SECTION 1 | Framing the Discussion | Land, Water, Food, and Climate | Civil and Environmental Engineering

Overview

Is food insecurity an urgent problem or an issue that is being adequately addressed by technological progress?

This course addresses the challenge of providing food security to a large and diverse global population while protecting the natural resources needed to grow crops. This challenge is complicated by on-going climate change, land use changes, and economic issues that could have significant impacts on agriculture.

Food security is often understood to include the following four components:

Availability of food where it is needed (production)
Access to food for different populations, age groups, and income levels (distribution)
Utilization of food for proper nutrition (diet and general health)
Stability and reliability of all of these factors

This perspective emphasizes that crop production is not enough, by itself, to insure food security.

The connection between food security and the protection of natural resources is a timely topic because demand for food is increasing in response to growing populations and changing diets. Simultaneously, the natural resources needed to grow food are being stressed by more intensive food production and by climate change. The challenge for scientists and society in general is to find environmentally sustainable ways to meet the growing demand for food while providing good nutrition for everyone.

In order to adequately understand food security issues, we need to consider how natural resources and food demands are distributed over space and time and how food production and access are affected by income. This requires an examination of the roles of international trade, poverty, and agricultural technology as well as the physical, chemical, and biological processes that affect crop production. Interactions between these factors make it difficult to formulate effective solutions to food security problems. Complexity and uncertainty also breed controversy and can sometimes inhibit decisive action.

The course is divided into five sections that address a series of open-ended questions dealing with food security and natural resources:

Framing the discussion
- Is food insecurity an urgent problem or an issue that is being adequately addressed by technological progress?
Food and natural resources: Demand and supply, current and projected
- How much food will we need in the future?
- What are current and projected agricultural demands on natural resources?
- How much land, water, and nutrients are available for agriculture, in different places and at different times?
Reconciling demand and supply: Context
- What factors determine crop yield?
- What are the environmental impacts of agriculture?
- How does economic development affect food security and farming practices?
- What are the impacts of climate change on farming and vice versa?
- How could new technology contribute to food security?
- How does trade redistribute the natural resources needed to grow food?
Reconciling demand and supply: Options
- What are the primary options for reconciling food demand and supply? What are their advantages and disadvantages?
The way forward
- How can we move towards a sustainable food production system that meets human needs while protecting natural resources? What are the prospects for the future?

The readings we use to address these questions provide various answers and have their own merits and deficiencies, which we will discuss. Where appropriate, the readings are supplemented by Supporting Information (SI) prepared especially for this class.

The seminar encourages a critical approach that considers the implications of available evidence, accounts for uncertainty, and acknowledges the important role of value judgements in formulating policy. In the last class session students present their own findings and perspectives on selected aspects of food security.

Topic

Class 1: The Food Security Debate

This class introduces two opposing perspectives on food security while also considering the broader question of how society can best address critical human needs. Ehrlich and Ehrlich (2013) present a generalization of the Malthus (2008) argument that unrestrained demand will always exceed the capacity of finite natural resources to meet human needs. Lomberg (2001) relies on recent dramatic increases in global food production to argue that technology has, in fact, been able to keep pace with growing demand. These readings are ideological in nature but they provide a useful introduction to issues that are frequently encountered in the course. The accompanying videos provide more detail on some of the arguments invoked by both sides of the debate.

The reading by Godfray et al. (2010) provides a more balanced perspective that acknowledges the seriousness of the food security situation and advocates a “sustainable intensification” strategy for meeting anticipated increases in demand. The suggestions made in the paper are based largely on existing technology, except for some of the mid to long-term genetic engineering proposals, which are quite speculative. Overall, this paper describes what might be considered a middle-of-the-road or “establishment” position in the food security debate.

We conclude with a paper by the Nobel economist Amartya Sen (1982) who comments on differences between “nature focused” (or technological) and “social focused” (or political) perspectives on food security. This paper discusses Malthus in more detail and makes the case that there is “no such thing as an apolitical food problem.” Although this course is “nature focused,” it is indeed difficult to avoid political, economic, and moral issues when discussing food security. We will likely return to points made in this paper.

Required Readings

The Pessimistic Viewpoint

Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. 2013. “Can a Collapse of Global Civilization Be Avoided?” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 280, no. 1754: 20122845.

The Optimistic Viewpoint

Bjørn Lomborg. 2001. “Food and Hunger.” Chapter 5 in The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780521010689.

A More Balanced Viewpoint

H. Charles J. Godfray, John R. Beddington, et al. 2010. “Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People.” Science, 327, no. 5967: 812–818.

Amartya Sen. 1982. “The Food Problem: Theory and Policy.” Third World Quarterly, 4, no. 3: 447–459.

Optional Reading

Food Demand and Production

Thomas Malthus, 2008. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Oxford University Press, Geoffrey Gilbert (Editor), ISBN: 9780199540457.

Optional Videos

Another Pessimist

Jonathan Foley. 2011. “The Other Inconvenient Truth: How Agriculture is Changing the Face of Our Planet (YouTube).” TEDx talk, published on YouTube September 2, 2011.

Another Optimist

Hans Rosling. 2013. “Don’t Panic: The Truth About Population.” Produced by Wingspan Productions and The Open University for the BBC.

Discussion Points

Can technological advances keep pace with increasing human demand for natural resources? Is a reduction in our demand for food, energy, and goods essential or is it an unnecessary drag on our economy?
Why do you think different researchers can draw such differing conclusions from some of the same data sources (e.g. UN data)? Which perspective do you find most convincing?
Do you think the Godfray et al (2010) discussion adequately defends the idea that crop production can be increased substantially without causing adverse environmental consequences? Please elaborate on the reasons for your opinion.
Do you still find Sen’s comments from 1982 relevant to a discussion of food security? How would you weight or compare the role of science vs. the role of politics in addressing the “food problem”?

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Land, Water, Food, and Climate