Sustainable Food Security in the Era of Local and Global Environmental Change

Addressing the challenge of global food security in our era is strongly linked with other global issues, most notably climate change, population growth and the need to sustainably manage the world’s rapidly growing demand for energy, land, and water. Our progress in ensuring a sustainable and equitable food supply chain will be determined by how coherently these long-term challenges are tackled. This will also determine our progress in reducing global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The challenge is to deliver nutritious, safe and affordable food to a global population of over nine billion in the coming decades, using less land, fewer inputs, with less waste and a lower environmental impact. All this has to be done in ways that are socially and economically sustainable. In this paper, we try to analyze the different challenges affecting the global capacity to build a food system with the potential to enhance a sustainable food security. Actions needed to make such a paradigm and policy shift, in both developed and developing countries, have been demonstrated.

The Meat Crisis is not the lack of meat to feed an increasingly carnivorous human population, but the absolute impossibility of sustaining the earth if we do not begin to limit our consumption of animal products. This paper explains why there is a crisis and it also offers equitable policy options to deal with this crisis. Most human activities have an ethical dimension. In farming, there are ethical issues regarding care of the soil and natural resources. Livestock farming carries an extra ethical dimension as it deals with the lives and well-being of other sentient beings. In view of the threat from livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), it is important that agriculture adapts and mitigates its negative impacts. Some promote the view that industrialisation of livestock farming is the best way forward. However this proposed partial solution is myopic and totally fails to take account of the growing body of scientific research on the health and welfare of farm animals. The ethical question may be: Is it right to push farm animals to ever greater levels of productivity if this undermines their well-being? Seeking ever greater levels of productivity of meat and dairy products may also lead to adverse health effects on humans from over-consumption. Increasing the levels of obesity and allied diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, colon cancer and heart disease may place a great strain on the health systems of developing countries. In fact greater productivity and increased consumption are at the root of the unsustainable Meat Crisis. To overcome this crisis we need to seek ethical answers that promote agricultural systems in order to benefit the environment, protect the welfare of animals and produce health-giving products for our populations.

With global warming on everyone’s agenda and livestock production responsible for 18 % of global greenhouse gas emissions, we are beginning to understand our symbiotic relationship with the environment. Conventional farming makes unsustainable demands on natural resources of land and water, is a pollutant, and a danger to human health in terms of antibiotic resistance and over-consumption. Better diet choices have to be made to positively affect an individual’s carbon footprint. This paper investigates why the City of Cape Town has endorsed Compassion in World Farming’s campaign for One-Meat-Free-Day-A-Week.

In order for REDD+ carbon emission mitigation targets to be reached, the primary driver of forest clearing globally—agriculture—must be fundamentally addressed by governments implementing REDD+ Programmes. This chapter evaluates the extent to which countries participating in the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) readiness activities are actively linking REDD+ and agriculture policies, programmes, institutional and governance arrangements. Based on 20 current country readiness proposals (R-PPs) submitted to the FCPF, the analysis reveals that overall, REDD+ strategies and actions generally fail to address agricultural drivers. The paper poses a general roadmap for how countries can more adequately address agricultural drivers in their REDD+ strategies, including: identifying clear strategies to address demand-side and market pressures, and how government action can influence those; sorting out tenure and land access rights; strengthening cross-sectoral policies; linking mitigation to adaption; boosting efficiency and production of agricultural systems; and incorporating agricultural carbon measurement in national MRV systems. Brazil and Acre State, Brazil, are highlighted as a case study, as both jurisdictions have overcome, at the national and sub-regional scale, many of the hurdles faced by other governments analyzed in this chapter.

Research on the impacts of climate change indicates greater severity on certain groups and social classes. There is a general consensus that women in the developing countries will be harder hit than men by slow changes in temperature and precipitation which would increase the burden of daily provisioning of food, water and fuel, and also in the advent of weather related disasters, where the onus of providing and caring for the family rests on the woman. While forecasts of climate change in different geographical regions retain an element of uncertainty and women’s response to such potential changes can at best be estimated, in the case of weather induced natural disasters like cyclones, hurricanes or floods, the differential impacts on men and women, their distinct coping mechanisms and the success/failure of relief/rehabilitation and preventive measures has been well documented. In fact, disasters serve to highlight the disproportionate costs that women will have to bear as a result of climate change. As it is undisputed that the frequency of natural disasters will increase with global warming, lessons drawn from gender differentiated impacts and gendered response to such disasters may provide useful inputs for food security policy.

Food insecurity remains endemic in most of the Africa countries, with climate factors such as rainfall variability as a major cause. The significance of this variability is clear when we consider that in sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural production accounts for up to 90 % of food needs. Socio-economic conditions and the adverse impact of unpredictable weather on the agricultural production of communities in sub-Sahara Africa have long been recognized as an important cause of malnutrition in the region. The paper reviews the current state of knowledge related to the threats of climate to food crisis in sub Sahara Africa. Long-term climate change is linked to global warming. This increase is partly due to the influence of human activities on nature such as exhaust gas emissions from vehicles, coal burning for energy, and deforestation. Tackling these challenges of climate change will require the use of sophisticated surveillance and response systems. Therefore, mitigation policy that assures food security at all time is recommended to achieve the Millennium Development Goal 1 to reducing by half people suffering from hunger by 2015.

Climate change and increasing climate variability threaten the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), and some of the worst effects on human health and agriculture will be in Africa, particularly in vulnerable regions. Kano state is the most populous state in the country with majority of rural dwellers who are predominantly agrarians but still food security is uncertain. This is largely attributed to climate, which is increasingly becoming harsh. Rainfall is invariably not stable for so many years with recurring drought. Desertification and deforestation of vegetative cover compounded the problem of agriculture in the state. Despites government efforts to provide all the agricultural inputs, agriculture still stagnate and even decline. The issue of climate change was addressed by the agenda that comes out from the climate summits and convention which clearly discussed global climate change issue. It also reviews human activities and their implication to the environment. The world’s climate continuing change at rates that are projected to be unprecedented in recent human history. The impacts of climate change on food production were highlighted and discussed in the paper. Data used in this paper were both secondary and primary data. Primary data collected were through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). In this case, focused Group Discussion (FGD) was adopted and farmers were interviewed all to enable us to get in-depth and comprehensive information from farmers who have had experience in the changing trends of climate for up to a period of 20 years and secondary data was derived from many years observations under taken at Malan Aminu Kano international Airport Meteorological station. The collected data was analyzed using simple graphs and mathematics to ascertain the stated postulation that “climate changes grossly affect food security in Kano”. The paper recommends that, the climate change management issues raised most be translated into decision and/or policy by the stakeholders, in order to ensure food security in the region. This paper also proposes a model for a sustainable agriculture to arrest the problems of declining agriculture, which is environmentally friendly.

Evidences show that climate change incidences affect adversely food security of marginal groups whose livelihoods are based on natural resources. The incidences are more harmful to their livelihood assets and strategies to achieve food resources because of both its higher sensitivity to the episodes and their lower adaptive capacity to the negative affects of the events. The preliminary finding from lead writer’s ongoing PhD research in the far western region of Nepal and authoresses long experiences in the field of climate change and food security of the country shows that the prevailing institutional barriers cause them highly vulnerable from the risks to secure their food need. This paper claims that both formal and informal economic, social and political institutional hurdles are the major reasons of reducing their capability which increase their vulnerability and limit the adaptive capacity to secure food in climate change variability and extreme events contexts. These institutional impediments in the contexts of Nepal, mostly, include the institutions of land tenure, market, caste and gender based occupation, wage labour, patron-client relations, schools and educations, settlement, untouchability and caste based discrimination, social networking, bargaining power, adaptation policies, and political engagement prevailing in rural area of the country. Therefore, the paper suggests that reformations of institutional barriers are essential for increasing the ability of such groups to resist impacts and adapt the negative impacts of the changes on production, access and consumption of food of marginal groups in sustainable away.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world that has become poorer in the last generation. The climate change is expected to add significantly to the development challenges of ensuring food security and poverty reduction. The majority of these countries are dependent on rain-fed agriculture (96 %) for their subsistence, thereby making them highly vulnerable to recent climatic change. Adaptation to climate change in the crop production sector is therefore very imperative in providing food security and protecting the livelihood of rural poor smallholder farmers and communities. This study used both the top-down and the bottom-up approach in analysing the sensitivity and vulnerability of subsistence farmers in the Sudano-Sahel of Cameroon on climatic change. Analyses of agricultural droughts using the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and statistical models were used in investigating the impacts of recent climatic changes on two staple crops, millet Pennisetum glaucum L. and sorghum Sorghum bicolor L. (Moench). Household questionnaires and interviews were also conducted and subsistence farmers’ perceptions on climatic change were then analyzed. The findings showed that local subsistence farming communities perceived changes in rainfall and its frequency and rise in temperature. The results indicated that climatic trends appear to be responsible for between 12 and 24 % of the yield variation for both millet and sorghum, with maximum temperature at the growing season being the dominant influence. The droughts were observed in up to about 9 % of the years analyzed. Pertaining to climatic variability and change adaptation, subsistence farmers have changed their planting dates, crop varieties as well as switched from crops to livestock and off-farming activities among many others. The result further highlighted the lack of money, poor access to climate information, the encroachment of the desert and the shortage of man power as some of the factors hindering subsistence farmers’ ability to climate change adaptation.

Increase in the rate of urbanization has been acknowledged to have effects on urban poverty and food security. Consequently, a notable strategy employed by urban dwellers in order to be and remain food secure is the practice of urban agriculture. Through a multi-stage random sampling technique, a total of 389 respondents were selected in Ibadan, Nigeria. Data were obtained through the use of structured questionnaire while analyses involved the use of descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier model for technical efficiency determination. The results showed that 66.3 % were involved in some form of urban agriculture, majority (90.7 %) of those involved were within the active productive age group of 20–59 years with relatively high literacy level. Most (94.2 %) of these urban farmers had agriculture as a supplementary activity which nonetheless constitutes a vital part of their livelihoods. With an average technical efficiency of 72.0 %, urban farmers can complement household incomes at significantly high levels sometimes as high as 80.0 %. Prospects for urban agriculture are high as the city continues to expand.

Bahrain, severely constrained by limited agricultural resources such as limited water resources, poor and declining quality of the soil, and unfavourable climate as a result of which the country has low food sufficiency rates for the main food commodities, with the exception of some fruits and vegetables. As result of which agriculture sector contributes less than 1 % to Bahrain’s real GDP, which means Bahrain remains heavily dependent on imports to meet its domestic demand for most agricultural products. In view of this therefore, with the world facing perfect storm of food scarcity, Bahrain needs to focus on lowering its food imports and increasing agricultural production in order to boost the contribution of agricultural sector to its Gross Domestic Product. The aim of this paper is to review the role of local production system in ensuring food security, focusing on the incentive framework aimed at diversifying the economies and increasing the level of food security. From the discussion it is therefore clear that Bahrain’s Agricultural Policy is towards the right direction of creating impact on the role of local food production system embracing diversified production base focusing on strategic option for a sustained growth of productivity and diversification of economies in general. In specific it significantly emphasizes on non-traditional methods of production which in turn spells out a sound strategic option for ensuring sustainable food security in Bahrain.

This study aims to determine consumer knowledge about organic foods and the reasons why buyers patronize or reject organic food products in Bangkok. It also relates such consumption patterns with the consumers’ understanding and points of view towards organic food as well as their demographic and socio-economic profiles. Data were collected from 130 randomly selected organic food consumers in a huge Bangkok supermarket using semi-structured questionnaires. Results showed that more than half of the respondents have purchased organic fruits, rice and vegetables in the past. The key reasons given for these purchases include expectations of healthier lifestyle and long-term contribution towards a more sustainable environment. Results have shown that surveyed organic consumers tend to have higher educational and family income levels, bigger family size and older than those who have never bought any organic products. The primary obstacles cited in the purchase of organic products include persistent confusion in interpreting organic food labels and the general lack of organic product information.

In Morocco about 20 % of children under the age of 15 years are stunted or delayed in growth. Dietary quality is much associated with dietary diversity. Recent FAO/WHO recommendations emphasized food diversification intake to combat many nutrition related diseases. Dietary diversity is used for the assessment of diet quality and food security. Morocco still bears a heavy burden of many micronutrient deficiencies and child stunting. Stunting reflects chronic under nutrition and nutritional insecurity. The purpose of the study was to assess dietary diversity by comparing a dietary diversity score (DDS) and a weekly food frequency score (WFFS) and study their relationship to stunting in school-age children in the province of Kenitra (Morocco). The study was carried out in urban and rural areas of Kenitra. After administrative authorizations and parents’ clearance and children’s consent. The study team surveyed seven different schools representing all the principal communities of Kenitra and its region. A structured questionnaire composed of different items: Household demographic data, socio-economic data, anthropometric measurements, food and nutrition evaluation was delivered to get answers. A stratified random sample of 263 pupils with average age of 12.9 ± 0.9 years including one-third from rural schools were administered a weekly food frequency questionnaire. A health team assessed the anthropometric status. Dietary diversity was appraised with two types of indices: a dietary diversity score (DDS) based on the number of food categories consumed over a week, and a weekly food frequency score (WFFS) which also takes into account the frequency of food intake. The DDS was significantly higher in rural than in urban children, whereas the WFFS was lower, in rural children owing primarily to less frequent intake of fruits and vegetables than in the urban children. Maternal level of instruction was also positively associated with a higher consumption of fruits and vegetables and milk, and with a higher WFFS. Both indices were significantly associated with stunting. The study suggested that diet quality is associated with height status and food diversity indices that take food frequency into account which may provide a better reflection of diet quality.

Political instability, economic crises, war, food insecurity or hunger, poverty, diseases, pestilence and religious and socio-cultural crises are problems confronting and militating against African development. The role of local or indigenous or rural/scavenging chicken in food security, alleviating poverty, disease mitigation and meeting the socio-cultural fulfilment towards ensuring political, economic and socio cultural stability in Africa is hereby reviewed. The Local or indigenous chicken of any country are better adapted to local conditions as they are hardy, can thrive under minimal supply of feed, more resistant to local pests, parasites and diseases than the exotic breeds or hybrids. The potentials of local or indigenous chickens include 460–1,840 g mature body size in 30 weeks 40–200 eggs production per annum and egg weight of 29–45 g per egg. Meat and eggs from local chicken are very palatable, taste better with strong flavour, have low cholesterol and are nutritious as they furnishes energy, essential amino acids, vitamins and other micro nutrients of animal source to the poor rural and urban dwellers and sick people at cheaper, affordable and manageable quantities. They are preferred delicacies for entertainment besides their therapeutic values. Income or money from the sale of local chicken and eggs are often used to pay for other needed commodities, services and obligations (seed, salt, cloth, fuel, medicine, school fees and books, transport fare, taxes etc.); and it encouraged cash flow, savings, investments and insurance against absolute poverty. Satisfaction in African religious/ spiritual and socio-cultural values cannot be attained except local chicken and eggs were used to entertain visitors, make sacrifice or rituals to appease gods and during family celebration or traditional ceremonies. Other roles of local or indigenous chicken production in pest and weed control, as sanitizing agent and converter of household waste and left over grains to meat and eggs, in healing, recreation, local timing and as sources of manure for gardening cannot be under estimated.

Africa’s population is expected to rise to 1.8 billion by 2050 (Gregory 2009). In Kenya the population was 15.3 million in 1979 and by 2009 it had grown by 23.3 million to reach 38.6 million (MOP 2009) population and housing census results. Projections indicate that the country’s population will stand at 51.3 million by 2025 representing a growth rate of 1 million people per year (1.45 %) (UNFPA 2011). This increase is due to enhanced fertility rate, poverty and high illiteracy levels (Masci 2007). The population increase has already amounted to unprecedented pressure on land, environmental degradation and strained water resources. The situation has been aggravated by effects of global warming. The circumstances have made the people poorer. There is a correlation between environmental degradation and poverty (Ramshackle 2010) resulting into many poor people engaging in environmentally destructive practices which only lessens survival chances. The arid and semi arid environments are particularly vulnerable by virtue of their ecological conditions and neglect by the government development systems. This chapter analyses the role of the South Eastern University College (SEUCO), a constituent college of The University of Nairobi, Kenya in acting in response to the challenges of food production at the community level in light of global warming. The institution has made major strides in developing technologies and measures that are adaptable by local communities as well as raise community awareness and community participation in living with climate change. Knowledge on sustainable improvement in water availability through rainwater harvesting, soil and water conservation measures, harnessing the use of drought-tolerant crops and adopting crop diversification have been found to be important adaptation strategies for the people in the arid and semi-arid environments. The results of the interventions by the university in the local environment reveal a need to increase the use of emerging technologies and the enactment of appropriate policies on climate change by all stakeholders.

Increasing preference is given for technologically mediated solutions to solve developmental issues, such as hunger and scarcity of food. A classic example of this kind is the introduction of ‘Green Revolution’ in the early 1960s. To increase global food supply in order to feed the growing population has been a dominant policy discourse ever since but the emerging controversies over agricultural biotechnology and genetically modified Foods show how this remains a key issue. Is intensified ‘production at all costs’, a sustainable and viable method/solution to attain global food security? The following chapter is an attempt to present debates around food security in general, and linkages between agricultural biotechnology, intellectual property rights and trans-national seed corporations and implications to food security. Two concurrent trajectories mould this chapter. First, it conceptualizes food security with an elementary approach: from the perspective of SEED. Seeds are knowledge intensive goods with direct linkages to food entitlements at all levels of the socio-economic sphere. Second, the chapter seeks to contextualize food security in an expanding ‘knowledge-based economy’. A knowledge-based economy is understood as production and services based on knowledge and technology-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of production and economic growth. Biotechnology for example is seen as an arena where knowledge is effectively turned into capital. Commodification of genetic modified seeds on a global scale reveals that seeds are regarded as private property, which can be bought and sold especially by trans-national seed corporations, contrasting traditional ways of seed saving and farming methods. Simultaneously, internationalization of the Patency regime has set rules on the ownership, control and usage of seeds. Biotechnology research is resource intensive; hence most of the breakthroughs lie in the private sector. The Intellectual property Rights over transgenic seeds transfer full control of seeds over to the corporations. Farmers having to pay royalty or ‘monopoly rents’ in exchange of replanting seeds, to corporations signifies that these rules not only protect innovation and determine the ‘who’ but also the ‘terms’ of usage and control. This phenomenon has alterations on the entire chain of food: from mode of farming, production, nutrition, distribution to sale of food, which are all significant elements contributing to a general wellbeing and food secure situation. At this point a very fundamental question arises: Is Knowledge capital embedded in the current international proprietary framework a driver for ‘sustainable’ development in agriculture and food security? As a way of conclusion, the chapter with aid of statistics and graphics presents a potential and possible future scenario of a monopolized global food market, where due to extensive consolidation processes in the private sector, monopoly power can come into play with total control over the food chain and food prices.

The combination of limited fresh water supplies, poor soils and hyper-arid environment (dryland system), and climate change impact in Gulf States (GS) constrains the local economic agricultural production of many crops grown for food and fodder. The difference between the Ecological Footprint of Consumption and the Biocapacity of GS, suggests a net deficit between the eco-resources generated and those consumed and wasted. Given these existing and predicted challenges, it would be hard for the GS to achieve food security unless there are considerable technological innovations in agriculture and water research to boost local production. To meet food security, GS may be seeking options of acquiring land abroad for agriculture. Leasing prime land in poor developing countries is questioned by many actors, so the sensible option is to acquire marginal (saline) lands in these developing countries, over one billion ha available globally, or acquire prime land in countries where there are resources surpluses (abundant soil and water resources) concentrated in ecological creditors’ countries, which currently do not utilize their full biocapacity and the production cost is lower. In the former case, ICBA can significantly support GS in growing salt-tolerant crops (Biosaline Agriculture) in the marginal land acquired abroad and by bringing them into crop production through an integrated approach of reclamation of salt-affected lands, thus, paving the way forward for food security. Over the last 13 years ICBA has developed a world-wide reputation for its expertise in the development of salt-tolerant germplasm and applied research and development in many of the 57 IDB-member countries including the GS. The groundwater in the GS is mostly saline or brackish and biosaline agriculture is the best approach.

Land use is one of the major source of soil fertility decline and food insecurity. In Benin where cotton is the main cash crop, the potential of cultivating rice exists even in cotton cultivation zone. Rice is seen nowadays as a staple food and the national production is insufficient to meet national consumption. Change in land use becomes obvious and the farmers cultivate several crops during the agricultural campaign which enter in competition in terms of resources use. This study has investigated the allocation of resources to different crops in cotton zone using primary data collected from a sample of 71 farmers randomly selected in two villages in the Northern region of Benin (West Africa). The model built showed that rice is the most profitable crop while cotton gross margin is low. It reduces then the area of cotton for about 56 %. It allows the production of maize, sorghum, peanut and the soy bean for ensuring the food availability of the household whereas rice and the bean have an economic importance. It gives a possibility to farmers to cultivate the same amount of land with less amount of labour force and gain 18 % more income than previously. From these results the agricultural policy need to be orientated to the training of farmers on practices and on the best way to allocate resources in order to achieve a good production. The arrangement of inland valley needs to be done to allow farmers to have more areas of inland valley for rice cultivation.

Pakistani farmers have adopted an over century old flat sowing conventional planting system. There exist other planting systems which are not common in Pakistan. In order to meet food demand of growing population in Pakistan there is a great need to explore alternate planting systems for better crop production and to improve livelihood of the poor farmers. In an effort of such exploration an experiment was conducted to study the effects of planting methods for varieties of spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) for grain yield and yield components. Experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications to compare the planting methods viz., raised bed and conventional planting method. The results revealed significant effect of planting methods on yield and yield contributing characters. Interactions between planting methods and varieties were also significant for some of the yield components. The mean grain yield (2.95 t ha⁻¹) in raised bed planting method was 4 % higher than conventional flat sowing planting method (2.42 t ha⁻¹), however, the variety V₁ produced the highest grain yield (2.51 t ha⁻¹) with raised bed planting method, and variety V₃ produced the lowest (1.26 t ha⁻¹) with flat planting method. All the yield components were significantly influenced by cultivars. Among the varieties, V₁ was the best performer in bed planting system owing to desired yield components. It may be concluded that bed planting method is most suitable for wheat in irrigated area when appropriate genotypes are used. Among other factors, it is believed that the raised bed technology may improve wheat yield. The experiment also revealed that the raised bed planting method may be less susceptible to adversities of climate change because it portrays better ability to plant roots anchorage on beds, ability to withstand water stress and may help to conserve genetic resources via the promising genotype of Inqilab-91. It is recommended this genotype be further assessed in future research programmes to further improve its yield performance, thereby promoting food security in Pakistan.