Challenges and options for the current food crisis â and the coming one
Even though, technically speaking, enough food is produced today for the present world population of 7 billion people to have a sufficient diet in terms of calories and protein (Halberg et al., 2006b), we live in a world with approximately 925 million food-insecure people (FAO, 2010), which comprises on average more than 15 per cent of the population in the developing countries. The majority of these hungry people live in poor, rural communities of South Asia and Africa south of the Sahara and are often directly involved in producing food, in terms of crops, livestock and fisheries (FAO, 2011a). Parts of the food-insecure population live in countries that on the overall scale are food sufficient and may even be net food exporters. Thus, India is technically self-sufficient in food and presently has significant stocks while there are still more than 200 million food-insecure people (FAO, 2010; see Chapter 2 for some more information on India). This demonstrates that hunger is mainly a question of poverty and lack of access to food and not necessarily a lack of global food production and supply.
The point of this is that improved food security for many millions of poor families in rural areas is mainly a question of improving food sufficiency by improving agriculture, natural resource management and market access, and reducing poverty. This is a multi-factor challenge, which cannot be solved by improved agricultural practices alone, but is linked with health, sanitation, education and institution building (FAO, 2010). However, there is a growing understanding that increased investments in agricultural development targeting the smallholder farmers in developing countries is an important element in improving food security in rural areas (FAO, 2010; Beddington et al., 2011; De Schutter and Vanloqueren, 2011). As discussed by Knudsen et al. (2006), the gap between the most and the least productive farming systems as measured by simple yields per hectare has increased by a factor of 20 over the last 50 years. This is mainly caused by differences in access to technology, knowledge and markets which favour large-scale, mechanized and high-input farming systems over smallholder farms. Farmers with less than 2 hectares of land constitute more than 90 per cent of farmers and cover some 60 per cent of the agricultural land globally. The potential for increasing their productivity is huge (De Schutter and Vanloqueren, 2011).
The present hunger and malnutrition problem is significant already â and by no means new â and it also has proven difficult to solve partly due to its complexity and a lack of sufficient political will. Unfortunately there are even more dire challenges for future global food security. With an estimated global human population of approximately 9.2 billion in 2050 and â more important â increased global demand for livestock products, it will be a challenge to provide sufficient food and biomass. There is a need for higher total food production per area unit, though the actual amounts needed depend on developments in diets, livestock feeding practices and food waste (Halberg et al., 2006a; Nellemann et al., 2009; Beddington et al., 2011; Freibauer et al., 2011).
The challenge is aggravated by the present use of natural resources in agriculture which risks impacting negatively on the options for improving food production in many areas. Thus, it is estimated that approximately 2 billion hectares of agricultural land have been given up because of erosion, salinization and compaction over the last 25 years. The mismanagement continues, leaving another 12 million hectares with degraded soils, which contributes to food insecurity due to yield reductions, reduced efficiency of input use and micro-nutrient deficiency (Lal, 2009; Nelleman et al., 2009; Beddington et al., 2011). According to Lal (2009), there is a need for a paradigm shift in land husbandry and for principles and practices for soil management, but with the adoption of proven management options global soil resources are adequate to meet the food and nutritional needs of both the present and future population. Known options for improved soil management and human nutrition include such techniques as mulching and recycling of organic residues; improving soil structure and quality; water conservation and water use efficiency; agro-forestry and mixed farming; diversified cropping systems including the use of indigenous foods and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) high in nutrients; no-till agriculture; use of micronutrient-rich fertilizers, nano-enhanced Zeolites; inoculating soils for improved biological nitrogen fixation; microbial processes to increase P-uptake (Okalebo et al., 2006; Lal, 2009). Most of these options â though not all â are interesting for and in line with organic agriculture.
Many forms of agriculture also affect biodiversity negatively, even though the ecosystem services provided by diversity in cultivated and non-cultivated areas are important for pollination and control of crop pests and diseases (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; Perfecto et al., 2009). The current speed of species extinction is considered one of the most alarming signals of unsustainable human behaviour and agriculture is partly responsible (Rockström et al., 2009; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Preservation of biodiversity is often seen as conflicting with agricultural practices, which has led some authors to propose that there is a competition between improving food production and preserving biodiversity, âland sparing vs. land sharingâ (Phalan et al., 2011). However, others argue that reconciling the needs for biodiversity preservation and food production is an option for improved resilience and food security due to the interlinkages in ecosystems service functions (Perfecto et al., 2009; Brussard et al., 2010). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) mentions both approaches as necessary for the long-term preservation of endangered species and ecosystems. The synthesis report states that:
Effective response strategies include sustainable intensification, which minimizes the need for expanding total area for production, allowing more area for biodiversity conservation. Practices such as integrated pest management, some forms of organic farming and protection of ⊠non-cultivated habitats within farms can provide synergistic relationships between agriculture, domestic biodiversity and wild biodiversity.
However, the report cautions against taking this as the only approach because there is too little evidence that this effectively secures species diversity sufficiently at regional levels.
Thus, there is a need to develop agricultural practices that create synergies with preservation and utilization of biodiversity, so-called functional biodiversity. There are good examples and evidence of the potential for creating synergy between food production and biodiversity by promoting farming systems that benefit from planned diversity in crops and non-cultivated areas in terms of reduction in pest problems and increased resilience to yield depression from pests and erratic rainfall (Jackson et al., 2007; Perfecto et al., 2009; Chappel and LaValle, 2011; FAO, 2011c; Kahn et al., 2011).
Water is expected to be an important scarcity in future agricultural production in many areas due to current overuse and pollution, climate change, low levels of soil organic matter resulting in low water-holding capacity and insufficient infrastructure for water harvesting and storage and for irrigation (Nelleman et al., 2009; UN-Water, 2007; Postel, 2011).
The above challenges will presumably be aggravated by the consequences of climate change, especially because increased temperatures will reduce yields in major cereal crops in many of the current âbread basketâ regions and because rainfall patterns will become more unpredictable. Moreover, due to an increased incident of high-intensity rain events there is a greater risk of surface erosion on soils which cannot percolate water sufficiently and this again increases the challenge of retaining water for crop growth (Clements et al., 2011; Beddington et al., 2011). Therefore, it is highly necessary to manage soils to have a good structure, including sufficient content of organic matter. Thus, with the increased impact of climate change on regional and local scales there is a need to develop adapted farming systems which are resilient to larger inter-annual variation in rainfall, with farmers who have capacity for continuously developing their practices as a response to changes in the environment (Beddington et al., 2011). In recent FAO terminology this is called âclimate smart agricultureâ: âClimate smart or development smart agriculture is one that ensures that agriculture transcends the multiple issues with which it is currently associated â GHG emissions, loss of biodiversity, water misuse, soil and land degradation and socio-economic inequities which are compromising the worldâs capacity to feed its populationâ (Neely, 2011; FAO, 2011c).
There is an increased understanding that the challenges of producing enough food and biomass while preserving soil, water and biodiversity necessary for ecosystem services cannot be solved by prevalent types of conventional agriculture. In a review by 400 scientists and experts supported by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) (McIntyre et al., 2009) it was concluded that âbusiness as usual is not an optionâ because degradation of ecosystems already now limits or reverses productivity gains from high-input agriculture and because a huge number of smallholder farmers are left without proper agricultural technologies and extension services. The report states that âa fundamental shift in AKST (agricultural knowledge science and technology) is required to successfully meet development and sustainability goalsâ; that âresearch, innovation and extension should account better for the complexity of agricultural systems within the diverse social and ecological contextsâ and that an interdisciplinary and agroecosystems approach to knowledge production and sharing will be important for solving these needs. âAdvances in AKST can help create synergy among agricultural growth, rural equity and environmental sustainability. Integrated approaches to AKST can help agriculture adapt to water scarcity, provide global food security, maintain ecosystems and provide sustainable livelihoods for the rural poorâ (McIntyre et al., 2009).
Likewise, in 2009 the Committee on Agriculture (COAG) of the FAO consisting of member country representatives âendorsed the proposal that public and private investments be made in agroecological research, at both national and international levelsâ and the committee stressed that âan ecosystem approach be adopted in agricultural management in order to achieve sustainable agriculture, including integrated pest management, organic agriculture and other traditional and indigenous coping strategies that promote agroecosystem diversification and soil carbon sequestrationâ (FAO, 2009).
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food states that under-investment in the agricultural sectors in many developing countries has limited the necessary uptake of agro-ecological methods, which are knowledge intensive, and that âextension services that teach farmers â often women â about agroecological practices are particularly vitalâ (De Schutter and Vanloqueren, 2011).
Against this background, as described above, there is a need for the development and adoption of farming systems that seek to create synergy between food production and sustaining ecosystem services and are more resilient to climate change. The quest for such systems has many labels such as climate-smart agriculture, agro-ecology, organic farming, conservation agriculture and no-till farming. This book will focus on organic agriculture, informal and certified, and will analyse to what extent this would be a good bet for smallholder farmers in light of the challenges described.
