A manifesto for solving the global food crisis
To
celebrate World Food Day, here are key ways of promoting more sustainable food
systems from building grain reserves to taxing pollution
To meet demand of growing population, we need to develop
ways of producing more food while using fewer resources. Photograph: Regis
Duvignau/Reuters
Evan Fraser and Elizabeth
Fraser
Thursday 16 October 201403.50 EDT
Improve
food distribution
United
Nations’ data shows that we produce enough food for everyone to
have an adequate diet, but poor distribution means that 805 million people are
hungry while some 1.4 billion people are overweight or obese. We need to take
the food we have and make sure it is distributed to those who need it most.
We propose helping small-scale producers, for
example those in rural Africa, access markets. This will involve partnerships
between local and international development agencies that can work with farmers
to establish the skills and the infrastructure to market farm products.
Reducing poverty in this way is a good way of ensuring food reaches those who
need it most.
It’s also vital to build strategic
grain reserves in famine-prone regions as a source of emergency
food. This would require partnerships between non-governmental organisations,
national governments and the World Food Programme.
Sustainably
increase production
The UN now expects the global population to
reach 11 billion by 2100. To meet this demand, we need to develop ways of
producing more food while using fewer resources.
We propose supporting publicly funded research
that empowers small-scale farmers in the global south to boost their
productivity using low-cost technologies. This requires scientists and
engineers to step outside their labs and engage meaningfully with small-scale
farmers across South America, Asia, and Africa.
Public-private partnerships can also help to
research precision-agriculturetechnologies that will
allow farmers to boost production while minimising environmental impact.
Everything from soil probes that can test for nutrient deficiency to satellite
navigation systems linked to tractors and GPS enabled smartphones can help
produce a maximum amount of food with minimal environmental disruption.
Support
local food
Although most experts agree local food systems
cannot feed all of us all the time, local food is still extremely important.
Local food empowers farmers, links producers and consumers, and provides a line
of defence between consumers and international commodity markets.
Therefore, we should invest in mid-sized and
regional food processing and distribution facilities such as vegetable
processing factories, canneries, and abattoirs. This will provide smaller farmers
access to markets as well as helping them add value to the products they
produce.
We should also enhance and establish
programmes that reduce the barriers for young people wanting to become farmers.
Everything from the high cost of farmland to the fact that many people have no
idea how to garden means that our farm population is aging. We need to correct
this and make farming a viable and exciting career for young people.
Protect
the environment through policy and regulation
In much of the world, the price paid for food
does not reflect the environmental cost of producing it. To address this we
must move away from production subsidies on crops like corn (maize) that
support environmentally destructive farming practices and unhealthy diets and
focus instead on policies that reward farmers (pdf) for
producing food using methods that protect wildlife and preserve water quality.
Such policies could be based on paying farmers for managing well cared for
environments or by taxing pollution such as carbon emissions.
Engage
the public
None of these will be possible unless people
everywhere demand that food be put on the public policy agenda. Therefore we
must also develop educational programmes to increase food literacy skills by
teaching gardening, food preserving, and cooking in schools so that consumers
learn to enjoy a diet that is less taxing on the planet. And we need to engage
younger people on agriculture and food security.
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