Academic English-Diet and sustainability key to feeding the world

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Diet andsustainabilitykey to feedingthe world:

A foodsecurity report

One of the greatest problems the world faces is food security. Starvation,malnutrition and associated health andwelfare problems can best be addressed by a systematic policy of education and research.

Grave concerns about food security havesurfaced for a number of reasons. Firstly,there has been

a population explosionAccording to the Royal Society, between1930 and 2010 the world's

population grewfrom 2 billion to 6.8 billion now, with aprojected peak of 9 billion by 2050 (Black,2010). A further major cause for concern isthe impact on food production of climatechange, brought about by global warming.Population growth and climate changewill mean there is an increasing shortageof water and of land for food production,and therefore more competition for theseresources.

While threats to global food security arenumerous and affect both economically developed and less-developed countries,it is the people of the latter who are likelyto feel the most impact.

Vast numbers lackbasic food requirements: at least 1 billion people are undernourished and

2 billion suffer from micronutrient deficiency. Conversely, 1.2 billion are overweight.

An environmental example of the impact of food production mismanagement on ecosystems, and the wider implicationsof this, can he clearly seen in the caseof drastic declines in bird species. Forexample, in Europe and North Americapopulations of "specialist" bird species-those that are adapted to live in specificenvironments-have fallen by an estimated30% over 40 years. This has been attributedat least partially to the impact of farming,especially when this involves a single croptype being grown over a large area.

In fact, a study by Stanford Universitybiologists (Sekercioglu, Daily&Ehrlich, 2004)concluded that by 2100，10%ofall bird species were likely to disappearand another 15%could be on thebrink of extinction. This dramatic lossis expected to have a negative impacton forest ecosystems and agricultureworldwide, and warned that it might evenencourage the spread of human diseases. The latter point is supported by reportsof a dramatic fall in vulture numbers in India, allowing an upsurge in numbers ofrats and feral dogs, which spread diseasesthat affect humans (see Swan et al., 2006;BirdLife International, 2008)，The vulturepopulation crash is attributed mainly to poisoning by high concentrations of diclofenac, a drug used to treat farm animals. The birds ingest the drug when they feed on the animals’ carcasses.

The challenges involved in addressing theproblem of food security are complex. Partof the solution is increasing the potentialof food yields, but the approach must besustainable.Producers and consumers offood must play a major role in all this andtake responsibility in terms of choosing howfood is "produced, used and consumed".

Reducing the amount of waste in the foodproduction system is one approach toimproving foodsecurity. However, in futurethe "journey fromarm to plate" also needsto be organised

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