Assignment#3 Food Security Draft 2

Page |1 Donpat Liewchirakorn (OAT) 20014409
There are many threats to global food supplies. Explain the problem, identify possible solutions, and assess the implication of implementing the solutions.
According to the Royal Society in London, the worlds population has increased from 2 billion in 1930 to 6 billion in 2011, it has been also predicted to rise and plateau at 9 billion in the middle of 21st century. This figure, along with the corresponding increase in wealth, has triggered the awareness of food scarcity in the near future since the increase in wealth refers to higher purchasing power and higher consumption as consequences. This phenomenon is also exacerbated by the greater demand for land and the pressure from drastic climate change, which altogether force the world to reconsider the current problems from various situations and also the implementations of measures for the more effective food system in the future. This essay will firstly analyzes each current situation regarding the worlds food system, addresses the problems and then proposes some solutions together with the assessments of their implications.
One of the most significant threats that is attributable to the risk of food security is the problem of land. For several decades, many pieces of productive agricultural land has been lost to urbanization and other human uses such as the use of pesticides and the practice of monoculture which will exploits a lot of minerals in the soil. This situation has put more pressure to the food producers since they have to produce the greater amount of food from the same (or even less) amount of land (Godfray, et al. 2010). The practical solution would be the sustainable land management such as the practice of Agroforestry. According to The International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), Agroforestry
Page |2 is a collective name for land-use systems and technologies where woody perennials (trees, shrubs, palms, bamboos, etc.) are deliberately used on the same landmanagement units as agricultural crops and/or animals, in some form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence. In agroforestry systems there are both ecological and economical interactions between the different components. (Lundgren and Raintree, 1982, cite in Nair, 1993). Even though it may requires a lot of effort in educating this technique to the farmers, but it is very beneficial since it supports the sustainable land development and farming in the long run since it will help farmers to achieve more diverse and productive land-use systems. Moreover, the practice of zoning should be applied to the urbanization policy. The government should set a clear development plan by excluding productive agricultural pieces of land from the policy.
Another threat in the concern of land problem refers to the rapidly increasing demand for meat and dairy products in developing countries where meat is perceived as the most concentrated source of minerals and vitamins. The indirect effect related to land is that the rise in demand for meat will put more pressure to farmer to sacrifice more arable pieces of land to raise livestock which will normally create adverse environmental outcomes to the land as a consequence (Godfray, et al. 2010). Therefore, the well-balanced diet policy should be introduced to these people, together with the fact that there are some other vegetables are also considered to be more healthful and nutritious than meat, especially red meat.
A further threat to food security is the high yield gap: the difference between realized productivity of yield and the best that can be achieved. In fact, there are several aspects contribute to this problem. The first one refers to some constraints that prevent local food
Page |3 producers from increasing productivity. For example, farmers sometimes may not have full access to the technical knowledge and skills such as know-how with respect to fertilizers. Moreover, in order to achieve higher production stage, farmers require a large investment on equipment and technologies, for example, an appropriate storage and efficient foodchain infrastructures. If the return doesnt compensate the vast amount of investment, it is unlikely that the farmers will decide to invest. The government, therefore, should look at the global view when considering the development of agriculture industry. The policies should focus more on the balance between agriculture and economic growth i.e. the view of economic growth as a stimulus to agriculture and vice versa. These will lead to the construction of infrastructures such as roads, ports.
The next factor contributing to the high yield gap is the increase in abiotic stress, which can refers to the drastic change in climate and desertification. These phenomena can undermine the actual yield which could have been produced by the farmers. The plants and crops require a lot more tolerance than those grown in the normal circumstances. The new technology which has been created to cope with this problem is called the genetically modified (GM) crops: the genetically manipulation of certain plant to achieve the desirable traits that suit the circumstances, for example, the plant that can tolerate the drought or pesticide. Even though it sounds like the light at the tunnel, it possesses a range of implications since it has not been closely examined about the side effects both in aspects of general consumption and the problem of crossbreeding. Therefore, it is still too early and so doubtful to fully adopt this method as the main solution in order to solve this problem.
Page |4 The problem of drastic climate change can also be considered as one of the main factors which cause the discrepancy in yield gap of the aspects regarding the cause of the climate change can be the effort to increase the supply of the yield which could create potential impacts to the environment as well as undermine future food production. The term negative externalities has been derived to explain the effects on environment that are not reflected in the cost of food. These include the emission of green house gases such as methane and Carbon dioxide. As a consequence, the solution has been pushed toward the trend of reliance on renewable energy which is safer and very sustainable. However, the argument concentrating to this issue is the cost of implementation which normally requires large amount of money and some advance technologies.
In conclusion, there are many threats to global food security. Different situations cause different problems which also require specific solutions in order to solve the problems. However, the important foundation to the solutions is the focus on the concept of sustainability, i.e. the means to solve the problem of global food shortage should be directed in both short-run and long-run. This is to guarantee that the solutions will be able to cope with the two persistent main problems: increase in number of population and drastic climate change. In this case, every party including government, farmers or even some private sectors should step in and co-operate with each other to achieve the desirable outcome: sustainable food production.
Page |5 References Godfray, H. C. J., Beddington. J.R., Haddad, L., Lawrence, D., Muir, J.F., et al. (2010). The challenge of feeding 9 billion people. Science, 327(5987), 812-818
Nair, P.K.R. (1993). An Introduction to Agroforestry. The Neatherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers
Tiffin, R. (2011, January 24). Diet and sustainability key to feeding the world. [Press release]. Reading: University of Reading. Retrieved June 13, 2011 from www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsandevents/releases/PR345078.aspx

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