Global Food Security: An Overview

Course Description

• This course explores natural resource management and food security from a global viewpoint.
• It covers food security and social responsibility from the Green Revolution to the present focus on sustainability.
• Examines agricultural systems, research innovation, and relevant global/national trends at all levels.

Student Learning Outcomes

• Course aims include describing global trends in food security and sustainable development.
• Course aims to identify factors endangering food security
• The course aims to acquire knowledge about diverse food systems
• Course aims to critically assess sustainable use of natural resources
• Course aims to identify socio-economic influences on food demand/production
• Course aims to recognize opportunities for greater food security and sustainability

Topics by Week

• Week 1: Presentation of the syllabus and course introduction
• Week 2: Modern challenges
• Week 3: Population growth
• Week 4: Grains and Genetically modified crops
• Week 5: Organic agriculture + Project I*
• Week 6: Meat production + Why food systems
• Week 7: Why food systems?
• Week 8: Natural resources and environmental impacts
• Week 8: Measuring an efficient and sustainable use of natural resources in food systems
• Week 8 Midterm Exam
• Week 9: Land, landscape, and soils
• Week 10: Water and Minerals
• Week 11: Biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Week 12: Project II*
• Week 13: Fossil fuels; food categories, resource use, and human health
• Week 13: What do sustainable food systems look like? Overview and brief description of options
• Week 14: Principles and importance of the 'food system lens'. Analysis of food systems and impact on natural resources
• Week 15: Three pathways towards environmentally sustainable food systems; nodes of action
• TBD: Final exam

Food Security Definition and Elements

• Food security means consistent access to enough affordable, safe, and nutritious food for a healthy, active life
• Food security analysts consider food availability, access, and utilization

Food Security Elements Detailed

• Food availability means sufficient quantities of quality food from domestic production, commercial imports, assistance, or reserves
• Food access means people have adequate income or resources to obtain food domestically through production, markets, exchange, or aid.
• Food utilization refers to proper food storage and processing, coupled with nutritional, health, sanitation, and socio-cultural knowledge.
• Stability of food access availability occurs when there are no hindrances, shortages of crises

Challenges To Food Security: Climate Change

• Alters weather patterns and shifts agricultural zones
• By 2050, global crop yields could decrease by up to 30%
• Solution: Develop climate-resilient crops, improve water management, and use precision agriculture

Challenges To Food Security: Water Scarcity

• Impacts agriculture due to overuse and pollution
• Agriculture consumes 70% of global freshwater
• Solution: Employ efficient irrigation systems and promote water recycling

Challenges To Food Security: Loss of Biodiversity

• Reduces ecosystem productivity and agricultural resilience
• 75% of food comes from 12 plants and 5 animal species
• Solution: Promote agrobiodiversity and protect natural habitats

Challenges To Food Security: Soil Degradation

• Undermines land productive capacity through erosion and contamination
• 33% of Earth's soils are degraded
• Solution: Use sustainable farming practices like crop rotation and organic farming

Challenges To Food Security: Food Waste

• Occurs across the supply chain, wasting resources
• Annually: 1.3 billion tons of food is lost or wasted
• Solution: Improve supply chain efficiencies and raise consumer awareness

Challenges To Food Security: Economic Inequalities

• Affects access to nutritious food and agricultural investments
• Over 690 million people are undernourished
• Solution: Strengthen food assistance programs and invest in rural infrastructure

Challenges To Food Security: Political Instability

• Disrupts food production and distribution
• Conflicts have driven 56 million people into acute food insecurity
• Solution: Foster international cooperation and conflict resolution initiatives

Challenges To Food Security: Technological and Genetic Innovation

• Raises concerns about access and effects of GMOs
• 17 million farmers use GM crops over 190.4 million hectares
• Solution: Ensure equitable tech access and foster transparent discussions on genetic innovations

Challenges To Food Security: Urbanization

• Reduces arable land and increases demand for food in cities
• Over 55% of the world's population lives in urban areas
• Solution: Promote urban agriculture and sustainable city planning

Challenges To Food Security: Changing Diets

• Increases demand for resource-intensive foods
• Meat consumption is projected to rise by 76% by 2050
• Solution: Encourage sustainable dietary choices and food diversity

Challenges To Food Security: Aging Agricultural Workforce

• Decreases the number of people available for farming
• Average age of farmers in developed countries is over 60
• Solution: Attract younger generations through technology and better economic incentives

Food Sustainability Explained

• A sustainable food system provides food and nutrition security while boosting the environmental, economic, and social health of an area
• Environmental, economic, and social foundations to help future generations maintain food security
• Sustainable agriculture regenerates itself. It makes its own inputs and manages its outputs in a closed loop
• Promotes soil fertility, clean water systems, biodiversity, and ecosystems instead of depleting them
• A system which is climate-smart, enhances climate resilience, and also reduces greenhouse gasses in agriculture

The Zero Hunger Challenge

• Launched in 2012 by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
• Part of the 2030 Agenda.
• Five elements that can end hunger, eliminate all forms of malnutrition, and build food systems:
• All food systems are sustainable: from production to consumption.
• An end to rural poverty: double small-scale producer incomes & productivity.
• Adapt all food systems to eliminate loss or waste of food.
• Access adequate food and healthy diets, for all people, all year around.
• An end to malnutrition in all its forms.

Implementing the 2030 Agenda

• In September 2015, the 193 UN Member States adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• The SDGs are a list of 17 goals to improve governments, international agencies, civil society, and institutions over 15 years (2016-2030).
• The 2030 Agenda serves as a global vision for people, the planet, and long-term prosperity.
• The 17 social development goals (SDGs) unite the three dimensions of sustainable development - economic, social and environmental – with intertwined targets.
• The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) applies to all countries.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) #1-6

• SDG 1: End poverty, almost 80% of poor people live in rural areas
• SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security and nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture, almost 800 million go hungry
• SDG 3: Good health starts with nutrition
• SDG 4: Ensure education, nutritious food is critical to learning
• SDG 5:Empower all women and girls. Women produce 1/2 the world's food with less land
• SDG 6: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all. Sustainable agriculture can address water scarcity.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) #7-12

• SDG 7: Ensure sustainable energy. Modern systems use fossil fuels.
• SDG 8: Promote growth in low-income economies and reduce poverty by half
• SDG 9: Build infrastructure, promote industrialization, foster innovation and Agriculture accounts for 1/4 of GDP
• SDG 10: Reduce inequalities by giving fairer access to rural land
• SDG 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable by preventing unmanageable urbanization through rural investment.
• SDG 12: Ensure sustainable production and consumption patterns because 1/3 of food produced is lost or wasted.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) #13-17

• SDG 13: Combat climate change
• SDG 14: sustainably using the ocean's resources, provide 20% daily animal protein
• SDG 15: Combat land degradation since forests contain over 80% of terrestrial biodiversity
• SDG 16: promote peace by ending hunger, helps to create peace and stability.
• SDG 17: Global partnerships to revitalize development helping those who are hungry.

SDG 2 Explained

• SDG 2 aims to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030
• it universally seeks access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food year-round
• This requires:
• food production systems
• Equal access to land
• Markets and international cooperation
• Technology to boost agricultural productivity

Progress and Problems with SDG 2

• Fighting hunger has progressed over the past 15 years
• Global hunger went from 15% (2000-2002) to 11% (2014-2016)
• Over 790 million people lack dietary energy
• The 'zero hunger' goal will be largely missed by 2030, if current trends continue.
• Countries failing to reach the target face natural and human-induced disasters or political instability.

SDG 2 and Malnutrition

• Globally, in 2014, nearly 1 in 4 children (estimated 159 million) had stunted growth.
• Stunting is defined as inadequate height for age
• Represents effects of undernutrition and infection
• Child malnutrition is growing among overweight children
• Child malnutrition affects every region with the number of children being overweight growing

Ending Hunger and Malnutrition

• Ending hunger and malnutrition relies on systems and resilient practices in agriculture.
• A sustainable food system increases agricultural productivity and improves climate resilience.

Defining GMOs

• Genetically Modified Organisms are organisms (plants, animals, microorganisms) with genetic material (DNA) altered in a way that does not happen naturally.
• Called "modern biotechnology” or “gene technology".
• Also known as "recombinant DNA technology" or "genetic engineering".
• Allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another
• Foods produced from or using GM organisms are called as GM food.

Benefits of GMOs

• Developed for producer and consumer benefits
• Offer cost-effective products with enhanced durability and nutritional value.

Benefits to Agriculture:

• Increased Crop Protection
• Enhanced Plant Productivity
• Drought Resistant Crops
• Herbicide Tolerance

Historical Overview of GMOs

• 1866: Gregor Mendel's Pea Plant Experiments
• 1953: Discovery of DNA Structure
• 1973: First Successful Recombinant DNA Experiment
• 1982: Approval of the First GMO Product -HumulinⓇ
• 1994: Introduction of the Flavr Savr Tomato
• 1996: Commercialization of Bt Crops
• 2000: The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
• 2015: CRISPR-Cas9 Genome Editing
• 2020: Approval of the First CRISPR-Edited Crop for Commercial Planting

EFSA Principles of GMO Risk Assessment

• EFSA compares GM plants with conventional counterparts that have a history of safe use.
• EFSA Assessing the GM plant in a case-by-case based on its intended uses and receiving environments.
• Molecular character, comparative analysis (compositional, phenotypic, agronomic), safety assessment (human/animal), safety assessment (environment)

Role of GMOs

• How GMOs contribute to food security (e.g., pest resistance, higher yields)
• The potential of GMOs to improve nutritional content of food (e.g., Golden Rice)
• Sustainability aspects of GMOs (e.g., reduced use of pesticides, land conservation)

Pros and Cons of GMOS

• Pros: Increased crop yields, reduced costs for food or drug production, pest/disease resistance, better nutritional profiles
• Cons: Ethical concerns, environmental impacts (biodiversity loss), health concerns from consumption, economic concerns (patent issues)
• The main GM crops grown commercially are corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola that are herbicide and insecticide-resistant
• Other transgenic crops include resistant sweet potatoes and better rice

Definition of Organic Agriculture

• According to the Codex Alimentarius, it is a production management system to boost agro-ecosystem health by encouraging biological cycles, and diverse biodiversity activity on the soil.
• A farming system that produces crops and livestock without harmful chemicals, thus damaging the environment
• The system relies on ecosystem management compared to external impacts.
• Looks specifically at eliminating the use of chemicals on veterinary pesticides, genetically modified seeds or breeds, and other preservatives or unhealthy environmental issues.

Benefits of Organic Agriculture and Biodiversity

• Farming that helps out the wildlife by producing over 30% of species which is better than non-organic.
• The great biodiversity includes a safe environment for different species such as insects, birds, and plants.
• Pesticides have been the biggest issues in biodiversity with the use of mass amounts to destroy a variety of areas.
• The vast amount of insects, birds, and several pollinating insects have slowly been dying and making it harder to farm a product.
• A third of mass-produced birds in France have been dying out throughout the years.

Conventional Agriculture Advantages

• Lower costs, more profits
• Conventional farmers can ship or use chemicals that produce the same yields without an impact
• Can make use of all land to produce higher yields

Organic Production Timeline

• As a reaction to consumers concerns over large chemical produce, as a result, The modern farmers started to look back into more organic approaches to fix the problem.
• After the ending of World War 2 the term “The Golden Age of Pesticides” because of the wide use, in result it is largely unknown because of how dangerous they are in chemicals.
• Because of the concerns that started to arise and cause problems there has been great growth in demand from organic farmers and healthier consumer based products that has produced an all time growth.

2021's Organic Stats

• Data released for organic farming have produced another large year for these productions.
• Organic farmland and other retailer producers have continued to produce and have the same growth as years prior.
• Approximately more than 76.4 million hectares in 2021.
• The growth over 10 years has increased 40 million hectares.

Organic Farmland

• Approximately 36M+ hectares across the world. Oceania 47% and Europe 23%. Asia is not closely behind Europe.
• Latin America holds almost 13%.
• The number with all the largest productions include Australia, Argentina, and France.
• The data collected in 2021 has proven there is a 1.6 of the world's farmlands production is organic. The growth to add more that were reported was almost 1.1 million.