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The term “food security” refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. Food security exists when people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life1. A household is considered food secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation.
Worldwide around 850 million people are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty, while up to 2 billion people lack food security intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty2. Impacts are felt most acutely in the developing world with up to 90% of household income of the poorest families spent on food. Our UK food systems depend on access to diverse global supply chains – and hence on global food security.
The rapid rise in the price of food during 2007/08, which impacted so severely in developing countries, placed greater focus on food security concerns. The price spike has been attributed mainly to short term factors, such as adverse weather events affecting harvests in several regions, the low level of food commodity stocks worldwide, increased use in biofuels and world oil price increases.
However, over the long term issues such as climate change, global population growth, loss of agricultural land to residential and industrial development, and growing consumer demand in countries such as China and India will present an increasing challenge.
Climate change and the world’s rapidly growing demand for energy and water are intrinsically interlinked, so tackling one can affect the others positively or negatively unless these links are considered. In the long term, food security will only be achieved by making our food supply chain more sustainable. There are economic benefits too: reduced energy inputs should also help keep food prices lower and more stable; and reducing food waste will help consumers save money at home.
Science and technology have a major role in helping to provide solutions. Examples include: biotechnology for crop improvement, smarter fertiliser and pesticide application, and smarter irrigation.
The UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington places high priority on this issue and on the important role for research and innovation. This includes leading a cross-government group to enhance co-ordination and coherence of food and agricultural research across the public sector, and to encourage a more strategic approach.
In addition, GO-Science’s Foresight team is undertaking two projects related to food security. One is looking at the global future of food and farming3 and how a future global population of 9 billion people can be fed healthily and sustainably. The other is examining the future of land use in the UK4 , and will explore how land use in the UK could change over the next 50 years.
1 World Food Summit, 1996
2 FAO, 2006. FAO Policy Brief June 2006. Issue 2. ftp://ftp.fao.org/es/ESA/policybriefs/pb_02.pdf
3 http://www.foresight.gov.uk/index.asp
4 http://www.foresight.gov.uk/OurWork/ActiveProjects/LandUse/LandUse.asp
