El problema del hambre.

 

The Hungry Planet: Global Food Scarcity in the 21st Century

By Russell Sticklor | 09 Aug 2011

At the dawn of the 20th century, the world population was inching toward a modest 2 billion. In the 111 years since, notwithstanding the impact of war, genocide, disease and famine, the global population has soared, reaching 3 billion around 1960 and now quickly approaching the neighborhood of 7 billion. By 2050, the planet will likely be home to 2 billion more.

We may not be witnessing the detonation of the "population bomb" that Paul Ehrlich warned of in his seminal 1968 book, but such rapid demographic change is clearly pushing the international community into uncharted territory. With a limited amount of arable land and a finite supply of fresh water for irrigation, figuring out how to feed a planet adding upward of 70 million people each year looms as one of the 21st century's most pressing challenges.

The push to ensure global food security transcends the desire to avoid repeating the famines that devastated the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Ethiopia and so many other corners of the world during the past century. Instead, aid and development organizations today rightly view food insecurity problems as deeply intertwined with issues of economic development, public health and political stability, particularly in the developing world. To maintain order in the international community and prevent the emergence of new failed states in the decades ahead, it will be critical to find innovative means of feeding the rapidly growing populations of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and East Asia.

Population Growth, Food Insecurity and State Instability

For centuries, food security and political stability have been intimately connected: Keep your populace well fed, and you eliminate at least one reason they might have to rise up and overthrow you. On the other hand, if the citizenry goes hungry, or can't afford basic food provisions, all bets are off. That is why, throughout history, food shortages have proved the tipping point for many a revolution. Just earlier this year, spikes in food prices were arguably one of the many mobilizing factors behind the political unrest across North Africa and the Middle East known as the Arab Spring. As some autocratic regimes in the region fell, governments throughout the world took notice, with policymakers from Kuwait to China quickly intervening in domestic food markets to ensure staple provisions remained affordable.

Demographic change and food insecurity will continue to strain state institutions and place pressure on governments to keep food-related unrest at bay, arguably nowhere more so than in Asia and Africa. Within 20 years, India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous nation, and the two countries will likely be home to a combined population of 3 billion by mid-century. Already, New Delhi and Beijing are scrambling to buy up agricultural land throughout Latin America and Africa, hoping that export-oriented "mega-farms" can help mitigate food insecurity back home by supplying a steady stream of wheat, corn and other dietary staples.

But while Asia's two heavyweights typically dominate conversations about 21st century food insecurity, it is actually Africa that faces the greatest uncertainty. A United Nations report released earlier this year estimated the global population in 2100 could reach 10 billion, with the bulk of that growth unfolding in sub-Saharan Africa. Surging population growth in the likes of Nigeria, Tanzania, Somalia and Ethiopia could result in the continent's population growing by some 300 percent in the century ahead, rising toward 3.5 billion from its current 1 billion. In a region that already periodically contends with famine and severe food shortages, it remains an open question how African governments will manage to feed ever-larger populations while maintaining some semblance of social and political stability.

20th Century Solutions for 21st Century Problems

The human security implications of rapid demographic change and mounting food insecurity could hardly be greater, both at the local and international levels. In addition to inducing political and social unrest, food scarcity is linked to a broad range of security dynamics. Production shortfalls can disrupt international trade, as governments impose price controls or curb food exports. Food scarcity can also endanger environmental security, as forests are felled for farmland and fertilizer contaminates soil and local water resources. What's more, insufficient access to basic food staples can accelerate the onset of public health crises that stem from malnutrition, adding to the burden on the already vulnerable health care infrastructure in much of the developing world.

The specter of massive food shortages -- whether real or imagined -- has been with us for at least a half-century. With tens of millions left dead from the famines of the 20th century, it is perhaps for good reason that many observers of the era forecast a gloomy future for humanity. But in the aftermath of World War II, apocalyptic food catastrophes were staved off to a degree thanks to the Green Revolution. That movement, which took hold across the developing world during the 1950s and 1960s, bolstered agricultural productivity to unprecedented levels thanks to inventive agricultural irrigation schemes and the widespread -- if unsustainable -- introduction of pesticides and fertilizers. Then, as now, enhancing the food security of the developing world revolved primarily around improving agricultural productivity instead of raising more livestock, since staple crops were needed to feed both people and animals alike.

Agricultural policies implemented during the Green Revolution had, and continue to have, far-ranging impacts on international efforts to bolster global food supply. From the 1950s onward, multilateral institutions and state governments funded ambitious development projects that resulted in drastic land-use change -- diverting or damming rivers to flood reservoirs and enhance water storage for irrigation, for example, or razing forests to clear new lands for cultivation. Meanwhile, a heightened reliance on chemical growth aids like pesticides and fertilizers enabled farmers to coax far more crops from their soil than ever before.

Those were heady days. The acceleration in food production resulting from the Green Revolution literally fed a new generation across the developing world. But despite the movement's undeniable successes, a half-century on, the Green Revolution has lost much of its sheen and is widely believed to have run its course in terms of enhancing global food supply. While the era's agricultural aid and development initiatives may have helped fill the world's breadbaskets to overflowing during the mid- to late-20th century, time has revealed that those initiatives have also done a number on the planet's natural environment. For instance, soil degradation became commonplace on intensively farmed land where crop rotation was not practiced, leading to diminishing returns in terms of crop yield. The chemical contamination of surface- and groundwater supplies is also a belated legacy of the Green Revolution.

With few states or aid groups eager to implement policies or fund projects that might result in a similar round of ecological degradation, the question that kept Ehrlich, Paul Kennedy and countless other 20th century thinkers and policymakers awake at night arises again: How to feed a still-surging population while maintaining some degree of environmental, political and economic stability in the process? Do we have a technological fix waiting in the wings, a latter-day Green Revolution that can mitigate food insecurity in the 21st century? Alongside water scarcity and energy-production issues, how to address food insecurity remains one of the most pressing questions now facing the international community. And its answer is ambiguous at best.

Seeking Salvation in Genetically Modified Crops

In a way, the enthusiasm that accompanied the advent of the Green Revolution has given way to an increasing embrace of genetically modified (GM) crops. In keeping with the idea that humanity's best shot at escaping environmental disaster lies in technological innovation, GM crops have instant appeal in several regards. Many breeds of seed, for instance, are engineered for high yields and have even proved adaptable to a changing climate. Perhaps most important for an increasingly water-stressed world, some varieties of oilseed rape and maize are being developed to be drought-tolerant, if not outright drought-resistant. It is little wonder then that several agricultural multinational corporations and some policymakers in the international community consider GM crops the go-to solution for mitigating food scarcity concerns.

But if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. While GM food is slowly catching on in some parts of the developed and developing worlds, it has also been vigorously resisted in other corners. From the perspective of subsistence and small-scale farmers for whom agriculture is their sole source of livelihood, there remains great hesitance in introducing GM seeds onto their fields because of requisite pesticide use in some cases and concerns about corporate involvement in others. One of the leading global purveyors of GM seeds, Monsanto, has not helped to put such fears to rest, often suing farmers over alleged patent infringements involving its seeds. The corporation has in the past also introduced controversial legal precedents, arguing that any fields inadvertently cross-pollinated with their copyrighted GM seeds become the legal property of the corporation.

Still, the concerns do not end there. In addition to resistance from farmers concerned about being pushed off their land and opposition from governments wary of powerful multinationals setting up shop within their borders, GM technology also introduces worrisome questions about environmental impact, given that the crops' effect on ecosystem health is at best poorly understood. Similarly, concerns about the potentially detrimental health effects of consuming GM crops persist; last year, the Zimbabwean government famously rejected foreign aid shipments of GM corn meant to mitigate severe food shortages in the country. While the incident may have been an anomaly, the international development community surely noted that many nations in need of food assistance could potentially view the import of GM crops with significant trepidation.

To be fair, GM crops may still be able to play a modest role in reducing food insecurity in the coming decades. The most promising aspect of the technology likely lies in fine-tuning the development of seeds that are tolerant of arid conditions, which could prove a huge asset in the face of shifting seasonal precipitation patterns associated with climate change. But the introduction of GM crops must be undertaken with great sensitivity. With farming the sole source of economic livelihood in much of the rural developing world, too heavy a reliance on GM crops threatens to trigger social unrest as a result of lower revenue or even outright job loss for small-scale farmers.

Out to Sea

To date, most international and state efforts to mitigate food insecurity have focused on boosting agricultural productivity rather than increasing livestock numbers. But boosting global fish stocks through intensified aquaculture could play an increasingly significant role in meeting the nutritional needs of growing populations throughout coastal Asia and elsewhere.

A rapidly growing sector of food production, aquaculture involves the raising and harvesting of fish, seaweed and other marine life for human consumption. In the 1970s, aquaculture accounted for less than 4 percent of all supplies of fish, in terms of total production by weight. By 2004, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, that figure had leapt to more than 32 percent, showcasing aquaculture's upside potential in the face of rapid depletion of the world's wild maritime fisheries. Today, the sector is dominated by China, which produces roughly two-thirds of all marine animals raised through aquaculture worldwide.

As the world's wild fisheries continue to suffer from overuse and the effects of pollution and ocean acidification, aquaculture is poised to experience continued growth. The sector could prove an appealing target for aid funding, given that developing aquaculture helps take pressure off of wild maritime fisheries and enhances the food security of regions where seafood forms an important component of traditional diets. While the sector is most established in Asia, globally nearly 3 billion people live within 60 miles of a coastline. For that reason, aquaculture could emerge as an important means of boosting local food security in coastal regions of Africa and Latin America. Such operations would have to be introduced in an environmentally sensitive manner, however, given ongoing concerns about aquaculture's impact on the ecosystem health of coastal areas and inland waterways. To date, some governments have taken steps to curb aquaculture pollution by placing controls on the size and placement of fisheries.

Farming the City

A more novel approach to potentially mitigating food insecurity is taking hold in a counterintuitive place: the world's urban areas. Demographic projections over the next 40 years anticipate continued rapid urbanization across the developing world, especially in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. While today about half of the world's population lives in cities, by 2050 that percentage is expected to swell to upward of 65 percent, according to U.N. predictions.

Global food insecurity issues are likely to remain concentrated in the world's rural areas for some time to come, but cities' unprecedented growth may shift the way states think about and address food-production needs. Enter the urban farm. From New Delhi to Nairobi, small-scale gardens, greenhouses and farms have become an increasingly common feature of the urban landscape. Not only do they help support local livelihoods, they also restore a measure of environmental sanity to otherwise sprawling megacities.

Utilizing everything from recycled tires to freight containers from cargo ships, urban farms help feed growing populations and reduce cities' ecological footprint by reclaiming land, reducing waste and boosting water efficiency by using recycled wastewater for irrigation. Individual farm plots and greenhouses may be constrained by space, but in aggregate urban farming has proved its potential power -- such operations already generate more than 15 percent of the global food supply.

Long established in Asian cities, urban farming is now catching on throughout Africa. With that continent's cities collectively absorbing about 14 million rural migrants each year, policymakers would be wise to promote the practice, given the heightened local food security such farms provide. What's more, the farms also boost food-use efficiency; thanks to small distances between producer and consumer, little food is spoiled in transit. Uganda, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Senegal are just a few of the countries where the trend has caught on.
  
A Common-Sense Solution

Although urban farming may seem to be a win-win solution, it can only alleviate food-production issues to a certain degree. Going forward, rural areas will need to carry their own weight in improving overall global food security. But short of a second Green Revolution, which does not seem to be in the cards anytime soon, how will rural farms keep pace with the food demands of a world population on pace to reach 10 billion by the end of the century?

Much of the current debate over global food security has focused on how to boost supply. But there might be a far simpler and more effective means of mitigating food insecurity, especially in rural areas: good old-fashioned conservation. According to a 2011 study released by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (.pdf), a staggering one-third of the world's annual food production is either "lost" or wasted. (Food loss is this context refers to produce that spoils before reaching the market, while food waste refers to edible produce that is discarded, a problem especially prevalent in the developed world.) The culprits driving this inefficiency are many, ranging from industrialized countries' penchant for large portions to poor transportation infrastructure in the developing world that results in produce spoiling during transit, before it can reach the market.

Steering international aid and development funding toward road upgrades in infrastructure-poor nations across sub-Saharan Africa, the broader Middle East and Asia would be one way of cutting down on these huge food-use inefficiencies. For the recipient countries, better transportation networks would enhance local food security by reducing food loss, while lowering transportation costs for farmers, allowing them to pocket more of the profit from their produce. Further, improved infrastructure would also help enable broader economic modernization in those countries by facilitating the movement of goods aside from food.

Meanwhile, for donor nations and aid organizations, allocating development funding to transportation-sector development is a discrete intervention that, while potentially costly in certain countries, could yield long-term benefits in a wide range of areas, from improved public health to rural economic development. From the perspective of state stability, progress in these sectors also reduces the likelihood that conflict-prone, food-insecure nations will become outright failed states, thus reducing their potential threat to international security.

A Patchwork Approach

Today's policy discussions about enhancing global food security should not be brushed aside as abstractions dealing with projected demographic realities of the late 21st century. As highlighted by the gripping images of famine emanating out of Somalia during the past few months, it is clear that food shortages continue to inflict catastrophic human costs in the here and now. That ongoing crisis, the region's worst in decades, has placed more than 10 million people on the brink of starvation. Now poised to threaten populations in neighboring Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya as well, it has driven home the point that food scarcity issues do not necessarily pay any attention to national borders.

In a world ever more populated and interconnected, there is less and less room for error in ensuring a sufficient global food supply. With ample evidence in East Africa and elsewhere that food shortages can accelerate social and political instability, it behooves officials in the international aid and development communities to look to innovative means of enhancing the world's food security. It is already clear that there is no silver bullet to be found. But increased aquaculture, expanded urban farming, greater attention to heightening food-use efficiency and the thoughtful introduction of GM crops could collectively go a long way toward bolstering our resiliency. In the end, other triggers for local, regional and international conflict will always remain, but taking these kinds of steps toward easing food insecurity might allow us to safely step over at least one potential tripwire for conflict during the coming century.

Russell Sticklor is a consultant for the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at rsticklor AT gmail.com.