Climate Action 2011-2012

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s
forecasts show that, if we continue ‘business as usual’, the
population will rise by 30 per cent but demand for food will
grow by 70 per cent by 2050 – and 370 million people will
still be chronically hungry! To close the food gap faced by the
billion people who are now hungry requires less than 3 per
cent of global food production. This means that most of the
forecast extra demand is generated by people who shift, as their
incomes rise, from traditional diets to the food consumption
patterns of Europe and North America. Yet the latter involve
widespread over-consumption of food that is resulting in an
obesity epidemic, expected to induce an explosion in the future
incidence of non-communicable ailments such as cardiovascular
diseases and diabetes. And they are also characterised by
massive wastage of good food, with the amount of edible food
thrown out by households in industrialised countries after its
purchase being more or less equivalent to the annual net food
consumption of sub-Saharan Africa (FAO, World Agriculture:
towards 2030/2050, Rome, 2006).
If our food production is
not sustainable we will
deplete irreplaceable natural
resources and will not manage
to eradicate hunger.
mutually reinforcing. Briefly, from the agricultural and food
security perspectives, the following actions could maximise
the extent to which food production and consumption
contribute to the attainment of health, environmental and
climate change goals.
Food production:
• Promote a shift to sustainable intensive farming systems
(FAO, Save and Grow, 2011): systems that use much less
energy, build up soil organic matter (sequestering carbon,
raising fertility and enhancing water infiltration and
retention), improve water use efficiency, engage in biological
nitrogen fixation and integrated pest management;
• Recover degraded land to increase production without
advancing into new areas;
• Support sustainable small-scale production in poor and
developing countries to supply local markets.
Food consumption and nutrition:
• Encourage widespread adoption of a good mixed diet in
order to bring down the average level of food intake in
over-consuming countries;
• Provide targeted social protection grants to enable poor
families to meet their nutritional needs.
Food wastage:
• Discourage wastage by food and nutrition education
programmes.
There is an emerging consensus that agriculture and the
clearing of forest mainly to make room for farming
together account for between one-quarter and one-third of all
the greenhouse gas emissions that drive the processes of global
warming and climate change. The main sources are fossil fuels
used by farm machinery and in food transport and processing,
as well as in fertiliser manufacture, and methane that is
released from flooded paddy fields and intensive livestock
systems. Farmers in some regions may benefit from better
conditions, but, in general, climate change will play havoc
with agriculture, significantly altering crop growth conditions
and unleashing more frequent extreme weather events.
ConvergenT, reinForCing
TeChniqueS
What is abundantly clear from the above is that to blindly
insist on approaching the expansion of food production,
consumption and wastage, following conventional systems,
is a recipe for future disaster. This course will amplify the
already serious degradation of natural resources, create
huge human health problems and accelerate the processes
of climate change, making it increasingly difficult to meet
future food needs.
Instead, humankind must explore ways in which the
pursuit of the goals of increased food production, better
human health, environmental conservation and a slowing
down of climate change processes can converge and be
Shifts in the ways in which food is produced, consumed
and wasted can contribute importantly to the achievement
of global and national health, environmental and climate
change objectives and should be encouraged by incentives
related to the achievement of the latter.
José Graziano da Silva, Ph.D, is the Director-General Elect of FAO.
He will take up office on January 1, 2012. Graziano da Silva has had
a distinguished career in the fields of food security, agriculture and
rural development, and led the design and initial implementation of
the Zero Hunger programme in Brazil. Since 2006, he has served as
FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) has the mandate to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural
productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the
growth of the world economy. Achieving food security for all is at the
heart of FAO’s efforts – to make sure people have regular access to
enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives.
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00153 Rome, Italy
Tel: +39 06 57051 | Fax: +39 06 570 53152
Email: fao-hq@fao.org | Web: www.fao.org
29 climateactionprogramme.org