World needs global food system overhaul: report

Yahoo News 25 Jan 11;

LONDON (AFP) – The world needs fundamental changes to the global food system to feed the expanding population, according to a British government report out Monday on how to feed the planet until 2050.

Governments must take action to change dietary habits, cut waste, reduce subsidies and embrace genetically modified food, said the "Global Food and Farming Futures" report.

The study led by Professor John Beddington, the British government's chief scientific adviser, said that with the global population forecast to reach nine billion in 40 years' time, radical changes were needed to a system already struggling to feed the existing population.

"With the global population set to rise and food prices likely to increase, it is crucial that a wide range of complementary actions from policy makers, farmers and businesses are taken now," Beddington said.

"Urgent change is required throughout the food system to bring sustainability centre stage and end hunger. It is also vital for other areas, such as climate change mitigation, conflict, and economic growth."

The report found that the threat of hunger could increase, saying that current efforts were already stalling and food prices could rise substantially over the next 40 years.

As hunger spreads, the threat of migration and conflict will increase, while wider economic growth would also be affected, it said.

The global food system is already living beyond its means, consuming resources faster than they can be replenished, it said.

Substantial changes to water and energy use and addressing climate change are needed to bring about sustainability, the report found.

It also warned that there was "no quick fix" to the problems.

Beddington said the world's food system was already failing on two counts.

"Firstly, it is unsustainable, with resources being used faster than they can be naturally replenished," he said.

"Secondly, a billion people are going hungry with another billion people suffering from 'hidden hunger', whilst a billion people are over-consuming."

The report said that new technologies such as genetic modification, cloned livestock and nanotechnology "should not be excluded a priori on ethical or moral grounds" and have the potential to be "very valuable for the poorest people in low-income countries".

Meanwhile investment in technology research is "essential" given the magnitude of the food security challenges ahead.

Britain's Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said the report showed ways to unlock an "agricultural revolution in the developing world".

New strategies would "benefit the poorest the most, simply by improving access to knowledge and technology, creating better access to markets and investing in infrastructure".

Britain's International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said that "with one seventh of the world's population still hungry, the report was a clarion call to arms".

Report: Urgent action needed to avert global hunger
Pallab Ghosh BBC News 24 Jan 11;

A UK government-commissioned study into food security has called for urgent action to avert global hunger.

The Foresight Report on Food and Farming Futures says the current system is unsustainable and will fail to end hunger unless radically redesigned.

It is the first study across a range of disciplines deemed to have put such fears on a firm analytical footing.

The report is the culmination of a two-year study, involving 400 experts from 35 countries.

According to the government's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, the study provides compelling evidence for governments to act now.

The report emphasises changes to farming, to ensure that increasing yields does not come at the expense of sustainability and to provide incentives to the agricultural sector that address malnutrition.

It also recommends that the most resource-intensive types of food are curbed and that waste is minimised in food production.

"We know in the next 20 years the world population will increase to something like 8.3 billion people," he told BBC News.

"We know that urbanisation is going to be a driver and that something of the order of 65-70% of the world's population will be living in cities at that time.

"We know that the world is getting more prosperous and that the demand for basic commodities - food, water and energy - will be rising as that prosperity increases, increasing at the same time as the population."

He warned: "We have 20 years to arguably deliver something of the order of 40% more food; 30% more available fresh water and of the order of 50% more energy.

"We can't wait 20 years or 10 years indeed - this is really urgent."
Radical changes

Professor Beddington commissioned the study and was among the first to warn of "a perfect storm" of a growing population, climate change and diminishing resources for food production.

The Foresight report says that the food production system will need to be radically changed, not just to produce more food but to produce it sustainably.

"There is an urgency in taking what may be very difficult policy decisions," the authors say.

"(But) 925 million people suffer hunger and perhaps a further billion lack micronutrients. The task is difficult because the food system is working for the majority of people but those at risk of hunger have least influence on decision-making."

Professor Beddington also said he viewed the billion people who overeat and are therefore obese as another symptom of the failure of the food production system to deliver good health and well-being to the world's growing population.

The report says that "piecemeal" changes are not an option: "Nothing less is required than a redesign of the whole food system to bring sustainability to the fore."
Advertisement

The authors are calling for food and agriculture to move up the political agenda and be co-ordinated with efforts to tackle the impact of climate change, water and energy supplies and the loss of farm land.

They also warn that there is no "silver bullet" that will solve the problem but concerted action is needed on many fronts.
Facing reality

Professor Beddington said: "We've got to actually face up to the fact that this is a complicated problem which involves vastly different levels of society and we need to be persuading policy makers not to think about food in isolation, not to think about climate change in isolation, not to think about water in isolation, not to think about energy in isolation. All of them are intimately related."

The report adds that new research can play an important role. It also says that the use of any particular technology, such as genetic modification, cloning and nanotechnology should not be ruled out. But it acknowledges that there is resistance to the application of controversial technologies.

"Achieving a strong evidence base (of the safety or otherwise) in controversial areas is not enough. Genuine public debate needs to play a crucial role," the report says.

However, by assessing 40 success stories from Africa the report authors say the spread of existing best-practice could treble food production.

"Ending hunger is one of the greatest challenges to be considered by this project," the report observes.

It calls for protection of the poorest from sharp price increases through government intervention and greater liberalisation of the trade in food in order to offset market volatility.

They also note that China has invested heavily in agriculture and is consequently one of the few countries to have met the Millenium Development Goal (MDG) of halving hunger.

The report also calls for new measures to hold governments and food producers to account. This would involve developing objective measures on how well they are doing to reduce hunger, combat climate change and environmental degradation and boosting food production.