For contextualize, so food security exists when all people, always, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Drought, shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, economic instability and recently the war have long been recognized as potentially disruptive threats to global food supplies.
Challenges to food security
Challenges to food security come from both the demand and supply sides: the most serious challenges to global food security include population growth, climate change, natural resource depletion, technological advances, and market instability.
Demand-side Challenges
Population growth: The world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, creating an unprecedented demand for food. As population continues to grow, food production must keep pace or food shortages will occur.
Shifting diets: Global reductions in poverty have sharply increased the demand for calories, as newly emerging middle-class families shift their diets from vegetable-based protein sources to meat, dairy, and fish. Meat-based diets consume far more resources tha vegetable-based diets because of the land needed to raise livestock and the food and water needed to grow animal feed. Livestock farming also contributes to climate change as a result of methane emissions from animals and land deforestation. For example, when cattle farmers switched their animals diets from meat by products to plant products following the outbreak of meat-borne mad cow disease in the early 2000s, a boom in soybean demand prompted South American farmers to cut deeply into forest lands to clear fields for soy cultivation. The total toll on climate change from the combined effects of animal emissions and cultivation is substantial.
Supply-side Challenges
Food Waste and Loss
Nearly on-quarte of all calories produced for human consumption are lost or wasted. Food loss stems from spoilage and spillage in the pre-consumption stage; it emerges when prepared food is disposed due either to excess production or to eventual spoilage. Consumption-stage waste is a major problem in the developed economies of north America, Oceania, and Europe. In developing countries, by contrast, the biggest losses emerge at the stages of production, handling and storage.
Natural Resource limits and degradation
Agricultural production uses 70 per cent of the earth´s accessible fresh water and 85 per cent of its arable land supply. The available resources are often overexploited and are sometimes destroyed in short-sighted attempts to boost farming profits, especially in low-income areas where smallholder farmers lack the education or the financial means to balance financial and environmental concerns for sustainable long-term outcomes.
The overuse and depletion of land, water, and other resources is reducing the availability of arable land and fresh water for agricultural production. The loss of biodiversity is reducing the resilience of agricultural systems, making them more vulnerable to pest infestations and climate change. Every population and ecosystem are unique, so preserving biodiversity is essential to global food security. The loss of biodiversity is reducing the resilience of agricultural systems, making them more vulnerable to pest infestations and climate change. Every population and ecosystem are unique, so preserving biodiversity is essential to global food security.
Social Inequity and Labour Scarcity
A scarce supply of experienced and knowledgeable farm labour has emerged as an additional concern for future food security. In many low-income countries, farmers lack the knowledge and technology that would allow them to improve their crop yields. The small scale of their farms and their limited access to market information prevents them from negotiating better selling prices for their harvests. Poor systems for food preservation and transportation further reduce their profits, as crops spoil on the way to market. Moreover, safety and health risks result from low knowledge levels and lack of access to protective clothing and equipment, insurance, and organized labour.
Technology-based solutions
Genetically Modified Crops
Using genetic modification technology, growers can genetically alter crops to boost their resistance to drought, pests, flooding, and other impending risks of climate change and environmental degradation. The public is widely divided about the long-term safety and wisdom of leveraging biotechnology in general, and genetically modified organisms (GMO) in particular, in the pursuit of food security. Advocates including hundreds of researchers and government institutions, argue based on scientific evidence that GMO crops are safe and have not posed major environmental or health risks in regions where they are grown.
Laboratory-produced food
In recognition of natural resource limits, scientists have been working on growing meat in laboratories. Though researchers are not yet able to reproduce the taste and texture of a juicy, grilled steak, they have been successful in cultivating meat cells that receive favourable reviews for taste. A critical challenge for commercializing the meat at present is the high price. For example, in 2013, a Dutch lab-grown burger was offered at a price of more than 300,000$, however, researchers in several so-called clean meat companies have been working to reduce the price since then. Many people are optimistic that lag-grown food will offer affordable and tasty alternatives to farm-grown meat soon.
Precision Farming and Big Data
Advances in information technology can increasingly boost agricultural efficiency and profitability. For example, farmers are able to increase crop yields and optimize the application of fertilizers, crop protectors, and water using granular data (e.g. drone or satellite-generated data for every 10 square meters of field) and sophisticated tools that integrate information about weather, soil and market prices. The resulting resource efficiency also lowers costs. Mobile phone technology can be especially helpful to farms in emerging markets, where data about production and demand is currently limited. Improving access to information about corp conditions and market prices can increase farmers productivity and given them greater power over the terms of trade.
It will take years, even decades, for our current food and agricultural ecosystems to transform to meet the needs of the future. Like all economic and social revolutions, there will be winners and losers. The winds of change are strong and seem poised to strengthen, as current trends of population growth and resource exploitation advance. Some of tomorrow´s winners who cling to tightly to the past without recognizing the opportunity of bringing much-needed solutions to market. Those who move will find many like-minded supporters and collaborators to accompany them on the way, for there are few more pressing problems in need of innovative solutions that of global food security.