Got Food? - the Scientia Review

Global Food Systems
In an effort to promote a successful continuation of reliable food production, many countries have
instituted programs to track, foresee, and manage national and international agriculture. As mentioned
above, the United Nations tracks the calculated HDI of various countries, which includes information on
how those nations manage their food. Despite this, attempts at addressing the looming challenge of
adjusting global agricultural systems have long been undermined by the lack of comprehensive scientific
research and statistics to support the conclusions reached. In 2011, an international team of researchers
conducted a thorough examination of available statistics and research data, which provided potential
solutions to the problem of feeding the global community that were all supported by corroborating data.
Their examinations of farm data and satellite images suggested, perhaps predictably, that using less land,
eating less meat, and wasting less food can significantly increase the chances of successfully feeding the
increasing global population over the next four decades.
More specifically, their work suggested that the state of international agriculture could be
improved drastically if land clearing for agricultural purposes were halted, food production yields in
developing countries were raised to 60%, agrochemicals were used more strategically in farming, global
diets shifted towards being primarily plant based, fewer crops were used for animal feed and biofuel, and
the waste of food production were decreased. Such changes would result in the ability to feed successive
generations without the need to destroy a large amount of all remaining tropical forests and topsoil,
although practical integration of the suggestions could prove challenging. If it is to work, the changes
must be adopted in the manner discussed in the second paragraph of the prior section, namely, through
increased collaboration between governments and their people (Coren, 2011).
Globalization, the current method commonly employed to improve worldwide food conditions,
has both solved and raised problems. By linking developing and developed countries to one another
through agricultural based interactions, the challenges facing one region can affect many external areas.
Even the farming practices of one nation can have an impact on others. Different standards of food
production can be blamed for some of these problems: historically, the United States has imported foods
that do not meet its standards of quality, but are approved for export by a foreign power (―Unsanitary
Practices‖, 2011). While many of these foods are prevented from entering into sale in markets, it is
unreasonable for the regulatory boards in charge of filtering under-qualified foods off consumers‘ plates
to do so with complete success.
Increased quality of food, however, has been shown to come from increased globalization of
consumables, encouraged both by health benefits and consumer demand. Through importations, it is
possible for developing countries to acquire nutrient giving foods that would have been unrealistic or
impossible to grow locally. Foreign grown genetically modified crops, although at times controversial,
have had some documented benefits for the developing nations that import them (Rosado, Cassís, Solano,
& Duarte-Vázquez, 2005). Developed nations, on the other hand, can experience a growth in demand for
more particular foods once they become more globally available through trade, which has the potential to
benefit the economies of both the buyer and the seller (―Food Value Chains‖, 2011).
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