Causes And Future Scenarios Of Food Insecurity: A Review Of Literature

Environmental Factors

Global food security has posed a great challenge to both governments and policymakers on how best to tackle it, given the depleting natural resources and the myriad of issues affecting the day to day scarce resource allocation. As Ernest Agyemang Yeboah once said: “Life cannot be without food; when we destroy the lands that give food, we destroy the foods that give life!”. Food has been identified as one of the basic human needs. Without it, there would be no life. For countries to be said to be food secure, then there has to be availability and access to safe, affordable, and nutritious to the population for them to conduct meaningful activity.

Food insecurity affects all countries, be they developed or underdeveloped since even with the availability of food or high incomes the access to the food and utilization changes with time. Food insecurity is one of the goals of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): “End hunger, achieve food security, and promoting sustainable agriculture” (UN 2015).

This essay aims to highlight the main causes of food insecurity, both locally and globally, and future scenarios. We shall examine causes relating to environmental, socio-economic, biological as well; we shall also review secondary data from global bodies and organizations.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security has been defined as: “When all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”  (FAO 2012a). Food insecurity results in massive human suffering and may not be necessary due to insufficient food rather by poverty, as postulated by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen (Patel, 2012). Approximately 4% of Australians experienced food insecurity in 2011-2012, though it was more prevalent among the marginalized communities, among them Aboriginal and Torres Strait people, asylum seekers, the unemployed (Pollard, Begley, & Landrigan, 2016).

Estimates from FAO have shown that 842 million of the global population is undernourished as of 2016; that is, they did not meet their daily energy needs. (FAO, 2017) The majority of these people come from underdeveloped countries, where cases of chronic and acute hunger are prevalent.

Environmental factors.

Climate change continued effects are felt in the global production of foods. Due to changes in temperatures, areas that were previously high producing have seen a reduction in the volume of output. The frequency and severity of floods, storms, and wildfire as experienced in Australia have led to a reduction in food production. Underdeveloped countries that normally depend on rain and agriculture constitute a huge proportion of their wealth is severely affected since climate change leads to crop failure, destruction of infrastructure (Gonzalez, 2014). It is estimated that by 2080 the crop yields will reduce by twenty-eight percent in Africa, nineteen in Asia, and twenty-four in Latin America (Cline, 2012).

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Loss

Biodiversity and ecosystem loss have been hastened by climate change; for example, wildfires have become a common phenomenon in Australia, leading to loss of forest cover hence reduced rainfall (Garnaut, 2011).  Australia has been experiencing very warm years in recent times, with 2018 temperatures soaring, and the country experienced heatwaves, which impacted the health and wellbeing of people. Southern Australia has been experiencing drought in recent times, with 2018 being the worst. The changes in the weather will impact the agricultural sector as well, with the dairy sector likely to produce less milk due to heatwaves, wine-growing areas becoming less suitable. (Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, 2015).

Biofuels have been embraced in the European Union and the United States of America as a way of combating climate change but has created a further problem of competition of food with human beings. Furthermore, biofuels have led to an increase in food prices and a decline in the production of other food sources; this has led food to be out of reach to a majority of people. (Abbott, Hurt, & Tyner, 2011). Grains such as corn and soya have been diverted to biofuels. The USA is using a third of its corn to produce fuel (Lal, 2013). The International Food Policy Research(IFPRI) postulates that biofuels have led to an increase of at least 30% of the prices of grains pushing 30- 75 million people into hunger. (Zilberman, Hochman, Rajagopal, Sexton & Timilsina, 2012).

Biological factors.

Globally there exists different pests, pathogens, diseases and weeds are causing massive destruction on food crops, the latest being the locust infestation in Africa which led to massive destruction of vegetation as they travel large distances in a day especially large scale farms, in Africa the food security situation has worsened with hunger and malnutrition being suffered by 239 million people according to FAO officials (cgtn.com, 2020).

Pests and diseases of various types have increased, and this has resulted in the use of pesticides, which is much more expensive to buy for underdeveloped countries. This results in massive crop failure. Developing countries have been skeptical about the use of biotechnology, such as Genetically Modified Organisms(GMOs) since they are owned by multinationals that sell for a profit. The health and ecological safety of GMOs are in question.

Socio-political factors.

Many countries experiencing food insecurity have a large population due to their fertility rates, this has led to high population growth, and with it, there is a high need for nutrition, it is estimated that the population growth is one billion people in every decade. It poses the challenge of how to adequately produce enough food for the population without adverse effects on the environment (Beddington et al., 2012). The highest population growth in the world is the Su-Saharan part of Africa and hence constitutes the largest part of the food insecure population. It also has the least agricultural productivity in the world. Human population growth has put a strain on croplands and water supply hence hampering the production of food since there has been clearing of forest cover and overuse of the limited arable land.

Biofuels and Competition for Food

Globally, the trend has been urban migration to find greener pastures. This means food demand will be high but is subject to the incomes of the household and purchasing power. It is estimated that low-income families use up to 60% of their income on food; hence with low incomes, chances of hunger and malnutrition are very high (Cohen & Garrett, 2010).  Food security has a direct connection with the political stability of a country; wars and strife have hampered food supplies leading to malnutrition and hunger. Also, for there to be regime stability, the food security of the country must be good as it may cause urban riots due to food shortage or price increase, as experienced in countries such as Sudan (increase in bread prices), Venezuela (Arezki & Bruckner, 2011). Research has shown that poor governance and corruption is leading to food insecurity as there is no benefit to people in the extraction of valuable resources such as diamond, gold leading to depletion of land making it unsuitable for agriculture.

The role of women and education also affects food security. Research has shown that as women become more empowered both in terms of education and incomes, then fertility fall. Women and children are the most affected by food insecurity. Pregnant and breastfeeding women require approximately 500 extra calories per day, which may be difficult to meet; hence 17 million underweight infants are born per year, leading to more deaths.

In Australia, 33% of children are seeking food relief, which is an eight percent increase in 2015 ((Berman et al., 2013). Low-income households are at a higher risk of chronic malnutrition in Australia, leading to an increase in the use of healthcare and depression (Ramsey, Giskes, Turrell, & Gallegos, 2011).

Economic factors

There exist unfair rules of trade since trade in most cases is dominated by multinationals, this leaves smallholder farmers at their mercy, as they offer low prices for their produce. Research has shown that global trade policies have led to food insecurity in underdeveloped countries as the IMF and the World Bank adopted structural adjustment policies(SAPs), which required for low import tariff for agricultural produce from developed countries, which were cheap (Barrett, 2010). Yet, they were highly subsidized and competed with expensive local food; this led to food production decreasing in developing countries. Also, developing countries adopted cash crops as a diversification from food crops, which led to competition for land (Powledge, 2010).

Pests and Diseases

Poverty has also led to food insecurity as a large number of the population lives on less than $US 1 per day (Yuan et al. 2011). It has led to labour conditions worsening since they’re low wages and large companies exploit these situations to save on labour cost.

Stakeholders and researchers have suggested various ways of minimizing food insecurity to alleviate global suffering. Developing countries ought to develop their agriculture sector and not to rely on short term solutions such as food aid. They should increase productivity by adopting drop-resistant crops. Also, there should be more investment in infrastructure, such as roads, irrigation. Though increased production of food is not a complete solution as envisaged by projections from the International Food Policy and Research Institute (IFPRI), education, investment in health, and economic growth will complement the efforts.

Women ought to be empowered and provided with opportunities such as community leaders of projects, which will earn them an income hence increasing their living standard. Also, access to family planning should be increased as it would limit population growth, space childbearing hence better-living standards for the households.

The continued demand for biofuel should be discouraged, and food crops such as corn diverted back to human consumption. Otherwise, they should use second-generation biofuels that are produced from waste products or non-food items. Its benefit on net carbon is suspect, as shown by agricultural scientist David Pimentel (Pimentel, 2012). Other forms of renewable energy should be encouraged.

Conclusion.

From the foregoing, it is evident that the problems of food insecurity touch each country’s efforts must, therefore, be made for us to tackle poverty. A myriad of factors has been shown to affect national and global food security, not a single factor can be said to exist on its own, but some are interdependent. Simple methods that do not require huge resource allocation can be used to promote food security.

The available literature we have reviewed has shown that climate change has been a leading cause of food insecurity as it affects both the availability of food and its storage. Political factors have been affecting food supplies and production, whereas global trade policies have been disadvantageous to underdeveloped countries. Solutions for some of the causes have been provided with the discouragement of the use of biofuels as it is using up the food crop and the adoption of other renewable energies, especially in developed countries, to avoid sharp increases in food prices. Women are a key solution to food insecurity due to their role in family planning and child care, global deaths due to malnutrition can be fought by empowering women both in terms of education and financially.

References.

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