Download Balcazar Tellez_Ethics Essay Competition_ASABE2016

Maria Balcazar Tellez
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina
Is more production the answer? A critical look on our framework to solve Food Security
Increasing food production by 2050, to meet food demands and feed the expected population of
9.1 billion, has become a moral, honorable, and central endeavor for scientists, engineers, and
governments alike. In 2009, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) chapter reiterated how
critical it is to continue our efforts to intensify and increase cereal and meat production (FAO 2009b).
According to the FAO, production rise of at least 70% is paramount to feed the boosted wealthier
population expected by 2050 (Pretty et al. 2010; FAO 2009b; FAO 2009a). This standard discourse on
food security assumes that hunger problems, starvation, and malnutrition are global in nature. Thus, to
solve such issues we need to enhance the global food system. Such challenge has to be overcome through:
technological innovation and introduction; production of a limited and a preferred number of food
commodities; and an increase in total production and international trade. However, such generalized
global approach displaces local cultural and social aspects, and may prove to be ethnocentric in nature.
The main purpose of this paper is to critically examine the assumptions on the statistic that claims we
need to raise production by at least 70%. Consequently, a substantial shift in the food security discourse
will take place, going from a productionist argument to a more integral conversation where diet and food
security are part of a larger system, that encompasses social, cultural, and economic aspects.
The central and most commonly discussed solution to food insecurity among policy makers,
intergovernmental institutions, industry, and many scientists and engineers is to develop and apply newer
and better agricultural technologies, particularly in developing nations in order to increase production
(World Bank 2007; FAO 2013; Evenson and Gollin 2003; Lang and Barling 2012). This popular
approach stems from dominant policy and dates back as the intellectual recipe to solve hunger, first laid
out in the 1930s and 1940s (FAO 2009b; Pingali 2012; Saha 2013). However, as we have observed a food
surplus and increased international trade, food insecurity and hunger stubbornly persists in less developed
countries (Kick et al., 2011; Sen, 1981, Carolan 2012). Meanwhile, a significant number of diet-related
health issues are now found in developed nations. It is estimated that in 2014 about a billion people had
diets deficient in energy (Godfray & Garnett, 2014). About the same number of individuals suffered from
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diseases of energy surplus; while approximately two billion suffered from what is now recognized as the
“hidden hunger” of micronutrient deficiencies (Godfray and Garnett 2014, FAO, IFAD, and WFP 2015).
The widely accepted statistic referring to the food production increase of 70% has become
ubiquitous and extensively used by government scientists, agricultural industry, academic researchers,
agricultural biotech companies, and anyone engaging in the food security debate (Tomlinson, 2013).
However, some of the assumptions made for its calculation must be critically examined. Firstly, this 70%
statistic does not correspond to an increase in annual tonnes of total food production, but rather, it
corresponds to the average volume demand and production of the crop and livestock sector.
Consequently, fruit, vegetables, and any non-animal source of protein (legumes and pulses) are entirely
excluded in the calculation. This is a significant missing component when discussing food security
regarding healthy diverse, nutritious diets. Additionally, many local staples are not considered—unless
they are part of the cereals accounted for—and are substituted by higher priced goods (meats and dairy).
Thus, these statistics do not account for local cultural foods in any way. Secondly, the 70% statistic in the
FAO (2009b) report uses the per capita consumption of calories, based on the availability or supply of
calories, to then calculate undernourishment. However, these estimates neglect any consideration to food
access, critically different from food supply. Hence, adequate food supply for a certain population does
not guarantee access across the entirety of such population. Lastly, this statistic fails to include food
waste. Zero reductions are taken into account when calculating the 70% statistic for any declines in food
waste, which we may achieve by 2050 (Pretty et al., 2010). This is a significant missing component
considering that today about 40% of food is wasted, amounting to roughly US $680 billion in
industrialized countries and US$310 billion in developing countries (FAO, 2016). If only a quarter of the
food wasted was to be saved we would be able to feed 870 million hungry people in the world (FAO,
2016). The dominant narrative of phrasing food security solely as a production problem encourages the
dismissal of other foundational components of food security such as local foods, food and health access,
and food utilization. While food production is a fundamental component in the food security equation,
many other components must be considered to devise an efficient and comprehensive solution.
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As the population continues to increase, food production is an ever-present concern for scientists,
engineers, and governments alike. However, what is being produced, and how is being produced needs to
be considered in order to efficiently and genuinely address food insecurity. Although one billion people
remain undernourished today, a greater number suffers from the maladies of excess intake of calories that
contribute to overweight and obesity (Sage, 2013; World Health Organization, 2015). This is no longer an
issue for the wealthy countries alone. Data shows the most dramatic increases in obesity in developing
nations such as Mexico, China, and Thailand (Caballero, 2007). The ‘nutrition transition’ is now referred
to as the process by which conventional dietary patterns dominated by local staples are replaced by
Western-style diets high in vegetable oils, animal fats, sugar and fats (Popkin, 2005). Evidence suggests
dietary patterns and diets have been transformed as globalization evolves, and global food trade increases
(Hawkes, 2006). Notably increased vegetable oil and highly processed foods consumption have been
observed, as policies in agricultural production and trade, and foreign direct investment has advanced
(Hawkes, 2006). The massification of food production has encouraged consumption of cheap, yet
nutritionally deficient food. It is imperative to recognize how such massification has significant
consequences on health and well-being. Also, it is essential to address it in our efforts to reduce food
insecurity.
Overweight and obesity have become a grave concern at a global scale. Since 1980, the rate of
adult obesity has nearly doubled globally (Harvard School of Public Health Obesity Prevention, 2016).
Similarly, at a global level children obesity has alarmingly increased by 60% since 1990 (Harvard School
of Public Health Obesity Prevention, 2016). The choices of what food is being produced, and what foods
are easily available to most of the population, are an important component to consider in this obesity
epidemic. Some critics of the obesity epidemic argue that the relationship among metrics for health
(BMI, long term health, nutrition, physical activity) are yet not perfectly understood. However, this does
not detract from the fact that access to food, particularly fresh and ‘healthy’ foods, as well as access to
health and accurate nutritional knowledge, is substantially unequal across the globe (Carolan, 2012; Sage,
2013). The link between culture and “fatness”, in which “fatness” is considered a result of an individual’s
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laziness or lack of control, reduces a global social problem to an individual one. Considering obesity
solely as a moral problem, in which an obese individual is simply a “lazy” or an “uncontrollable” one,
disproportionally focuses on individual choices. Thus, it detracts us from focusing on creating public
policies in which food industries and corporations are involved and incentivized on being part of the
solution. Addressing the food and health challenge as a sociological one, allows us to frame this challenge
in terms of access (to healthy food options, health services, education, leisure time to exercise, etc.) as
well as in terms of production.
In conclusion, increased food production is important to consider in order to feed the increased
expected population by 2050. However, the dominant framing of the food security debate today proves to
be asymmetrical in nature, by focusing solely on production and sidelining other key components such as
food access and utilization. The food security debate needs to be less concerned with the development of
new means for production and more invested in framing such debate in terms of how complex and
interconnected the food system truly operates. It calls for trans-disciplinary efforts and collaboration
among different fields, both technical and social, in order to achieve a full understanding of such different
local and global challenges. It is only by deliberate research and analysis of food systems with an
interdisciplinary approach that we will be able to effectively address food insecurity and reduce hunger,
food malconsumption and distribution.
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