of land used for agriculture is used for livestock production. Producing one calorie or one gram of protein from beef or lamb requires roughly 100 times more land than is required for plant-based alternatives. Animal-based foods are the most resource-intensive, and the emissions associated with their production are significantly higher than most plant-based foods, mainly due to the amount of land required. Beef, lamb and mutton top the rankings.
Emissions from livestock and fishing account for more than one-third of total food emissions. Similarly, meat and dairy alone account for just 18% of calories consumed globally, but are estimated to account for up to 40% of agricultural water use. Beef is also a leading cause of deforestation worldwide, contributing significantly to biodiversity loss.
The production of animal-based foods, especially beef and dairy, is thus highly inefficient and places a huge burden on the planet. However, consumption and production of animal proteins is on the rise, especially in Asian countries. Reversing this trend by shifting towards a plant-based diet is an opportunity to increase the proportion of food produced directly for human consumption, ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources.
Think about it: today, less than half of the world's grain and only 7% of soy produced are eaten by humans. The rest is used to feed livestock and produce oil. Reducing the scale of livestock production would therefore create the means to feed more people while using fewer natural resources, improving food security and social justice.
Research suggests that a worldwide transition to a vegan diet could free up up to 75% of agricultural land. Even if we were to move away from a completely plant-based diet, reducing our consumption of beef, lamb and dairy products would significantly reduce agricultural land use. Such a transition would significantly reduce the negative impact of our food system on the planet. It would not only increase global food security, but also contribute to social justice by reducing the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations.
Not only what we eat, but also how we produce it, has a huge impact on our food greenhouse gas emissions. To meet demand, agricultural techniques have become more intensive to produce as much food as possible, as quickly as possible, and at the lowest possible cost. But this is taking a toll on animals and the planet: Harsh fertilisers further degrade the natural environment, and livestock are crammed into far too little space.
All this shows that to conserve the planet's resources and ensure food security sustainably, we must change not only what we eat, but also how we produce it.
Also see: Can we feed the world without destroying it?
Climate crisis and environmental shocks
The climate crisis will affect weather patterns, increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events such as extreme heat, precipitation, fires, hurricanes and droughts. Weather will become less predictable, harvests will be lost and agriculture will become more difficult. Ironically, environmental shocks that threaten food security will be made more likely by our food system and its significant environmental impacts.
According to the United Nations, natural disasters occur more than three times more frequently today than in the 1970s and 1980s. The agriculture sector suffers from these shocks more than any other sector, and the impacts are particularly severe in developing countries. Droughts negatively affect the quality and productivity of crops and livestock, accounting for more than one-third of production losses. Loss of crop and livestock production puts at risk the livelihoods of people who depend on the harvest for their income.
While extreme weather events cannot be completely eliminated, the only way to prevent them becoming more likely is to slow global warming, which requires action from all actors and all sectors.
External Shock
Events such as wars and other social and economic crises pose another major and largely unpredictable risk to global food security – recent examples include the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic – which have disrupted food chains, disrupted food supplies and led to increased food insecurity and hunger.
In the case of the pandemic, lockdowns and travel restrictions have weakened economies and exacerbated inequalities around the world. Once again, people in developing countries have been disproportionately affected, with the number of people suffering from food insecurity soaring to almost double the previous year.
Similarly, armed conflicts such as the current one in Ukraine affect food supplies far beyond the area where the conflict is taking place. When war affects a country and its people, harvests are delayed, causing first domestic food shortages and then halting exports. In Ukraine's case, the war has particularly affected supplies of wheat (which accounts for about one-fifth of the calories consumed globally), barley and corn. As a result, wheat and barley prices have risen globally.
According to World Vision, disruptions to global food and energy supplies caused by the conflict in Ukraine have increased the risk of hunger for one-fifth of the world's population, or about 1.7 billion people.
More on the topic: Combating Ukraine's wheat crisis: Why change is needed in the world's food supply
Reducing hunger and injustice
We are in the midst of a severe hunger crisis. Hunger is a human rights issue, and taking action against hunger is a matter of social and environmental justice, as the interplay of many factors that contribute to the hunger epidemic shows.
Like many current challenges, improving food security goes hand in hand with mitigating climate change. Less resource-intensive food systems contribute to a more equitable and efficient use of natural resources, making it possible to feed more people while reducing the environmental damage caused by food production.
At the same time, we need to recognize that certain changes in climate, such as increased extreme weather events and shifting weather patterns, require urgent adaptation strategies. Similarly, external shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or armed conflicts, are unpredictable and will require adaptive adaptation. There is great potential for significant improvements in food security if we can build more sustainable and diversified food systems that respect the planet's limits and minimize food waste and environmental impacts.
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