We currently produce more than enough food for the global population, yet over 795 million people remain undernourished. However, simply ensuring a sufficient level of food production will not address the more entrenched impacts and humanitarian imbalances within the food system.
#Inbetween land key disappeared driver
Poverty is the largest threat to producers of food globally and the largest driver of food insecurity. Many do not receive adequate compensation, work in unacceptable conditions, or do not have access to sufficient, affordable, or proper-quality food. Small farmers and fishers around the world are caught in cycles of poverty, without access to education, employment, economic and social infrastructure, and political representation. A majority of the world’s poorest people are subsistence farmers and fishermen. Half the global workforce is employed in agriculture. The agri-food sector is the world’s largest economic sector and is therefore deeply entwined with poverty. Through its direct and intermediate impacts, the food system is the largest contributor to the depletion of biodiversity. A growing demand for land-based animal products is the primary driver of tropical deforestation. The expansion of industrial fishing fleets and a higher demand for seafood globally have led to the collapse or total exploitation of over 90% of the world’s marine fisheries. Research and development efforts have been focused on enhancing conventional production methods, with very little funding allocated to the development of sustainable agricultural techniques.Īgriculture now occupies roughly half of the plant-habitable surface of the planet, uses 69% of extracted fresh water and, together with the rest of the food system, is responsible for 25 – 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. Funding for agricultural research and development is mostly available in higher- income nations, leaving lower-income nations behind. Recent trends and policies towards growing non-food crops, like biofuels and biomaterials, are leading to re-assignment of land and other base resources, resulting in less availability of these resources for food production. Loopholes in trade agreements are widely abused by more powerful nations, resulting in unfair competition for developing countries, ultimately manufacturing dependence and eroding local food security.
Intensive practices dominate the system as a whole and a small number of actors in the fields of production, processing and retail control most of the food system and strongly influence policy making. Intensification, consolidation, and specialisation are some of the large scale behavioural trends inherent to the food system. Though widely credited with helping avert anticipated large-scale food shortages in the post-WWII era, the intensification practices brought on by the Green Revolution have also been critiqued for driving ecological degradation, unsustainable resource consumption, and entrenching dependency on non- renewable resources like fossil fuels. Global yields have steadily increased since the 1950s there is more food produced today per person than ever recorded.
The Green Revolution played a significant role in establishing intensive agricultural production methods globally and shaping the reigning philosophies in mainstream agricultural practice. Due to increases in population, wealth, and urbanization, the world has seen an overall increase in food demand, coupled with a shift in dietary preferences towards more resource-intensive foods. Global food and agricultural production have increased significantly since the end of WWII spurred by a combination of population and economic growth along with technological and cultural shifts in production practices.
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