Nearly 1 billion
people, a majority of them smallholder farmers, are chronically hungry and
malnourished. According to Oxfam International, the poor spend 50-80% of their
meager earnings on food. A report published by
UNICEF in 2009 concluded that because of low caloric intake and poor nutrition,
the next generation of Kenyans would be shorter, less intelligent and less
productive.
High food prices and supply
volatilities have caused significant declines in daily nourishment levels. A World Bank report published in 2011 estimated that the
global food price spikes in 2008 pushed 44 million people below the poverty
line, most of them in developing countries.
The global food
system faces a growing convergence of complex interconnected environmental
problems; including challenges like a bulging global middle class, climate
change, land degradation and the more serious threat to the survival of the
biodiversity and ecosystems services upon which agriculture and the wider
economy depends.
It is estimated that 2 million hectares of rainfed and
irrigated agricultural lands are lost to production every year due to severe
land degradation, among other factors. But it takes approximately 500 years to
replace 25 millimeters of topsoil lost to erosion. Approximately 30% of the world's cropland has
become unproductive over the last 40 years due to land degradation. 75% of the genetic diversity of crop plants
has been lost in the past century. Ninety percent of the world's food is
derived from just 15 plant and 8 animal species.
According to the OECD-FAO Agricultural
Outlook 2012, food production needs to increase by 60% over the next 40 years
to meet the rising global demand for food. The continued
production of adequate food supplies is directly dependent on ample quantities
of fertile soil, fresh water, energy, and natural biodiversity. According to the 2013 World Economic Report food and nutrition
security is a major global concern as the world prepares to feed a growing
population on a dwindling resource base, in an era of increased volatility and
uncertainty.
How far our
population has overshot the planet’s long-term carrying capacity is approximated
by ecological footprint analysis. Ecological footprint analysis shows that to
support the current population of seven billion, with current production
technology and consumption levels of the United States of America, would
require an additional four to five more Earths.
Adding the projected 2.5 billion more of our kind by 2050
would make the human ecological footprint on planet’s life-support
systems disproportionately worse. The boisterous optimism of many analysts regarding
our ability to feed billions more is unnerving. If it is trivial to feed
billions more, why are millions undernourished and chronically hungry
today?
Could a
breakdown in the planet’s life-support systems cause our civilization to
collapse? In my view scarce ecological
resources; water, soils and genetic resources, exacerbated by climate change, could
trigger famines, epidemics and conflict over resources, leading to a
disintegration of central control within communities and across nations.
Of course, the claim is often made that
our ingenuity and technological innovation will cause us to expand the Earth’s
carrying capacity and avoid a Malthusian catastrophe. The Green Revolution; fertilizers,
pesticides, irrigation and improved seeds expanded our capacity to produce more
food in the past century. But today millions of hectares agricultural land is
poisoned, our planet is hotter, our lakes are polluted, falling water tables and
our food base is held captive by a narrow crop base. Rising farm debt, suicides,
falling commodity prices and enhanced government subsidy payments are the
hallmark of high input agriculture.
In today’s world, the technologies that
fueled the Green Revolution are antiquated and would be akin to deploying
bayonets and horses to execute a 21st century warfare. The search
for low-input, diversified, energy and water-efficient agricultural production systems
must become urgent global research and policy priorities. This calls for
placing more effort into genetic and ecological research and a shift from a
crop centred to a farming systems-based approach. Maintaining the productivity
of the ecological foundations of food production through safeguarding the
fertility of soil, efficient water use, judicious
exploitation of agro-bio-diversity, collection, conservation and optimum utilization of genetic resources is
essential for sustainable food production.
What is produced, how it is produced
and for whom it is produced are critical questions that must addressed if an ecologically
sustainable and equitable global food system is to emerge. The development of ecologically
and economically viable food systems must come from novel designs of cropping
and or livestock systems managed with local knowledge and eco-technologies appropriate
to farmers' resources and agro-ecologies.
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