A short presentation to accompany a lesson on global food and water security. Blog post with more information about the lesson can be found on eternalexploration.wordpress.com

1. Tackling Global Food Security

2. What is food security?
 More than just ensuring there will be
food to eat tomorrow.
 Food security includes:
 Availability - is there enough for
everyone?
 Access – can it be reached efficiently?
 Affordability: can it bought at a price that
is reasonable?
 Quality: is it edible?
 Nutrition: is the food part of a balanced
diet?
 Safety: could the food harm health?
“When all people at all
times have access to
sufficient, safe, nutritious
food to maintain a healthy
and active life”.
World Food Summit 1996

3.  There is enough food in the world to feed everyone
adequately, the problem is its distribution.

4.  Food security is built on
three pillars:
 Food availability
 Food access
 Food use
Pillars

5. Why is food security a problem?
 Increasing population
 Changing diets
 Reduced arable land
 Transport costs
 Climate change

6. So should we just grow more food?
 New technologies cannot solve the problem alone.
 Political negotiation for some market barriers to be
removed.
 Technology needs to be introduced at the correct
pace.
 Need to manage environmental impacts.

7. Climate Change and Food Security
Bad:
 Increased deserts
 Increased drought
 Increased insects.
 Damaged ecosystems.
Good:
 Increased CO2 will lead
to more plants fixing
carbon which has the
potential to increase
yields.
 Make some areas more
suitable for agriculture.
The pace of change is vitally important.

8. What future trends affect food
security?
 Population
 The world’s population is predicted
to reach 9Bn by 2050, 90% of which
will occur in the developing world
where water is already scarce.
 As a country’s GDP increases, so does
its population’s total calorific intake
(and taste for meat).
 70% of the world’s population will live
in urban areas by 2050 – compared to
50% now

9. What future trends affect food
security?
 Production and Consumption
 Britain is likely to become less self-sufficient
in food production. The UK
is 73% self-sufficient in indigenous-type
foods and 60% self-sufficient in all
food – meaning that in 2009 40% of all
food is imported
 The World Bank estimates that cereal
production needs to increase by 50%
(from 2.1 to 3 billion tonnes) and meat
production by 85% (to reach 470M
tonnes) between 2000 and 2030 to
meet demand

10. What future trends affect food
 Investment
security?
 Increase in total average annual net
investment in developing country
agriculture required to deliver the
necessary production increases
amounts to $82 billion.
 Many countries will continue to rely
on international trade to ensure their
food security. It is estimated that by
2050 developing countries’ net
imports of cereals will more than
double from 135M tonnes in 2008/09
to 300M tonnes by 2050

11. What future trends affect food
security?
 Environment
 The negative impact of climate
change on agricultural impact in
Africa could be 15-30% up to 2080-
2100.
 Biofuel production using
agricultural commodities will
continue to increase. Biofuel
production based on agricultural
commodities increased more than
threefold from 2000-08

12. What future trends affect food
security?
 Water
 ¾ world’s water consumption is used for irrigation and
agriculture.
 UN predicts irrigation demands will increase 50-100% by
2025.
 Political disagreements over water may lead to military
conflicts – 145 countries share lakes and river basins.
 Mekong Delta (China plans 8 dams that will divert water
from Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam
 Zambesi basin supports 32M people across 8 countries.
The population is growing, but precipitation is expected
to decrease 15% by 2050

13. On the global agenda
“Approximately 842m people today are estimated to be
experiencing chronic hunger, down from 868m a year ago—an
almost 3% decline.”
Top 5 Bottom 5
Rank Country Score Rank Country Score
1 United States 89.3 105 Burundi 28.8
2 Austria 85.5 106 Togo 28.4
3 Netherlands 84.4 107 Madagascar 27.7
4 Norway 84.4 108 Chad 25.5
5 Singapore 84.3 109 Congo (Dem.
Rep)
24.8

14. On the global agenda
“The hunger target of the Millennium Development Goal 1c
(MDG 1c) – of halving the proportion of undernourished
people in developing countries by 2015 – is within reach.”
“Hunger reduction requires an integrated approach, which
would include: public and private investments to raise
agricultural productivity; better access to inputs, land,
services, technologies and markets; measures to promote
rural development; social protection for the most vulnerable,
including strengthening their resilience to conflicts and
natural disasters; and specific nutrition programmes,
especially to address micronutrient deficiencies in mothers
and children under five.”

15. On the global agenda
We can feed the world but only if :
 Tackle the interconnected challenges the world faces: food price
increases, chronic hunger, a growing population and climate change.
 Accept that agricultural development is the best route to achieving
sustainable economic growth in developing countries
 Aim to achieve an agriculture that is highly productive, stable,
resilient and equitable.
The four routes to achieving a food secure world are:
 Innovation, including a wide variety of technologies, where
appropriate
 Markets, that are fair and efficient
 People, who are central to driving and delivering agricultural
development
 Political leadership

16.  In your team:
 You need to find as many strategies for addressing food
security as possible.
 This could be suggestions for a change at the global scale to a
small scale farming project in a village.
 The aim is to try and identify strategies for each continent at
different spatial scales.
 For each strategy you must state where you found the
information.
 You have 30 minutes.
Task