Food safety is a condition related to the availability of food supplies, a group of people such as (ethnic, racial, cultural and religious groups) as well as individual access to it. There is evidence of a barn used more than 10,000 years ago, with central authority in civilization including ancient China and ancient Egypt known to release food from storage at times of famine. At the 1974 World Food Conference, the term "food security" was defined with an emphasis on supply. Food security, they say, is "the availability of an adequate, nutritious, balanced, balanced, and moderate supply of world food to sustain the continuous expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices." The definition then adds a request and an access problem to the definition. The final report of the 1996 World Food Summit stated that food security "exists when everyone, at all times, has physical and economic access to adequate, safe and nutritious food to meet their food needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.".
Household food safety exists when all members, at all times, have access to adequate food for an active and healthy life. Individuals who are safe foods do not live in hunger or are afraid of starvation. Food insecurity, on the other hand, is a situation of "limited or uncertain availability of adequate and safe nutritious food or limited or uncertain ability to obtain acceptable food in a socially acceptable manner," according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA ). Food security incorporates measures of resistance to future disturbances or unavailability of essential food supplies due to various risk factors including drought, disruption of delivery, fuel shortage, economic instability, and war. In 2011-2013, an estimated 842 million people suffer from chronic hunger. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, identifies four pillars of food security as availability, access, utilization, and stability. The United Nations recognized the Right to Food in the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and has since noted that it is essential to enjoy all other rights.
At the 1996 World Summit on Food Security stated that "food should not be used as a tool for political and economic pressure". According to the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, failing agricultural market regulations and the lack of anti-dumping mechanisms lead to many food shortages and world nutritional deficiencies.
Video Food security
Measurement
Food safety can be measured with caloric intake per person per day. In general the purpose of food safety indicators and measures is to capture some or all of the major components of food security in terms of food availability, access and utilization or adequacy. While availability (production and supply) and utilization/adequacy (nutritional status/anthropometric measures) seem much easier to predict, so more popular, access (the ability to obtain adequate quantity and quality) remains very elusive. Factors influencing household food access are often context-specific. Thus, the financial and technical demands to collect and analyze data on all aspects of the household experience on food access and the development of valid and clear measures remain a major challenge. Nevertheless, several steps have been developed that aim to capture the access components of food security, with some important examples developed by the USAID-funded Nutrition and Nutrition Assistance project (FANTA), in collaboration with Cornell and Tufts University and Africare and World Vision. These include:
- Domestic Household Vulnerability Access Scale (HFIAS) - a continuing measure of the level of food insecurity (access) in households in the previous month
- Diversity Scale of Household Diet (HDDS) - measures the number of food groups consumed during a particular reference period (24 hours/48 hours/7 days).
- Hunger Scale (HHS) - measures the experience of household food shortages based on a series of predictable reactions, captured through surveys and summarized on a scale.
- Coping Strategies Index (CSI) - assessing household behavior and ranking it based on a set of predetermined behaviors about how households overcome food shortages. The methodology for this research is based on collecting data on one question: "What do you do when you do not have enough food, and do not have enough money to buy food?"
Food insecurity is measured in the United States based on questions in the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. The questions raised are about the anxiety that household budgets are insufficient to buy enough food, a deficiency in the quantity or quality of food eaten by adults and children in the household, and examples of reducing food intake or the consequences of reducing intake food for adults and for children. A USDA-funded National Academy of Sciences study criticized these measurements and the relationship of "food security" to hunger, adding "it is unclear whether hunger is appropriately identified as the extreme end of the food safety scale."
FAO, the World Food Program (WFP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are collaborating to produce the World Food Insecurity . The 2012 edition illustrates the improvements made by FAO with indicators of malnutrition prevalence (PoU) used to measure food insecurity levels. New features include a minimum energy requirement revision for each country, world population data updates, and estimated food losses in retail distribution for each country. Measurements of indicator factors include food supply, food production, food prices, food expenditure, and food system volatility. Stages of food insecurity ranging from food security to large-scale famine. The new peer-reviewed journal, Food Security: Science, Sociology and Food Production Economics and Access to Food , began publishing in 2009.
Maps Food security
Rates
With an indicator of malnutrition prevalence (PoU), FAO reported that nearly 870 million people suffer from chronic malnutrition in 2010-2012. It represents 12.5% ​​of the global population, or 1 in 8 people. Higher rates occur in developing countries, where 852 million people (about 15% of the population) experience chronic malnutrition. The report notes that Asia and Latin America have achieved a reduction in the level of malnutrition that puts the region on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal halving the prevalence of malnutrition by 2015. The UN noted that about 2 billion people do not consume sufficient amounts. vitamins and minerals. In India, the second most populous country in the world, 30 million people have been added to the ranks of hungry since the mid-1990s and 46% of children are underweight.
Examples of food insecurity
Famine is common in the history of the world. Some have killed millions of people and substantially reduced the population in large areas. The most common causes are drought and war, but the greatest hunger in history is caused by economic policy.
Food safety by country
Afghanistan
Afghanistan about 35% of households are unsafe food. Prevalence of weight, stunting, and wasting in children under 5 years is also very high.
Mexico
Food insecurity has depressed Mexico throughout its history and continues to do so in the present. Food availability is not a problem; more precisely, a severe deficiency in food accessibility contributes to insecurity. Between 2003 and 2005, the total supply of Mexican food well above was sufficient to meet the requirements of the Mexican population, averaging 3,270 kilocalories per capita daily, higher than the minimum requirement of 1,850 kilocalories per capita daily. However, at least 10 percent of the population in every Mexican country suffers from inadequate food access. In nine states, 25-35 percent live in food-prone households. More than 10 percent of the population of seven Mexica countries is categorized as Serious Food Insecurity.
The problem of inaccessibility of food is enlarged by chronic malnutrition of children and obesity in children, adolescents, and families.
Mexico is vulnerable to drought that could paralyze agriculture.
United States
The US Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as "the availability of limited and uncertain nutritious food or limited or uncertain ability to obtain acceptable food in a socially acceptable way." Food security is defined by the USDA as "access by everyone at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life."
The National Food Safety Survey is the primary survey tool used by the USDA to measure food security in the United States. Based on respondents' answers to survey questions, households can be placed in a series of food security determined by the USDA. The continuum has four categories: high food safety, marginal food safety, low food safety, and very low food security. The Economic Research Service report number 155 (ERS-155) estimates that 14.5 percent (17.6 million) US households are unsafe in some places in 2012. The prevalence of food insecurity is relatively high in the United States since the 2008 economic recession.
In 2016:
- 12.3 percent (15.6 million) US households experience food insecurity at any time during 2016.
- 7.4 percent (9.4 million) US households have low food security by 2016.
- 4.9 percent (6.1 million) US households have very low food security at some time during 2016.
- Both children and adults are not food safe in 8.0 percent of households with children (3.1 million households).
Source: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx
Feed the Future
In 2010, the United States government initiated the Future Feed Initiative. The initiative is expected to work on a country-led priority calling for consistent support by governments, donor organizations, the private sector and civil society to achieve its long-term goals.
World Summit on Food Security
The World Summit on Food Security, held in Rome in 1996, aims to renew global commitments to combat hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) called the summit in response to widespread malnutrition and increased concerns about agricultural capacity to meet future food needs. The conference produced two key documents, the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Action Plan.
The Rome Declaration calls on members of the United Nations to work to halve the number of people who are chronically malnourished on Earth by 2015. The Plan of Action establishes a number of targets for governments and non-governmental organizations to achieve food security, at the individual, household, national level , regional and global.
Another World Summit on Food Security took place at FAO headquarters in Rome between 16 and 18 November 2009. The decision to hold the summit was taken by the FAO Council in June 2009, on the recommendation of FAO Director-General Dr Jacques Diouf. Heads of state and government attended the summit.
Food safety pillar
WHO states that there is one negative pillar that determines food security: food availability, food access, and food use. FAO added the fourth pillar: the first three dimensional stability of food security over time. In 2009, the World Summit on Food Security states that "the four pillars of food security are availability, access, utilization, and stability".
Availability
Food availability is related to food supply through production, distribution, and exchange. Food production is determined by a variety of factors including land ownership and use; land management; crop selection, breeding, and management; breeding and livestock management; and harvest. Crop production may be affected by changes in precipitation and temperature. The use of soil, water, and energy to grow food often competes with other uses, which can affect food production. Land used for agriculture can be used for urbanization or lost due to desertification, salinization, and soil erosion due to unsustainable agricultural practices. Plant production is not required for a country to achieve food security. Nations should not have the necessary natural resources to produce crops to achieve food security, as seen in the example of Japan and Singapore.
Because food consumers exceed the number of producers in each country, food should be distributed to different regions or countries. Food distribution involves storing, processing, transporting, packaging, and marketing food. The food chain infrastructure and storage technology in farms can also affect the amount of food wasted in the distribution process. Poor transport infrastructure can increase the price of water and fertilizer supply and the price of moving food to national and global markets. Around the world, some individuals or households are continuously independent for food. This creates the need for barter, exchange, or cash economy to obtain food. Food exchanges require an efficient trading system and market institutions, which can affect food security. The per capita world food supply is more than enough to provide food security for all, and thus access to food is a greater barrier to achieving food security.
Access
Food access refers to the affordability and allocation of food, as well as individual and household preferences. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights notes that the causes of hunger and malnutrition are often not food shortages but inability to access available food, usually due to poverty. Poverty can limit access to food, and can also increase how vulnerable a person or household is to food price hikes. Access depends on whether the household has enough income to buy food at the prevailing price or have enough land and other resources to grow its own food. Households with sufficient resources can overcome unstable crops and local food shortages and retain their access to food.
There are two different types of access to food: direct access, where households produce food using human and material resources, and economic access, where households buy food produced elsewhere. Locations can affect access to food and which types of access will be relied upon by the family. Household assets, including income, land, work products, inheritance, and gifts can determine household access to food. However, the ability to access adequate food can not lead to the purchase of food on other materials and services. The demographic and educational level of household members and the sex of household heads determines household preferences, which affect the type of food purchased. Household access to adequate and nutritious food may not guarantee adequate food intake from all household members, since household food allocations may not adequately meet the requirements of every household member. The USDA added that access to food should be available in socially acceptable ways, without, for example, switching to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies.
Utilization
The next pillar of food security is the use of food, which refers to the metabolism of food by individuals. Once the food is obtained by the household, various factors affect the quantity and quality of food that reach household members. To achieve food security, the digested food should be safe and should be sufficient to meet the physiological requirements of each individual. Food safety affects the use of food, and can be affected by the preparation, processing, and cooking of food in communities and households. The household's nutritional value determines the choice of food, and whether food meets the cultural preferences is important to be used in terms of psychological and social well-being. Access to health care is another determinant of food utilization, as individual health controls how food is metabolized. For example, intestinal parasites can take nutrients from the body and reduce food utilization. Sanitation can also reduce the incidence and spread of diseases that may affect food utilization. Education on nutrition and food preparation can affect the use of food and improve the pillars of food security.
Stability
Food stability refers to the ability to get food over time. Food insecurity may be temporary, seasonal, or chronic. In temporary food insecurity, food may not be available for a certain period of time. At the level of food production, natural disasters and drought result in crop failure and declining food availability. Civil conflicts can also reduce access to food. The instability in the market resulting in a spike in food prices can lead to temporary food insecurity. Other temporary factors that can lead to food insecurity are loss of work or productivity, which can be caused by illness. Seasonal food insecurity may result from a regular pattern of growing seasons in food production.
Chronic (or permanent) food insecurity is defined as a long and persistent food shortage. In this case, households are always at risk of not getting food to meet the needs of all members. Chronic and temporary food insecurity is related, since repetition of temporary food security may make households more vulnerable to chronic food insecurity.
Food insecurity effect
Hunger and hunger are both rooted in food insecurity. Chronic food insecurity translates into high levels of vulnerability to hunger and starvation; ensuring food security requires the removal of the vulnerability.
Stunting and chronic nutritional deficiency
Many countries experience food shortages and ongoing distribution problems. It produces chronic hunger and is often widespread among a large number of people. The human population can respond to chronic hunger and malnutrition with a decrease in body size, known in medical terms as stunting or stunted growth. This process begins in utero if the mother is malnourished and continues until about the third year of life. This leads to higher infant and child mortality, but to a much lower level than when starving. After stunting occurs, increased nutritional intake after about two years of age can not reverse the damage. Stunting itself can be seen as a coping mechanism, carrying body size parallel to the calories available during adulthood at the site where the child was born. Limiting body size as a way of adapting to low energy levels (calories) affects health in three ways:
- Premature failure of vital organs in adulthood. For example, a 50-year-old person may die of heart failure because his heart suffered structural damage during early development;
- Stunt people experience higher rates of illness and illness than those who do not have stunting;
- Severe malnutrition in early childhood often causes defects in cognitive development. Because it creates disparity among children who are not severely malnourished and those who experience it.
Challenges to achieve food safety
Global water crisis
The water deficit, which has spurred heavy grain imports in many smaller countries, may soon do the same in large countries, such as China or India. Water tables fall in a number of countries (including northern China, the US, and India) due to widespread overpumping using powerful diesel and electric pumps. Other affected countries include Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. This will eventually lead to water scarcity and a reduction in wheat crops. Even with the overpumping of its aquifers, China is developing grain deficits. When this happens, it will almost certainly push the price of the grain up. Most of the 3 billion people projected to be born around the world in the mid-century will be born in countries that are already experiencing water shortages. After China and India, there is a second level of small countries with large water deficits - Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, and Pakistan. Four of them already import most of their wheat. Only Pakistan remains independent. But with a population growing by 4 million a year, it is likely to soon turn to the world market for grain.
Regionally, Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's largest water pressures, about 800 million people living in Africa, 300 million living in water-filled environments. It is estimated that by 2030, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will live in areas with high water pressure, which will likely displace anywhere between 24 million and 700 million people as conditions become increasingly inaccessible. Since the majority of Africans still rely on farming lifestyles and 80 to 90 percent of all rural African families rely on their own food production, water scarcity means a loss of food security.
The multimillion-dollar investment that began in the 1990s by the World Bank has reclaimed the desert and transformed the Ica Valley in Peru, one of the driest places on earth, becoming the world's largest asparagus supplier. However, constant irrigation has led to a rapid decline in surface water, in some places as much as eight meters per year, one of the fastest rates of aquifer depletion in the world. The wells of small farmers and locals begin to dry and the water supply to the main town in the valley is threatened. As a cash crop, asparagus has provided jobs for the locals, but most of the money goes to buyers, especially the UK. A 2010 report concludes that the industry is unsustainable and accuses investors, including the World Bank, of failing to take the appropriate responsibility for the effects of their decisions on the water resources of poor countries. Shifting water from the upper reaches of the Ica River to asparagus fields has also caused water shortage in the mountainous Huancavelica region, where indigenous peoples make marginal grazing.
Land degradation
Intensive farming often leads to a vicious circle due to exhaustion of soil fertility and declining agricultural yields. About 40 percent of the world's agricultural lands suffered serious damage. In Africa, if current land degradation trends continue, the continent may be able to feed only 25 percent of its population by 2025, according to the Ghana-based Institute of Natural Resources in Africa.
Climate change
Extreme events, such as droughts and floods, are expected to increase as climate change and global warming take place. From overnight floods to drought that gradually deteriorates, it will have various effects on the agricultural sector. According to Climate & amp; The Report on Knowledge Network Development Managing Climate and Disaster Ekplemism in the Agricultural Sector: Lessons from the IPCC SREX Report , the impact will include changes in productivity and livelihood patterns, economic losses, and effects on infrastructure, markets and food security. Food security in the future will be linked to our ability to adapt agricultural systems to extreme events. An example of a changing weather pattern is temperature rise. As temperatures rise due to climate change there is a risk of reduced food supply due to heat damage.
About 2.4 billion people live in the Himalayan river drainage basin. India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar can experience floods followed by severe droughts in the coming decades. In India alone, the Ganges River provides drinking water and agriculture for more than 500 million people. The west coast of North America, which gets plenty of water from glaciers in the mountains such as the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, will also be affected. Glaciers are not the only concerns that developing countries have; Sea levels are reported to increase as climate change progresses, reducing the amount of land available for agriculture.
In other parts of the world, the great effect is low yields in accordance with the World Food Trade Model, especially in low latitude areas where many developing countries are located. From here the price of wheat will rise, along with the developing countries trying to grow the grain. Because of this, any 2-2.5% price increase will increase the number of hungry by 1%. Low yields are just one of the problems facing farmers in low latitudes and tropical regions. The time and length of the growing season, when farmers grow their crops, will change dramatically, per USDA, due to changes in soil temperature and unknown moisture conditions.
Another way to think about food security and climate change comes from Evan Fraser, a geographer working at the University of Guelph in Ontario Canada. His approach is to explore the vulnerability of food systems to climate change and he defines vulnerability to climate change as a situation that occurs when relatively small environmental problems cause a major effect on food security. Examples include Irish Irish Famine, caused by years of rain that create ideal conditions for mushroom spreading in potato fields, or Ethiopian famine in the early 1980s. Three factors stand out in such cases, and these three factors act as diagnostic "tools" used to identify cases where food security may be vulnerable to climate change. These factors are: (1) special agro-ecosystems; (2) households with few livelihood options other than agriculture; (3) a situation in which formal institutions do not provide an adequate safety net to protect people. "The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) estimates that an additional US $ 7.1.3.3 billion per year is required in agricultural investment to offset the negative effects of climate change on nutrition for children by 2050 (Table 6)."
"The results show that climate change tends to reduce agricultural production, thus reducing food availability." (Brown et al., 2008) "The food safety threat posed by climate change is the largest for Africa, where agricultural output and food production per capita have continues to decline, and where population growth will double demand for food, water, and animal feed in the next 30 years "(Devereux et al., 2004). In 2060, the starving population may range from 641 million to 2087 million with the climate changing (Chen et al., 1994). By 2030, cereal crops will be reduced from 15 to 19 percent, temperatures are expected to rise from 1 degree Celcius to 2.75 degrees Celsius, which will cause less rain, all of which will result in increased food insecurity by 2030. (Devereux et al , 2004). In the forecast, farmer countries will be the hardest hit sector, hot countries and drought-stricken countries will reach higher temperatures and rich countries will be hit hardest because they have more access to resources more (Devereux et al., 2004). From a food security perspective, climate change is the dominant reason for the increase in recent years and predictions for years to come.
Agricultural diseases
Diseases affecting livestock or crops can have a very bad impact on food availability, especially if there are no contingency plans. For example, Ug99, a line of wheat rust stems that can cause 100% loss of plants, is present in wheat fields in some countries in Africa and the Middle East and is predicted to spread rapidly through this region and possibly further, potentially causing catastrophic production wheat that will affect food security worldwide.
The genetic diversity of wild oat relatives can be used to enhance modern varieties to be more resistant to rust. In their home centers wild grain crops are filtered to resist rust, then their genetic information is learned and eventually wild plants and modern varieties are crossed through modern plant breeding tools to transfer resistance genes from wild plants to the modern. varieties.
Food versus fuel
Agricultural land and other agricultural resources have long been used to produce non-food crops including industrial materials such as cotton, hemp, and rubber; medicinal plants such as tobacco and opium, and biofuels such as firewood, etc. In the 21st century, fuel production is increasing, adding to this diversion. But technology is also developed to produce commercially food from energy such as natural gas and electrical energy with small water and footprint printing.
Politics
Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen observes that "there is no such thing as an old-fashioned food problem." While droughts and other natural events can trigger starvation conditions, it is a government action or inaction that determines its severity, and often whether hunger will occur or not. The 20th century has examples of government, as in Collectivization in the Soviet Union or the Great Leap Forward in the People's Republic of China that undermines the food security of their own country. Mass wasting is often a weapon of war, as in the German blockade, the Battle of the Atlantic, and the Japanese blockade during World War I and World War II and in the Famine Plan enacted by Nazi Germany.
The government sometimes has a narrow support base, built on cronyism and patronage. Fred Cuny pointed out in 1999 that under these conditions: "The distribution of food in a country is a political issue, and governments in most countries give priority to urban areas, because that is where the most powerful and powerful families and companies are usually located. subsistence farmers and rural areas in general, increasingly remote and lagging areas that are less likely the government will effectively meet its needs. Many agrarian policies, especially agricultural commodity prices, discriminate rural areas, keeping the price of basic grains at an artificially low level so that subsistence producers do not can accumulate enough capital to invest in order to increase their production, so they are effectively prevented from getting out of their precarious situation. "
Dictators and warlords have used food as a political weapon, rewarding supporters while refusing food supplies to areas that oppose their power. Under such conditions food becomes the currency to buy support and hunger to be an effective weapon against the opposition.
Governments with a strong tendency towards kleptocracy can undermine food security even when the harvest is good. When governments monopolize trade, farmers can find that they are free to grow commercial crops for export, but under penalty of just selling their crops to government buyers at prices well below world market prices. The government then freely sells their crops on the world market at full price, pocketing the difference.
When the rule of law does not exist, or private ownership does not exist, farmers have little incentive to increase their productivity. If a farm becomes more productive than the surrounding farm, it may be a target of well-connected individuals with the government. Rather than risk being noticed and possibly losing their land, farmers may be satisfied with the mediocre security.
As William Bernstein points out in the Birth of Plenty: "Individuals without property are vulnerable to hunger, and it is much easier to bend the fear and hunger of the will of the state.If a [farmer] Property can be arbitrarily - the authorities are threatened by the state, that force will inevitably be used to intimidate those who have different political and religious opinions. "
Food sovereignty
The approach known as food sovereignty views business practices of multinationals as a form of neocolonialism. He argues that multinational companies have the financial resources available to buy agricultural resources of poor countries, especially in the tropics. They also have the political influence to turn this resource into an exclusive production of commercial crops for sale to industrialized countries outside the tropics, and in the process of suppressing the poor from more productive lands. Under this view subsistence farmers are left to cultivate only very marginal land in terms of productivity so as not to appeal to multinational corporations. Similarly, food sovereignty states that it is true that society should be able to define their own means of production and that food is a human right. With several multinational companies now encouraging agricultural technology in developing countries, technologies that include superior seeds, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides, crop production has become an increasingly analyzed and debated issue. Many communities call for food sovereignty to protest the imposition of Western technology on their customary systems and institutions.
Risk for food safety
Population growth
Current UN projections show a sustained population increase in the future (but a steady decline in population growth), with the global population expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100. Estimates by the UN Population Division this year 2150 ranged between 3.2 and 24.8 billion; mathematical modeling supports lower estimates. Some analysts question the continuing growth of the world's population further, highlighting the ever-increasing pressure on the environment, global food supplies, and energy resources. Solutions to feed the extra billions in the future are being studied and documented. One out of every seven people on our planet sleeps hungry. People suffer from overpopulation, 25,000 people die of malnutrition and famine-related illnesses every day.
fossil fuel dependence
While agricultural output increases, energy consumption to produce crops also increases at a greater rate, so the ratio of yields to energy inputs decreases over time. The Green Revolution technique also relies heavily on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, many of which are petroleum products, making agriculture increasingly dependent on petroleum.
Between 1950 and 1984, when the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the world, world grain production increased 250%. Energy for the Green Revolution is provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oils), and hydrocarbon-fueled irrigation.
David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, and Mario Giampietro, senior researcher at the National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research (NRIFN), put in their study the Population, Land, Population and Economy of the US US maximum for sustainable economy at 210 million. To achieve a sustainable economy and prevent a catastrophe, the United States should reduce its population by at least one-third, and the world population should be cut by two-thirds, the study said.
The authors of this study believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will begin to affect us after 2020, and will not be critical until 2050. Progress comes from global oil production (and subsequent production declines), along with the peak of North American gas production nature will very likely accelerate this agricultural crisis faster than expected. Geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer claims that the coming decade could see unabated increases in food prices and hunger on a global level like never before experienced.
Homogeneity in global food supply
Since 1961, human diets around the world have become more diverse in the consumption of major commodity staples, with a reasonable reduction in the consumption of important local or regional crops, and thus has become more homogeneous globally. Differences between food eaten in different countries decreased by 68% between 1961 and 2009. The modern "global standard" diet contains an increasing percentage of a small number of relative commodity crops, which has increased substantially in the total food energy (calorie) , protein, fat, and weight of food they provide for the world's human population, including wheat, rice, sugar, corn, soybeans (by 284%), palm oil (by 173%), and sunflower (246%). While countries used to consume larger proportions of important local or regional crops, wheat has become a staple in more than 97% of the country, with other global staples showing similar dominance worldwide. Other crops have declined sharply over the same period, including rye, yam, sweet potatoes (by -45%), cassava (-38%), coconut, sorghum (by -52%) and millet (by -45%). Changes in plant diversity like this in the human diet are associated with a mixed effect on food security, improving malnutrition in some areas but contributing to diet-related diseases caused by excessive macronutrient consumption.
Price settings
On April 30, 2008, Thailand, one of the world's largest rice exporters, announced the creation of the Organization of Rice Exporting Countries with the potential to develop into a rice price fixing cartel. This is a project to regulate 21 rice exporting countries to create a homonymous organization to control rice prices. The group mainly consists of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The organization strives to serve the purpose of making "contributions to ensure food stability, not only in one country but also to address food shortages in the region and the world". However, it remains to be seen whether this organization will play its role as an effective price-fixing cartel, similar to OPEC's mechanism for managing petroleum. Economic analysts and traders say the proposal will not go anywhere because of the government's inability to cooperate with each other and control the farmers' output. In addition, the countries involved expressed their concern, that this only exacerbated food security.
Land use change
China needs no less than 120 million hectares of cultivable land for its food security. China recently reported a surplus of 15 million hectares. On the other side of the coin, about 4 million hectares of conversion for urban use and 3 million hectares of contaminated land have been reported as well. In addition, a survey found that 2.5% of China's agricultural land is too polluted to grow food without danger. In Europe, conversion of agricultural land implies a loss of net potential. But rapid losses in fertile soil areas do not seem economically meaningful because the EU is considered to be dependent on internal food supplies any longer. During the period 2000-2006 the EU lost 0.27% of its agricultural land and 0.26% of its productive potentials. The loss of agricultural land at the same time is the highest in the Netherlands, which lost 1.57% of its crop production potential in six years. The numbers are quite worrying for Cyprus (0.84%), Ireland (0.77%) and Spain (0.49%) as well. In Italy, on the Emilia-Romagna plain (ERP), the conversion of 15,000 hectares of agricultural land (the period 2003-2008) implies a net loss of 109,000 Mg per year of wheat, which accounts for the calories required by 14% of the population ERP (425,000 people). The loss of wheat production is only 0.02% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Emilia-Romagna region which is actually a minor effect in financial terms. In addition, revenues from new land use are often much higher than those guaranteed by agriculture, as in the case of urbanization or raw material extraction.
Global disaster risk
Because anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions reduce global climate stability, climate change can suddenly become more intense. The impact of asteroids or comets larger than 1 km in diameter has the potential to block the sun globally, causing winter impacts. Particles in the troposphere will rapidly descend, but the particles in the stratosphere, especially sulfates, may persist for years. Similarly, a supervolcanic eruption will reduce the potential for agricultural production from solar photosynthesis, causing volcanic winter. The eruption of the Toba super volcano some 70,000 years ago may almost cause human extinction (see Toba's disaster theory). Again, especially sulfate particles can block the sun for years. Solar blocking is not limited to natural causes as nuclear winter is also possible, referring to scenarios involving widespread nuclear war and the burning of cities releasing soot into the stratosphere that will stay there for about 10 years. High stratosphere temperatures generated by soot absorbing solar radiation will create global ozone hole conditions close even to regional nuclear conflicts.
Agricultural subsidies in the United States
Agricultural subsidies are paid to farmers and agribusinesses to supplement their income, manage their commodity supply and affect the costs and supply of these commodities. In the United States, major government-subsidized crops contribute to the problem of obesity; Since 1995, $ 300 billion has been used for crops used to make junk food.
Taxpayers subsidize corn and soybeans, which are the main ingredients in processed foods and fatty foods that the government does not recommend, and are used to fatten livestock. Half of the farmland is devoted to corn and soybeans, the rest is wheat. Soy and corn can be found in sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup. More than $ 19 billion over 18 years before 2013 was spent on getting farmers to grow this crop, raising the price of fruits and vegetables by about 40% and lowering prices for dairy products and other animal products. Small land is used for fruit and vegetable farming.
Corn, the American agricultural pillar for many years, is now mainly used for ethanol, high fructose corn syrup and bio-based plastic. About 40 percent of maize is used for ethanol and 36 percent is used as animal feed. Only a small portion of the maize is used as a food source, most of which is used for high fructose corn syrup, which is a key ingredient in processed and unhealthy junk foods.
People who ate the most subsidized foods had a 37% higher risk of being obese than those who consumed the least amount of subsidized food. This raises concerns that minority communities are more vulnerable to the risk of obesity due to financial constraints. Subsidies produce cheaper commodities for the public, compared to those recommended by diet guidelines.
President Trump proposed a 21% cut for government discretionary spending in the agricultural sector, which has met with partisan resistance. This budget proposal will also reduce spending on the Special Supplement Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, although less than President Obama.
Child and food safety
On April 29, 2008, the UNICEF UK report found that the world's poorest and most vulnerable children were hardest hit by climate change. The report, "Our Climate, Our Children, Our Responsibility: Implications of Climate Change for Children of the World", says that access to clean water and food supplies will be more difficult, especially in Africa and Asia.
In the United States
By comparison, in one of the world's largest food-producing countries, the United States, about one in six are "food insecure", including 17 million children, according to the US Department of Agriculture. A study in 2012 in the Journal of Applied Research on Children found that food security levels vary significantly according to race, class and education. In both kindergarten and third grade, 8% of children are classified as unsafe food, but only 5% of unsafe children are white, while 12% and 15% are black and Hispanic children not food safe. In third grade, 13% of blacks and 11% of Hispanic children are unsafe food compared to 5% of white children.
There are also striking regional variations in food security. Although food insecurity is difficult to measure, 45% of primary and secondary school students in Maine are eligible for free or school lunch at a discount; by several steps Maine has been declared the most unsafe food in the state of New England. Challenges and distance of transportation are common barriers for families in rural areas seeking food aid. Social stigma is another important consideration, and for children, managing programs in schools with sensitivity can make the difference between success and failure. For example, when John Woods, co-founder of Complete Platter, Full Potential, learned that a shy student away from a free breakfast was distributed at the school where he worked, he made arrangements to provide free breakfast for all the students there.
According to a 2015 Congressional Budget Office report on child nutrition programs, it is likely that unsafe children will participate in school nutrition programs rather than children from safe-food families. School nutrition programs, such as the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) have provided millions of children access to healthy lunches and breakfasts, since their perception in the mid-1900s. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the NSLP has served over 300 million, while the SBP has served about 10 million students every day. However, too many eligible students still fail to receive these benefits simply because they do not submit the necessary documents. Several studies have reported that school nutrition programs play an important role in ensuring students access healthy foods. Students who had lunch at school provided by NLSP showed a higher quality diet than if they had their own lunch. Even more, the USDA raises the standard for school food, which ultimately leads to a positive impact on children's food choices and eating habits.
Countless partnerships have emerged in the quest for food security. A number of federal nutrition programs exist to provide special food for children, including the Summer Food Service Program, the Special Milk Program (SMP) and the Child Care and Adult Care Program (CACFP), and community and country organizations often network with these programs. The Summer Food Program in Bangor, Maine, run by the Bangor Housing Authority and sponsored by Good Shepherd Food Bank. Instead, Thomas College of Waterville Maine, for example, was one of the organizations that organized a food drive to collect donations for Good Shepherd. Children whose families are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP) or Women, Infants and Children (WIC) can also receive food aid. WIC alone serves about 7.6 million participants, 75% of whom are children and infants.
Despite a sizeable population served by these programs, the Conservatives regularly target these programs to be defended. Conservative arguments against school nutrition programs include fear of wasting food and fraud from apps. On January 23, 2017, H.R.610 was introduced to Parliament by Representative Steve King. The bill seeks to revoke the rules set by the Food and Nutrition Service of the Ministry of Agriculture, which mandates schools to provide more nutritious and diverse meals on food plates. Two months later, the Trump Administration issued a budget beginning 2018 proposing a $ 2 billion cut from WIC.
Food insecurity in children can lead to developmental disorders and long-term consequences such as the weakening of physical, intellectual and emotional development.
Food insecurity is also associated with obesity for people living in environments where nutritious food is unavailable or unaffordable.
Gender and food safety
Gender inequality both leads to and is the result of food insecurity. According to estimates, women and girls account for 60% of the world's most hungry and little progress has been made to ensure equal rights to food for women enshrined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Women face discrimination in both education and employment and in households, where their bargaining power is lower. Women's work is essential to not only promoting gender equality within the workforce, but ensuring a sustainable future as it means less pressure for high birth rates and clean migration. On the other hand, gender equality is described as instrumental to ending malnutrition and hunger. Women tend to be responsible for food preparation and childcare within the family and are more likely to spend their income on food and the needs of their children. Women also play an important role in food production, processing, distribution and marketing. They often work as unpaid family workers, engage in subsistence agriculture and represent about 43% of agricultural labor in developing countries, varying from 20% in Latin America to 50% in East and Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. However, women face discrimination in access to land, credit, technology, finance, and other services. Empirical studies show that if women have equal access to productive resources as men, women can increase their yields by 20-30%; increase overall agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5 to 4%. While it is a rough estimate, the significant benefits of closing the gender gap on agricultural productivity can not be denied. Gender aspects of food security are seen along four pillars of food security: availability, access, utilization, and stability, as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization.
The number of people exposed to hunger is very high, with enormous effects on women and girls. Making this trend disappear "should be a top priority for governments and international agencies". The actions taken by the government should consider that food insecurity is a problem related to "equity, rights and social justice". "Food and nutritional insecurity is a political and economic phenomenon triggered by an unjust global and national process". Factors such as capitalism, indigenous land exploration all contribute to food insecurity for the minorities and the most oppressed people in various countries (women become one of the oppressed groups). To emphasize, "food and nutritional insecurity is a matter of gender justice". The facts that women and girls are most oppressed by "unfair global economic processes governing food systems and by global trends such as climate change", show how institutions continue to place women in disadvantaged and impoverished positions to make money and thrive on exploiting food systems. When governments hold food by raising the price to the amount that only privileged people can afford, they are equally profitable and able to control the "underclass"/marginalized people through the food market. The interesting fact is that "despite the rapid economic growth in India, thousands of women and girls still lack food and nutritional safety as a direct result of their lower status compared to men and boys". "Such inequalities are exacerbated by the limited access of women and girls to productive resources, education and decision-making, to the 'normalized' burdens of unpaid work - including nursing work - and to the problems of endemic gender-based violence (GBV ), HIV and AIDS ".
Use of genetically engineered plants (GM)
One of the most advanced techniques for ensuring global food security is the use of GM crops. The plant genome can be altered to address one or more aspects of the plant that may prevent it from being planted in different areas under certain conditions. Many of these changes can overcome the previously mentioned challenges, including water crises, land degradation, and an ever-changing climate.
In agriculture and livestock, the Green Revolution popularized the use of conventional hybridization to improve yield by creating "superior varieties". Often some hybridized breeds come from developed countries and are further hybridized with local varieties in the developing world to create high yield strains that are resistant to climate and local disease.
Areas sown for genetically engineered crops in developing countries are rapidly pursuing areas sown in industrialized countries. According to the International Services for Agri-Biotech Applications Acquisition (ISAAA), GM crops were grown by approximately 8.5 million farmers in 21 countries in 2005; up from 8.25 million farmers in 17 countries in 2004. However, ISAAA is funded by organizations including leading agricultural biotechnology companies, such as Monsanto and Bayer, and there are several challenges made to ISAAA's global accuracy figures.
Opposition to GM crop
Some scientists question the safety of biotechnology as a panacea; agroecologists Miguel Altieri and Peter Rosset have mentioned ten reasons why biotechnology will not guarantee food security, protect the environment, or reduce poverty. The reasons include:
- There is no relationship between the prevalence of hunger in a country and its inhabitants
- Most innovations in agricultural biotechnology are more profit-driven than need-driven
- Ecological theory predicts that the homogenization of large-scale landscapes with transgenic crops will exacerbate the ecological problems already associated with monoculture farming
- And, much of the food needed can be produced by small farmers located around the world using existing agroecological technology.
Based on evidence from previous efforts, there is a possibility of a lack of diversion from one GM plant species from one region to another. For example, the modified crops that have proven successful in Asia from the Green Revolution have failed when tried in the African region. More research should be done on specific requirements to grow certain crops in a particular area.
There is also a lack of education provided to governments, farmers, and the community about the science behind genetically modified crops, as well as appropriate growing practices. In most aid programs, farmers are seeded with little explanation and little attention is given to resources available to them or even laws that prohibit them from distributing products. Governments are often not advised on the economic and health implications that come with planting GM crops, and then left to make their own judgments. Because they have so little information about these plants, they usually avoid letting them or do not take the time and effort necessary to manage their use. Community members who will then consume the proceeds from these plants are also left in the dark about what these modifications mean and are often frightened by their 'unnatural' origin. This resulted in the failure to plant crops well and strong opposition to unknown practices.
A study published in June 2016 evaluated the application status of Golden Rice, which was first developed in the 1990s to produce higher levels of Vitamin A than its non-GMO counterparts. This rice strain is designed to make malnourished women and children in third-world countries more susceptible to deficiency can easily increase their intake of Vitamin A and prevent blindness, which is a common outcome. The Golden Rice production is centered on the Philippines, but there are many hurdles to jump for production to move. This study shows that the project is well behind schedule and not as expected. Although research on Gold Rice is still continuing, the country has moved forward with other non-GMO initiatives to address the problem of vitamin A deficiency that is so strong in the region.
Many anti-GMO activists argue that the use of genetically modified crops reduces biodiversity among plants. Livestock biodiversity is also threatened by agricultural modernization and focuses on larger, more productive breeds. Therefore, efforts have been made by governments and non-governmental organizations to conserve livestock biodiversity through strategies such as cryogen conservation of animal genetic resources.
GM crop support
Many success stories of GM plants exist, especially in developed countries such as the United States, China, and various countries in Europe. Common GM crops include cotton, corn, and soybeans, all of which are grown throughout North and South America as well as the Asian region. Modified cotton plants, for example, have been altered in such a way that they are resistant to pests, can grow in more extreme heat, cold, or drought, and produce longer and stronger fibers for use in textile production.
One of the greatest threats to rice, which is a staple food crop mainly in India and other countries in Asia, is an explosive disease that is a fungal infection that causes lesions to form in all parts of the plant. A genetically modified rice strain has been developed that is resistant to explosions, greatly improving farmer yields and allowing rice more accessible to everyone. Some other plants have been modified in such a way that they produce higher yields per plant or that they require less land to grow. The latter can help in extreme climates with less fertile land and also reduce deforestation, as fewer trees should be felled to make room for crop fields. The others have not been altered in such a way that they do not require the use of insecticides or fungicides. It discusses various health issues associated with these pesticides and can also work to improve biodiversity in the areas where these plants are grown.
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Source of the article : Wikipedia
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