Exploring Sustainable Solutions for Increasing Global Food Supplies Report of a Workshop (2011) / Chapter Skim
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2 ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
2 ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Pages 5-36
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From page 5... ...
Subsequent speakers talked about the need for new agricultural paradigms; trends in agricultural productivity; and key natural resource constraints, including water, land and forests, biodiversity, and soils. There was also a session examining the likely impact of climate change on future food production and related risks and vulnerabilities.
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. Addressing Future Problems of Food and Nutrition Security -- A Double Goal de Haen stated that there is now broad agreement among experts that to achieve the nutrition related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
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Thus the gradual slowdown of overall demand growth is likely to continue. According to FAO's projection to 2050, published in 2009, global demand for agricultural products is expected to grow by about 70 percent compared to 2005/2007.6 Resource constraints, climate change and sustainable intensification: The task ahead is daunting considering the multiple resource constraints.
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From page 8... ...
Perspectives for Reduction of Hunger and Malnutrition Both main organizations with long term projections of world agriculture, FAO and IFPRI, include food security indicators in their projections. These are generated on the basis of certain assumptions regarding future changes in the intra-country inequality of access to food.
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In many countries, this will require a focus on rural smallholders, representing the majority of the poor, but it must increasingly also address urban food security problems. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY AND NATURAL RESOURCE ENDOWMENTS8 Philip Pardey, University of Minnesota Philip Pardey opened this session of the workshop by raising a number of critical questions -- what are past and prospective rates of agricultural productivity growth, how do these rates relate to changes in demand, how have natural resource endowments changed over time, and what are the links between the flows of natural input services to and from agriculture?
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From page 10... ...
, and to the extent that these natural attributes affect crop yields, differences in the spatial location of production within the United States versus Sub-Saharan Africa will also affect crop yields. But these natural attributes are rarely measured, thereby confounding our interpretation of the sources of productivity (yield)
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ARE NEW PARADIGMS NEEDED FOR SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY IN THE FACE OF UNCERTAINTIES AND RISKS? 10 Marco Ferroni, Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture The world's food security is under threat because of the "double squeeze" on productive capacity, which stems from rapid demand growth and a deteriorating natural resource base, which is increasingly unpredictable due to climate change.
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But the relative contribution of the factors accounted for in Figure 2-4 is telling, and, for example, the point about knowledge as a constraint on yield makes it quite clear that there is an unmet need for agricultural extension. FIGURE 2-4 Maize yield gap by region and contribution of five production constraints SOURCE: Hengsdijk and Langeveld, 2009 The task of reducing and closing yield gaps calls for appropriate farm systems management, inputs and technology, services and access to markets.
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The economic transformation whereby agricultural GDP declines rapidly relative to the total, and agricultural employment declines slowly, is in full swing. Sustainable progress and productivity growth in agriculture are needed for at least six good reasons in this context, all of which relate to and reinforce food security: food availability, conservation of natural resources, diversification of the rural economic space and rural non-farm employment, overall economic growth, poverty reduction, and income convergence between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors of the economy.
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Agriculture now takes 70 percent of global water withdrawals. If we continue producing food the way we do now, up to twice as much would go into food production in the form of evapo-transpiration through 2050.
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In these regions spread across much of Sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia, and pockets of Latin America, there is limited water access, but high scope to use more water for food production, both directly from rain and irrigation sources. A little additional water for crops at the right time can increase water productivity of water and land.
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Although there is very limited scope for mobilizing more water in many parts of the physically water scarce world, there is scope for additional water use to intensify agriculture in economically scarce regions, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where irrigation is only 5 percent of its potential. Trade has potential to reduce global demand for water for food production if trade is made between areas of high water productivity to areas of low water productivity.
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LAND DEGRADATION AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD PRODUCTION: SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA15 Paul L.G. Vlek, University of Bonn The state of our lands, both natural and men-appropriated, is difficult to track.
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The real cost of the lost ecosystem services to society is immense and is never reflected in the price of the products. In many cases, the livelihoods of the individual producers taking the land is secured through the mining of the natural resource base.
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is increasing pressure on agricultural land, posing an increasing threat to an already tenuous food security (Vlek et al., 2010)
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And, total catch levels have been maintained as small, pelagic fish have been caught in increasing numbers to use as ingredients in animal feed, initially in pork and poultry production but increasingly in aquaculture production. Today, more than half of all fishmeal and more than 80 percent of all fish oil are used in aquaculture feed.
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PRODUCING MORE FOOD AND MORE BIODIVERSITY: IS THERE POTENTIAL FOR BOTH? 17 TG Benton, Leeds University The Food Security Challenge Global demand for food will grow at a greater rate than the population, and although there are uncertainties, the most widely cited prediction is the FAO estimate that 70 percent more food will be required by 2050 (Bruinsma, 2009)
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To explore the tension between production and conservation, it is useful to think of agricultural landscapes as systems that produce two sorts of products: food (and other economic goods like fuel, fiber, etc.) and ecosystem services (which may relate to biodiversity, water, carbon storage or environmental health)
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SOIL QUALITY OF TROPICAL AFRICA: AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF IMPROVED AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY18 Uzo Mokwunye, Development Strategy Consultant The majority of the 800 million people who inhabit Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for employment and livelihood.
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This intensive cultivation has resulted in massive losses of plant nutrients, a process now described as "nutrient mining." It has been determined that by 2002, 132 million tons of nitrogen, 15 million tons of phosphorus and 90 million tons of potassium had been lost from 37 tropical African soils in 30 years. The most efficient way to improve the soil fertility is through the use of fertilizers, primarily inorganic fertilizers.
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The need to value ecosystem services and balance these services against other factors was prominent in the discussion with Benton, emphasizing the need to educate farmers, especially in developing countries, about the values obtained from biodiversity such as pollination, flood protection, and soil fertility, as well as fuel and fiber. Other participants raised questions about organic farming and whether or not organic farming was likely to be a major contributor to meeting world food needs.
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From page 26... ...
And climate change will be a "threat multiplier," affecting cropping systems worldwide. Nelson's presentation focused on three major themes: the current state of knowledge about climate change; the impact of climate change on crop yields, supply, demand and trade; and the assessment of the challenge of long term food security with and without climate change.
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From page 27... ...
FIGURE 2-9 Change in average annual precipitation, 2000-2050 MIROC GCM, AIB (mm) SOURCE: Presentation by Jerry Nelson, IFPRI, May 2, 2011.
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From page 28... ...
The slide below shows both the mean price increases with and without climate change as well as the range of increases that arise with different climate scenarios, holding income and population growth patterns constant. FIGURE 2-11 Climate Change Scenario Effects Differ (The vertical axis represents price increase [%]
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RISKS AND VULNERABILITIES FROM CLIMATE CHANGE21 David Lobell, Stanford University This presentation focused on the risks that climate change poses to global food production. David Lobell noted that the emphasis on global scale should not detract from the fact that different regions could be affected differently, or that different uncertainties may be more relevant at some scales than at others.
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Tuber crops appear in experiments to benefit the most from higher CO2, although their sensitivity to temperature and moisture changes are less well known. 22 See Agricultural Productivity and Natural Resource Endowments, Philip Pardey, in Chapter 2.
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From page 31... ...
He noted that these changes may require farmers to shift from traditional crops to other crops that are easily adapted to changes in the growing season as well as changes in the length of the rainy season. Other speakers noted that the IFPRI model assumes that the supply of land is very inelastic -- that large price changes in crop prices will not cause much change in net agricultural land.
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2009. Feeding the World, Eradicating Hunger, Background Document WSFS 2009/INF/2 of the World Summit on Food Security.
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Pp. 1-35 in Rainfed agriculture: unlocking the potential: Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture Series 7, S
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2010. Assessment of land degradation, its possible causes and threat to food security in sub-Saharan Africa.
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2011. Climate trends and global food production since 1980.
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PREPUBLICATION COPY: UNCORRECTED PROOF supply: A comment on "Food for Thought." by Long et al. Science 312:1918-1921.
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