Food and Health 4- Future health, security, and sustainability Flashcards
Short-term solutions to food insecurity
-Increasing production and reducing set-aside
-Food aid
-Seeds and fertilizer
-Export bans
Short-term solutions to food insecurity
-Increasing production and reducing set-aside
-Food aid
-Seeds and fertilizer
-Export bans
Short-term solution to food insecurity: Increasing production and reducing set-aside
High market prices encourage more food production.
Short-term solution to food insecurity: Food aid
-The World Food Programme (WFP) reaches
only about 80 million of the most desperate people,
mostly refugees from conflicts and natural disasters.
-There are 700 million more chronically hungry people
scattered around the world.
Short-term solution to food insecurity: Seeds and fertilizer
-As well as needing food to survive, the rural poor urgently need help planting next season’s
crops if there is to be an end to the food crisis.
-Millions have been forced to eat next season’s seeds to survive, and the price of fertilizer (largely dependent on oil) has risen sixfold in some regions over the course of a year
Short-term solution to food insecurity: Export bans
Export bans drive prices higher and increase market variability.
Medium-term solutions to food insecurity
-Free trade
-Biofuels
Medium-term solutions to food insecurity: free trade
Trade liberalization, reducing farm subsidies in the USA, and undoing some of the protectionism of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy should help poor
farmers in the future, but the direct impact could be to
increase food prices in the developing world, as producers focus on western markets.
Medium-term solutions to food insecurity: biofuels
-The food crisis has triggered a backlash against plant-derived fuels, which were originally hailed as an answer to global warming.
-With over 40 per cent of American maize being used to make ethanol, there is clearly a clash of interests.
What is the difference between free trade and fair trade?
-Free trade allows any country to trade with any other country.
-It benefits countries whose agriculture is heavily subsidized (often HICs) and therefore has a negative effect on LICs.
-In contrast, fair trade ensures that farmers are given a fair price and that farming conditions are good for the farmers and their families.
-It provides more benefits to LICs.
Long-term solutions to food insecurity
-Agricultural investment
-GM crops
-Sustainability
Long-term solutions to food insecurity: agricultural investment
-Experts believe yields in Africa can be increased up to four times with the right help – only 4 percent of African agriculture is irrigated, compared with 40 percent in Asia.
-The average Asian farmer uses 110 kg of fertilizer a year whereas the average African uses just 4 kg.
-At least a third of the crops in an average African season are lost after the harvest, largely because farmers cannot get them to markets on time.
Long-term solutions to food insecurity: GM crops
-Agriculture experts at the UN and in developing countries do not expect GM crops on their own to radically improve yields.
-The main trouble, they argue, is that almost all the research has been devoted to developing crops for rich countries in the northern hemisphere.
Long-term solutions to food insecurity: sustainability
-Campaigners argue that the world cannot feed its
population if China, India and other emerging economies want to eat like people in the West.
-The only long-term solution, they argue, is
rethinking western lifestyles and expectations.
What is food insecurity in Bangladesh affected by?
-International trade
-Land scarcity
-The need to increase production of nutritional food
-Natural hazards
-Climate change
At what scale is food insecurity an issue in Bangladesh?
-National
-Household
-Individual
How has Bangladesh made progress in improving food security?
-By increasing production of rice using irrigation water and high-yielding varieties.
-Increased emphasis on rice has necessitated increased imports of other foods.
-The government has also invested in storage facilities
for rice, and cold-storage facilities for meat, fish, eggs and potatoes.
-Transport infrastructure has also been upgraded to enable faster and better distribution of food, including imports.
With which food is Bangladesh the most self-sufficient and the least self-sufficient?
-Bangladesh is now self-sufficient in rice, eggs, potatoes, vegetables, meat and fish.
-It is least self-suffcient in wheat, sugar and pulses.
How has food insecurity changed over time in Bangladesh?
-Food insecurity has declined considerably since the 1970s, although nearly 50 million people are still said to be food insecure, 26 million of whom are said to be extremely food insecure.
-Many of these are rural dwellers who are vulnerable to the annual monsoon floods.
Strategies for individuals to reduce food waste
-Planning your meals
-Eating less-than-perfect looking fruit and vegetables
-Eating local, in-season food
-Cutting back on dairy and red meat – fruit, vegetables, fish and poultry have one-third the footprint of red meat and half that of dairy
-Planning shopping trips and buying only what you need
-Recycling packaging and composting organic scraps.
What has led to wastage in HICs?
-Consumerism
-Excess wealth
-Mass marketing
How much food is thrown away in the UK each year?
Approximately 1/3 of food
Statistic about food waste in LICs
In LICs, up to 80 percent may be wasted before it reaches the market/shops.
How can food waste be tackled on a large scale?
More efficient farming practices and better transport,
storage and processing facilities ensure that a larger proportion of the food produced reaches markets and consumers.
Why does food waste happen on a large scale?
Major supermarkets, in meeting consumer expectations, often reject entire crops of perfectly edible fruit and vegetables at the farm because they do not meet exacting marketing standards for their physical characteristics, such as size and appearance.
How much food waste do retailers generate globally every year?
1.6 million tonnes of food waste
Is more fruit/veg or grains wasted?
-Wastage rates for fruit/veg are higher than for grains.
-In the UK, a recently published study has shown that,
of the potato crop, 46 percent is not delivered to the retail market.
-A similar survey in India showed that at least 40 percent of all its fruit and vegetables is lost between grower and consumer because of the lack of refrigerated transport, poor roads, and poor weather
Food waste vs. food loss
-Food loss most often occurs at the production, post-harvest, and processing stages of the food chain.
-Food waste occurs at the end of the food chain. It is food that was originally produced for human consumption but then discarded or was not consumed by humans.
Where is most food waste generated?
At the consumer stage
How does food waste tend to occur in LICs?
-It tends to occur primarily at the farmer-producer end of the supply chain.
-Inefficient harvesting, inadequate local transportation, and poor infrastructure mean that produce is frequently handled inappropriately and stored under unsuitable conditions. As a result, mold and pests (for example, rodents) destroy or at least degrade large quantities of food material.
-Substantial amounts of foodstuffs simply spill from badly maintained vehicles or are bruised as vehicles travel over poorly maintained roads.
How does food loss change as a country develops?
-As the development level of a country increases, the food-loss problem generally moves further up the supply chain, with deficiencies in regional and national infrastructure having the largest impact.
-In southeast Asian countries, for example, losses of rice range from 37 percent to 80 percent of the entire production, depending on the development stage.
Contemporary approaches to food production
-Genetically-modified food
-Vertical farming
-In-vitro meat
GM technology has helped farmers to increase yields by ___
Protecting crops against pests and weeds
What is genetic engineering?
-This involves adding traits to a plant to make it more nutritious or more resistant to disease or pesticides.
