Abstract
Food systems need to change fundamentally to become sustainable. Amid great plenty, billions of people still face pervasive poverty, gross inequalities, joblessness, environmental degradation, disease, and deprivation. Much of humanity’s progress has come at a considerable cost to the environment. The impacts of climate change are already being felt, and—if left unabated—will intensify considerably in the years ahead. Globally integrated production processes have brought many benefits. However, challenges in regulating those processes highlight the need to steer them toward more equitable and sustainable outcomes. Such challenges raise concerns regarding the feasibility of achieving the sustainable development goal of ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition, while making agriculture and food systems sustainable (SDG2). This chapter provides a brief overview of these challenges as addressed in greater detail in subsequent chapters.
1.1 The State of Global Food and Agriculture
Over the past century, enormous progress has been made in improving human welfare worldwide. Societies have changed radically thanks to quantum leaps in technology, rapid urbanization, and innovations in production systems. Yet, conditions today are a far cry from the world “free of fear and want” envisioned by the founders of the United Nations. Amid great plenty, billions of people still face pervasive poverty, gross inequalities, joblessness, environmental degradation, disease, and deprivation. Much of humanity’s progress has come at a considerable cost to the environment. The impacts of climate change are already being felt and—if left unabated—will intensify considerably in the years ahead. While globally integrated production processes have brought many benefits, challenges in regulating those processes highlight the need to steer them toward more equitable and sustainable outcomes.
Such challenges raise concerns regarding the feasibility of achieving the sustainable development goal (SDG) of ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition while making agriculture and food systems sustainable (SDG2). Are today’s food and agricultural systems capable of meeting the needs of a global population that is projected to reach almost 10 billion by mid-century? Can we achieve the required production increases, even if this implies adding pressure to already dwindling land and water resources, specifically within the context of climate change?
As these challenges are strongly interrelated, addressing them in order to achieve SDG2 and other related SDGs will require a systems approach to food and agriculture. While still critical, agricultural development alone will not be enough to secure adequate food availability and stave off hunger and famine. Food systems at large will need to be sustainable in order to address multiple development challenges.
Section I of this volume contains eight chapters addressing key questions regarding the sustainability of food and agriculture systems across various dimensions. The assessments coincide in the view that current trends and policy efforts will inadequately address these challenges, seriously jeopardizing prospects of achieving SDG2. Significant, transformative changes in agriculture and food systems need to occur to achieve a world without hunger and malnutrition and to protect the natural resource base required for feeding present and future generations.
1.2 Food and Agriculture at a Crossroads: Challenges and Opportunities
Global Trends and Challenges to Food and Agriculture Into the 21st Century
Rob Vos and Lorenzo Giovanni Bellù review some of the key global trends and challenges facing agriculture and food systems through the 21st century (Chapter 2: Global Trends and Challenges to Food and Agriculture Into the 21st Century). They start by addressing the core question of whether today’s agriculture and food systems are capable of meeting the needs of a global population that is projected to reach almost 10 billion by mid-century and that may peak at more than 11 billion by the end of the century. They project that global food demand will increase by 50% between 2012 and 2050. During the preceding four decades, food production more than tripled, to the extent that current systems are likely capable of producing enough food. Moving forward, the challenges will be both different and more complicated.
With accelerating urbanization and continued income growth, especially in emerging economies, dietary preferences are shifting rapidly toward increased demand for more resource-intensive food, such as animal-sourced foods, fruits and vegetables, and processed foods. Satisfying this rising and changing demand through the currently prevalent farming and food processing systems will likely put added pressure on already scarce land, soil, and water resources and further degrade the quality of these resources. Some regions, especially tropical zones, already suffer from the adverse impacts of climate change. If left unabated, climate change will significantly slow agricultural productivity growth in the coming decades. Changing dietary patterns and food systems is a double-edged sword in terms of nutritional outcomes. They have facilitated the intake of more diversified diets and improved the nutritional status of many. However, at the same time, the increased consumption of animal-sourced food and the often too salty and sugary processed foods has given rise to the spread of overweight and obesity, which in turn are associated with a rising prevalence of noncommunicable diseases. Additionally, the ease of access to low-nutrient processed foods has also led to a further spread of people suffering from micronutrient deficiencies. Consequently, as Vos and Bellù show, ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030 (and not even by 2050) will be nothing but an elusive target if current trends continue. Hence, they argue, transformative changes to agriculture and food systems are urgently needed to feed the world sustainably.
The Demographics of Rural Poverty and Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Transformations
Population, income, and urban growth have been key drivers underlying many of the changes in food and agricultural systems and will continue to pose challenges to the sustainability of these systems for decades to come. Chapter 3, Demographic Change, Agriculture, and Rural Poverty, by James Thurlow, Paul Dorosh, and Ben Davies dwells further on these drivers to spell out key challenges for employment and poverty reduction in those regions where much of the demographic dynamics will appear: South Asia and, in particular, sub-Saharan Africa. These regions have lagged in the structural transformation of their economies and as a result will feel the weight of demographic pressures threatening future economic and social progress. Structural transformation entails workers leaving less-productive agriculture and moving to more productive industries, often in urban centers. Population growth slows with development, leading to greater dependence on capital and technology rather than on labor. This was East Asia’s successful pathway. Sub-Saharan Africa is also transforming, but far less than other regions and with its own distinctive features. Africa is urbanizing...