Future Food Security Must Focus on Supplies
By Iain Climie, Contributing Author
Introduction: Is Global Hunger Looming?
Concerns on feeding rising human numbers go back centuries if not millennia with Thomas Malthus’s (1766-1834) dire predictions1 about inevitable starvation often cited. Soaring polar temperatures point to global heating although climate change could take an unexpected turn. Shifting ocean currents like the Gulf Stream or Beaufort Gyre could cool countries like Britain in a warming world while debris and gasses from a major volcanic eruption can dramatically reduce solar input. 1816’s “year without a summer” followed the 1815 Tambora eruption. More mundane disruption to food supplies can occur too, so what can be done to improve food security, especially for the world’s poor? Surprisingly the answer is “Plenty” at least on paper.
Theoretical Possibilities
Technology often boosts production with the Green Revolution widely praised and there are many recent developments. GMOs have had a mixed reception globally, although gene splicing prevented disastrous rice losses to Grassy Stunt virus in the 1970s. Synthetic food, especially replacing meat from conventional livestock, has caused excitement although the idea is not new; Winston Churchill predicted it around 1930.2 Methane-reducing feed additives for ruminant livestock have existed for decades but have not been adopted despite some boosting growth3 while conventional plant breeding improvements are possible. Irradiation can extend the life of stored food, Australian trials demonstrated crops in deserts using solar-powered desalination, vertical farming allows racks of crops, aquaponic systems can give more food from less land while abandoned London Underground tunnels have been used to grow food. Older, cheaper and simpler ideas shouldn’t be discounted, especially for the world’s poor.
Feeding livestock grain or soya is wasteful, but natural vegetation, grass, crop residues and spent brewery grain are sensible. More productive crops could replace some livestock, although that could briefly boost meat supplies, while native species are often better than introduced ones; iguanas, have been described as “the chicken of the trees”4, capybara are better fodder converters than cattle while game ranching can combine habitat conservation with some food production e.g. rewilding US grassland with bison. Soil restoration and carbon capture can yield dramatic benefits while areas poorly suited, unsuitable, unused or undesirable for crop growing can support some production; suburban gardeners can produce fruit and vegetables or keep chickens. Silviculture (e.g. pigs or deer in woodland) and integrated methods (aquaponics or livestock in orchards) are useful while less conventional livestock include mealworms, snails and mussels.
Careful exploitation of wild plants and fungi is possible, while abolishing European fishing throwback was long overdue; fishermen not only over-fished but had to dump some of their catch. Carp, mussels and tilapia are more productively farmed than trout or salmon while aquaponic techniques work well. Modern and traditional methods can also be combined e.g. coupling more sensible livestock feeds with additives, while more food storage makes sense regardless.
Other general suggestions include eating some offal, not over-eating and fewer cash crops (including livestock feed); wrecking Colombian rainforests for coca beggars belief. Cutting waste may be simplest and should be popular. The IMechE’s report5 estimates at least 30% of global food production never reaches shops or markets while much waste occurs in supermarkets, other shops, canteens, restaurants, homes and on airlines. Factory and feedlot methods are wasteful as are fishing throwback, killing then wasting unprofitable livestock and not eating at least some animals killed as pests or culled on environmental grounds. Myxomatosis then RHD / RVHD (except perhaps in Australia) were difficult to forgive. Locusts won’t appeal but pigeons, grey squirrels and many other species could be eaten.
Matters improve, especially as such ideas work irrespective of the nature, extent, cause and direction of climate change. Some doomsday scenarios are unmanageable while poverty, conflict and oppression can ensure hunger regardless but unfortunately there are further concerns.
Problems
Food of all types can succumb to physical threats e.g. weather, natural disasters, fires (Australia recently), pests and diseases. Locusts caused havoc in East Africa in 2020 while the Irish potato famine and grassy stunt virus (qv) show the risks of reliance on a single crop. Xylella fastidiosa attacks numerous crops, there are many livestock diseases while aphids, rodents, viruses, bacteria, fungi, pigeons and other species can cause havoc. Such threats are manageable up to a point, but by whom?
Responsibility for food security is not clearly identified; nobody wants the job, bill or blame if supplies collapse. Without clear agreement though, it simply won’t happen at national or global level. Economists praise Ricardo’s law on specialization but countries trading cash crops for food run risks. Russia’s 2010 heatwave and drought caused a grain export ban and such actions, plus panic buying and stockpiling, could soar in future.
China’s famine (1958 to 1962)6 shows central planning failing but free markets too have problems. Demand for food energy is price inelastic i.e. consumption doesn’t double if prices halve. Food surpluses thus punish producers as unit prices crash while dumping subsidized Western gluts onto poorer countries (not famine relief) can wreck local agriculture7. Alternative markets for food crops (e.g. cattle feed, biofuels, brewing or cosmetics) avoid this but consume surpluses which could be stored instead. Despite free markets, the USA, the EU and others subsidise farming, potentially but not necessarily boosting food security.
Land and resource usage is a further concern. Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson8 flagged the potential financial and ecological benefits of carefully using rainforests but short-termism has seen them flattened for soya (often for cattle), introduced livestock, logging, biofuels, other cash crops, Colombo-tantalite mining, other minerals (including fracking and open-cast methods) and Brazil’s proposed dam building. Similar threats apply elsewhere along with development yet poorer countries understandably want Western lifestyles and associated livelihoods. Environmentalists decades ago reckoned three or more fully used planets would be needed and many more now. There are more lucrative uses for food crops than feeding the world’s poor while more food in less space won’t guarantee conservation; combining conservation with careful use has merit although can be overdone. Still, alternative energy sources and nuclear will require less space than open-cast coal mining, fracking and large scale monocultures for biofuels.
Human beings are often conservative on diet, sometimes for religious or cultural reasons, while advice to eat more of some foods, to reduce others or to avoid waste and overeating will be unwelcome. Suggesting an Indian cattle cull will outrage Hindus yet how many people elsewhere would fund such an action, eat more beef now then less beef and dairy later? Inconsistencies are also common; many have blindspots about the impact of Western lifestyles.
Criticising population is popular but human numbers only fall if deaths exceed births; criticizing those with several children is easier than contemplating our own mortality. Yet who would reject longer, healthier lives if medical advances allowed?
Finally, seemingly sensible ideas can misfire. The UNFAO9 and Poore & Nemecek10 are amongst many critics of conventional livestock, especially cattle and sheep. Dramatic cuts in impact per head are possible but let’s reduce numbers. That needs investment up front, appropriate targeting, replacements for by-products (especially manure), a commitment to conservation with current stocks of beef, lamb and dairy eaten. If a cull occurred, the resulting meat and offal clearly shouldn’t be wasted but consider Shetland, 110 miles North of Scotland and poorly suited for most crops. In 1998 20,000 healthy sheep narrowly avoided a cull on economic grounds and would have been largely wasted. Others were less lucky in 2007. “Eat this, not that” is the wrong way round and a cop-out.
Theoretical solutions may easily fail in practice, while many will protect their own choice, convenience, wallets and vested interests. So, what can be done?
Possible Ways Forward
A major rethink is required, focusing on supplies, using ideas like “Enlightened Agriculture”11 and ideally featuring dietary flexibility. Supplies must be sufficient, secure enough, sustainable, affordable and available, while not digging up, chopping down, polluting or cooking the planet nor letting other human activities do so. Large-scale silviculture where appropriate and cutting waste are essential, trade benefits should be used where sensible but not if local food security is jeopardised; fewer cash crops, including livestock feed, may be necessary. Time, effort and money will be needed, but there is a surprising reason for optimism here; many current subsidies fund ecologically disastrous practices, so switching some payments to more sensible methods would minimize the amount of extra funding, although fish stock restoration will need money.
Criticisms of being able to eat exactly what we want, avoid other foods or promote our dietary views may seem outrageous but these attitudes are the wrong way round and could misfire badly. I would finish with two simple questions. If your ideas on changing food supplies (or business as usual) were adopted and global food supplies were either insufficient or inadequately distributed, would you be prepared to go without? If not, why not?
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Endnotes
[1] Thomas Malthus “Essay on the Principles of Population” 1798
[2] Winston Churchill “Fifty Years Hence” Strand Magazine 1931
[3] Rowett Institute work – see news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4582174.stm
[4] E.O. Wilson “The Diversity of Life” Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
[5] IMechE “Waste Not Want Not” (2013)
[6] F. Dikotter “Mao’s Great Famine” Bloomsbury 2010
[7] Oxfam Position Paper “Harnessing Trade for Development”
[8] E.O. Wilson “The Diversity of Life” Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
[9] UNFAO “Livestock’s Long Shadow” 2006
[10] J. Poore & T. Nemecek “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers Science” 2018
[11] Colin Tudge “So Shall We Reap” Allen Lane 2003
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Iain Climie lives in Hampshire in England and has worked in engineering safety and risk assessment for the last 30 years. It became apparent to him that the techniques he used professionally (e.g. attempting to stop avionic systems causing accident air crashes) could also be applied to problems such as food security, climate change and habitat conservation. A systematic review of what could go horribly wrong is the underlying approach he uses in assessing climate risks. This article expresses the views of the author.
Many thanks for that and I’m glad it was some help. I would also heartily recommend Colin Tudge’s work in this area e.g. “So Shall We Reap” and “The Great Rethink” although the latter is far more wide ranging than just food supplies.
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I received an interesting and important comment on this article via an indirect source – a guy blogging as Jim2 on Judith Curry’s Climate Etc blog in reply to the following Interview: Climate Change – A Different Perspective with Judith Curry. Although my focus was on considering what could be produced and how in high level and general terms e.g. intensive, organic, synthetic, integrated, regenerative and even vertical where I could have said more) he noted the following in reply:
Iain – Abundant energy in and of itself won’t ensure food supplies, but without it, food production would fail. We have to be very careful what we wish for. Right now, fossil fuels fill the bill. They are abundant and we have the infrastructure in place. I’m also OK with nuclear power. I’m not OK with only wind and solar. Those are not reliable and are difficult to manage.
On that note, how large a battery would you need to run a tractor? (or even a combine harvester – IC addition)
Although I suspect the resources needed to address farm equipment won’t be anywhere near (say) modifying cars and gas central heating worldwide, at least unless biogas really takes off, farming needs significant resources in terms of ploughing, planting (even in no till systems), harvesting, the Haber or Haber-Bosch process, fertilizer application (organic or otherwise), processing, distribution and the like. The materials and power needed for all this are not automatically available or affordable and turning the clock back to ploughing large areas with livestock won’t be acceptable or effective although there are still many small farmers out there still relying on traditional methods and even draught animals, a point made by “Livestock’s Long Shadow” in 2006. Although I think the top-level approach is still sound (i.e. emphasising supplies as the priority, backed up by and/or combined with conservation and measures to reduce emissions and capture carbon) Jim2’s comment is a vital reminder that many practical problems will need to be addressed and will cost money.
Could solar, hydrogen or bio-ethanol powered machinery be the way to go or should fossil fuel powered farm equipment be kept for longer? The UK government is banning the sale of petrol, diesel and some hybrid cars from 2030. I suspect that farm equipment like tractors and combine harvesters have crept under the radar but the issue will need to be addressed at some point. How practical, as Jim2 asks, would electrically powered replacements for currently fossil fuelled farm machinery be?
Iain, successful farming should be, as much as possible, a lossless nutrient and energy web. It should be based on this and not be micromanaged. Example: Thinking that humans, rather than fowl, should eat insects; which for humans have large masses of inedible chitin, that fowl can digest. “Primitive” farming mimics that natural web. The complexity and waste arises from humans using the produce from neighboring farmlands and forests to build and maintain large, dense populations breaking the nutrient and energy web.
Large, dense populations means that most human waste systems remove nutrients/energy from the web that has to be replaced. This is especially true in the West where large amounts of energy intensive nutrients are landfilled. “Primitive” farming is the most efficient by conserving this web. “Modern” farming is most effective by consuming energy. A fundamental cause of this is that steak is worth a lot of money, but human waste is considered a cost. This is the result of breaking the natural web. It also highlights why a command down system will not work. The command structure is in the large, dense population centers and will use its power to ensure the status quo.
A cultural aspect, that is a problem, is expecting stasis from humans by their respective governments, whereas adaptation is necessary. Examples are the encouragement of traditional local food sources, rather than obtaining seed and stock from other locales. Combined with tax relief for failure by governments, the tendency to grow food that is marginal, rather than already adapted, results in larger than necessary waste and misuse of land that could be better utilized more often. The organized societies will continue this behavior as it supports and benefits the large, dense urban areas.
These are just a few and obvious problems concerning this fundamental and extremely complex human activity of food acquisition.
Iain, as an addition, I do not propose changing global food supplies per se. The system is too complex for top down management, which is why the capitalist system works. What I propose is a re-evaluation of the inputs. An example, an old fishery return the waste to the estuary the fishery was founded by. The estuary became known for its fishing and crabbing due to the enriched ecosystem that developed in response to the input of “waste.” Clean Water Act regulations came into being and the regulators, obeying the law, required the fishery to “treat” the waste. The estuary became nutrient poorer resulting in the fishing and the crabbing declining. Eventually, the fishery closed as the energy costs of fishing and crabbing further away, and other costs made it noncompetitive. Yet, the area remains to this day a tourist area where fish and crab are enjoyed resulting in an even greater drain on the remaining ecosystems, ocean, and estuaries.
My opinion is that the demand will not change substantially; we will not change humans much in a short time frame; and money and energy rich nations will dominate the ecosystems of the world. The good news is that money and energy rich nations desire to take care of the environment.
HI John,
Excellent points in here, especially as everyone wants enough done to ensure secure food supplies provided it has absolutely no effect on their wallets, choice and convenience. Thee points about chitin and the fishery are particularly relevant. One thing I would say is that there is scope for massive improvements in the way current food stuffs are produced with beef an obvious example. I wouldn’t discount dietary change or stem-cell meat (although I’m something of a human dustbin, so maybe my preferences here don’t count too much) but consider what can be done to improve matters. Methane-reducing feed additives have existed for decades but not been adopted, even though some boost growth, while feeding livestock on crop residues, natural vegetation, damaged crops and spent brewery grain avoids the waste of grain and soya. Integrated methods have merit (e.g. Gabe Brown in North Dakota and many other soil restoration experts combining livestock with mixed cover crops), re-wilded bison are an option and silvopasture can work well, while such methods can yield huge amounts of carbon capture in soil. The obvious question though is “who pays?”
At the moment the US spends large amounts of money ($25 bn per annum or so was one estimate a while back) subsidising bad agricultural practices. America may be the spiritual home of free markets but policy makers and politicians know what happens if gluts occur (prices crash) or if te gates are opened to cheap imports. US farmers would struggle and the country’s food security could be endangered. Switching the current payments to encourage a transition to much better practices and to support them on an ongoing basis would be far more sensible. Perhaps one for Jo Biden to consider? Many thanks for your comments, though, and a final thought on the surprising benefits of waste; there is an old British saying “Where there’s much there’s brass” i.e. money. Traditional ideas like less waste are not a complete silver bullet but shouldn’t be discounted.
As a farmer I see things a bit differently. There always seems to be a surplus of food, so in UK, one of the world’s most crowded countries, we are taking out a further 2% of surplus land to make 30% under “conservation” i.e. forest, wetlands, hedges and moorland. Worldwide there are millions of acres which could be irrigated if we could stop the rain running into the sea. But poorer countries usually do not have the political will or the capital to do this, especially while food is so cheap and unwanted.The NFU is working towards net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. British beef is almost totally fed on grass and whole crop maize, so sequesters most CO2 it uses. We also generate by solar and wind and biomass boilers and heat pumps coming in. My generation are deeply sceptical that CO2 is doing the climate change. From 1940-1980 CO2 was increasing but temperature was falling. Winters were 10 days longer; the next ice age was forecast. Then Maggie Thatcher wanted to deal with the miners so coal became a useful weapon, when, conveniently, temperatures started rising in the 80’s.I expect the sun is responsible. Its magnetic influence comes past the earth and shuts off cosmic rays which form clouds. Google Dr Henrick Svensmark for his research.
Hi Anthony,
You’ll probably cause outrage but good to hear from you again, especially as farmers are at the sharp end of food security concerns. The general point I’ve made about food applies equally to replacing fossil fuel use; many ideas make perfect sense regardless of what the future throws at us and irrespective of the nature, extent, cause and even direction of climate change. On food, although matters appear comfortable at the moment, this may not last e.g. look at Australia and California for recent losses. Less waste, silviculture, combining conservation with careful use, restoring fish stocks, reducing the impact of conventional livestock and soil improvements are obvious examples; North Dakotan soil restoration specialist Gabe Brown’s methods not only provide massive carbon sinks but improve productivity too.
I know you’re unsure whether your move towards renewables was sensible but, even without climate change, fracking, open cast mining, shale oil extraction and oil spills are damaging while deep coal mines are accident prone. Fossil fuels won’t last forever and alternatives make sense in any event so, even if climate change were less severe you’ve done the right thing. If mainstream views are true, you have definitely done so and deserve plaudits although I must utter a word of caution. Ice sheets are now melting, exposed darker surfaces are absorbing more solar energy, previously trapped gases are escaping while fires and dying vegetation will further worsen increase levels. Remember the greenhouse effect can be demonstrated in the lab using an IR source and increasing levels of relevant gasses in a tube. This deals with the “Correlation does not imply causality” argument as the linkage can be shown.
The 1940 to 1980 blip is also explicable as higher sulphur dioxide levels in the atmosphere can have a cooling effect. You rightly told me had been no major volcanic eruptions in this time (they’re a major source) but industrial activity during WW2, post-war rebuilding and subsequent growth emitted huge amounts, hence concerns about acid rain in the 1980s. This may have negated the effects of increased carbon dioxide levels.
Regards, Iain
A quick note from the author. I accept that this will probably seem to many (including myself) like a statement of the absurdly obvious and (hopefully) largely common sense. The latter appears to be at least as endangered as the giant panda and many other species in the modern world. After all, how many ideas which make perfect sense if mainstream views of climate change are valid (as I believe) would also be rational if the whole business were somehow a damp squib or a rerun of the 1815 Tambora eruption caused temporary global cooling. Less waste strikes me as the simplest way forward.