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PART II
EXPLORING SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS FOR INCREASING
GLOBAL FOOD SUPPLIES
INTRODUCTION
A second workshop, held in May 2011, was built on the discussions at the first workshop
in which expert participants explored the availability and quality of metrics that helped us
understand the concept of “sustainable food security.” The workshop objectives included
identifying the major challenges and opportunities for change associated with achieving
sustainable food security and identifying needed policy, science, and governance interventions.
The workshop opened with a recap of some ideas presented at workshop one, reflecting
the availability and quality of data indicators and projections of both poverty/food security and
resource use trends as they are currently understood, while also framing the potential of various
factors to pose new opportunities, risks and vulnerabilities that would affect trends going
forward. These presentations enabled participants to review the existing evidence regarding the
magnitude of the problems and challenges and opportunities for their solutions. Subsequent
sessions dug more deeply into the trends associated with natural resources that are believed to
pose hard constraints to food supply and availability. The second day of the workshop explored
several of the policy, market, and governance approaches currently thought to be needed to
resolve the constraints posed by natural resources to food availability at various scales: global,
regional, and local. The third day engaged participants in consideration of what changes (in
public policy and regulatory institutions, markets and other economic institutions dominated by
the private sector, and social and cultural institutions) would be needed to raise the probabilities
for ensuring that food availabilities in 2050 respond to global food demands and the nutritional
needs of more than 9 billion people.
The following section includes a summary of the presentation by the committee chair, Per
Pinstrup-Andersen, providing a contextual framework for the workshop. The first chapter in Part
II includes summaries of a set of presentations examining the challenges in and opportunities for
achieving sustainable food security, including an overview of current and expected future food
and nutrition security. It also includes descriptions of key natural resource constraints and the
role of climate change. Chapter 2 summarizes various approaches to achieving sustainable food
supplies, including sustainable intensification, reducing yield gaps, addressing waste in the food
chain, and the role of global public goods. Chapter 3 focuses on the political, economic, and
institutional opportunities and barriers, and the final chapter discusses options for moving
forward.
The organizers of the workshop recognize that the content of the workshop and this
summary report leave out many important topics and perspectives associated with sustainable
food supplies and the related natural resource constraints and policies. However, the time
constraints of a two and a half day workshop forced the planning committee to limit the number
of topics that could usefully be examined. One important topic that the workshop was to have
127
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128 A SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE: FOOD SECURITY FOR ALL
addressed was the complex links between energy and agricultural productivity. However, due to
unforeseen circumstances the speaker for this session was unable to attend the workshop. In
addition, most participants focused on the production of the three dominant staple crops rather
than a broader range of food crops. Hopefully, the energy-agriculture nexus as well as
other important topics that are not included can be examined in other workshops or future
meetings.
CONTEXTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR WORKSHOP 21
Per Pinstrup-Andersen opened the meeting by asking a set of questions:
Can the world feed future generations?
•
Can it do so sustainably?
•
At what food price?
•
At what price volatility?
•
Will everybody have access?
•
What action is needed?
•
Action by whom?
•
Pinstrup-Andersen answered the first two questions by saying that the world can feed
future generations and—with appropriate action—can do it sustainably. This meeting will focus
on sustainable food supplies, which is just one part of the food security equation (Figure II I-1).
He noted that adequate food supplies are necessary but not sufficient for assuring food security
for all. Who will have access to food depends on many factors including prices and incomes.
Furthermore, household behavior, intra-household decision making processes and gender-
specific time allocation are important components of the access issue that will not be considered
in this supply-focused workshop. In addition, there are several non-food factors that influence
food security, such as health, access to clean drinking water and good sanitation.
1
The presentation is available at http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/sustainability/foodsecurity/PGA_062564,
presentation by Pinstrup-Andersen (May 2, 2011).
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PART II: EXPLORING SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS FOR INCREASING GLOBAL FOOD SUPPLIES 129
Sustainable Food Security For All
HH Behaviors Non-Food Factors
Access
(By whom?)
Food Prices Incomes
(For whom?) (For whom?)
Availability
(For whom?)
Sustainable Food Supplies
FIGURE II I-1 The Workshop Focus
SOURCE: Presentation by Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Cornell University, May 2, 2011.
The workshop will focus on three elements critical to assuring long term sustainable food
supplies: (1) barriers to sustainable food supplies, (2) approaches and action, and (3) incentives
and limitations to action. Among the major barriers to sustainable food supplies are natural
resource constraints—water, land, forest, soil, biodiversity and energy—and human-made
resources—knowledge, technology, and infrastructure—as well as climate change.
The discussion on approaches and action will include examining R&D to reduce yield
gaps and raise yield ceiling, farm level intensification and ecosystem management. Speakers
will also discuss ways to improve value chains, reduce wastes and losses, and improve energy
efficiency and enhance private investments in land.
The final workshop segments will examine some of the incentives and limitations to
action, looking at the specific roles of the public sector, the private sector and civil society. For
example, what kind of public goods need to be in place for the private sector to operate?
The intent of the workshop is not to answer all the questions noted above but to provide
input to the debate about what the answers are. Per Pinstrup-Andersen noted that the debate
about food security currently tends to the extremes with arguments such as “The world is
running out of food,” “Billions of people will starve to death,” “We are losing our most critical
natural resources,” etc. This workshop should aim to provide evidence to enlighten the debate
and support evidence-based decision making.
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