Guest post: Sustainable agriculture and food demand, by Tim Benton

 

I spend my working life thinking about food security; especially whether food demand can be met whilst also decreasing environmental impacts so that agriculture become truly sustainable.  My personal view is that, by ecological, agricultural and social innovation, there are indeed a range of potential solutions to increasing production, reducing environmental impacts and also decreasing demand.  However, many people do not agree.  Put simply, whilst there is a middle ground, two contrary extreme views are often expressed.  One that demand growth is too high to "worry" about sustainability, and so we should drive productivity at all costs; the other is sustainability is too important to worry about demand growth, and we should address demand growth rather than productivity.

 

The "only production" viewpoint is unsustainable, in the true sense of the word.  Without investing in soils, reducing carbon impacts, ensuring lower pollution levels, preserving ecosystem functions of many sorts, agriculture will eventually splutter and die, becoming untenable.  Economic and social sustainability must rest, in the long term, on environmental sustainability.

 

The "only environment" viewpoint is one that many people inherently have sympathy with, because it puts people, equity and environmental stewardship so highly.  It is often said that there is enough food in the world now, and yet people are still malnourished, leading to a conclusion that food production is not the real issue. Whilst it is true that we produce enough calories worldwide to feed everyone, this is not the same as production of a sufficient range of nutrients for a healthy, balanced diet.  Furthermore, the global production of calories (typically associated with cereals) is clustered in remarkably few areas of the world.  The EU can produce enough calories via cereal production, but a lot of vegetables and fruit – necessary for the balanced diet – need to be produced elsewhere and imported.  For many rural parts of the world, access to such global markets is difficult, if not impossible, either through infra-structural (mainly transport) or monetary constraints.  For these people, increasing production locally is the way for development to happen.

 

Allied to the "we already produce enough food" argument is that by reducing consumption in the developed world, we can reduce demand to the point that global increases in production will not be needed.  Whilst consumption patterns do need to change, the issue for me is the speed at which we can realistically expect them to.  In November 2011, it was announced that global atmospheric carbon was increasing at a rate faster than, what was only 5 years ago, the worst case scenario; despite decades of knowledge that carbon emissions are leading to climate change.  In my lifetime, fuel prices have increased over 20x, yet, if anything, we drive more.  People still smoke, despite the contrary negative evidence.  Radically reducing our personal "food footprints" will, I hope, happen, but it is likely to take decades for "low footprint" lifestyles to mainstream.  The oft-quoted FAO figure of 70% more food by 2050 is very soon relative to the likely pace of change.

 

So, the consensus view is that demand will continue to rise; and so we must have both production AND sustainability as goals for agriculture.  In the long-term, it is likely that societal and behavioural changes will re-tune our demand better to match supply.  The pressure point is in the mid-century; then, the developing world needs to have increased production to match their increased demands and our demands for their produce, and the rich north needs to have maintained or grown production to help balance the global books.  

 

Sustainable production needs to be at the heart of new agriculture, and this really needs to be the case, without greenwashing or lipservice being paid.  We need to invest in soils, increasing organic matter, and therefore carbon storage and water retention; we need to decrease diffuse pollution; and we need to manage landscapes to enhance biodiversity for the range of ecosystem services they provide (pollination, natural pest control, soil fertility, cultural services etc).  For example, we can, in the developed world, utilise developing technologies (including new sensors allowing real-time monitoring of crops, with precision-agriculture to minimise agro-chemical use), whilst enhancing natural pest control via ecological innovation.  

 

For the time being, I genuinely believe we must maintain yield growth, but we need to ensure that we preserve the natural capital for the future.

 

Photo attribution: 'Look to the brighter future,' Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License