Climate action need not be incompatible with food security
The Ukraine war forces urgent action
Recent world events have brought food security centre stage. Food insecurity is not a new concern for many developing countries, where climate and geopolitical events regularly cause crop failures and hunger. For us in the West, this is coming uncomfortably close to home, after global shortages linked to supply chains challenged by the pandemic – and by Brexit (remember Brexit?). So, now, food price inflation linked to fast rising energy, animal feed and fertiliser costs has been compounded by the Russian attack on Ukraine, and the ensuing disruptions and sanctions. Not only are we Irish and European folk seeing the cost of fuelling our cars and heating our homes skyrocket, but the rising price of staples is also jacking up our food bills.
Food production is a global business
No country is (or can be) entirely self-sufficient in food because of climatic, geological, economic, or even political reasons. Most countries import and some export certain foods. We understand this well in Ireland, as we export over 80% of our dairy and beef output but import around 85% of our fruit and vegetable needs, according to CSO.
Russia and Ukraine are also big players in the world of food trade. Ukraine and Russia each contribute the equivalent of around 6% of globally traded food calories. Together they accounted for 25.4% of globally traded wheat in 2019. In addition, Ukraine accounts for 17% of corn (maize) exports, and together, Russia and Ukraine produce around 58% and account for 76% of sunflower oil trade which finds its way in many food processing chains.
Russia is also a major supplier of fertiliser, as well as gas and oil. With sanctions blocking those trade flows, fertilisers and other agri-chemicals which were already more costly because of rising pre-war gas and energy prices, are now also getting scarce as well as dear.
Russia’s and Ukraine’s main customers for wheat are Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh, Indonesia Nigeria and Tunisia (see graph below) – all populous countries for which poor food security is a concern at the best of times. Wheat is the main ingredient in bread and many other widely consumed world staples. In colloquial Egyptian Arabic, bread is called ‘aish’, literally ‘life’. Remember, back in 2011, the “Arab Spring”, which led to civil unrest and strife in much of the Middle East, began in Tunisia because of corruption and economic stagnation. Rising bread prices were a major ingredient at the root of public protests. Armed conflict ensued, as well as the displacement of populations and a migration crisis which spread to Europe via the Mediterranean, with many tragic sea crossings.
Wheat is also an essential ingredient in animal feed, and both Russia and Ukraine were important suppliers pre-war.
Food insecurity closer to home
Rapidly rising food, fuel and heating bills have led many Western governments, including our own, to enact tax and other financial supports aiming at relieving the cost of living for their citizens.
There have been calls for farmers to produce more food, with suggestions that some of the agricultural regulations planned to meet climate, biodiversity or water quality targets be loosened up to face up to the urgency of the situation.
France, which currently holds the Presidency of the European Union, has called for Europe to produce more food to avoid global scarcity and insecurity. The impact on food supply chains of the war in Ukraine led the European Union to release a €500m fund to support farmers and promote EU crop production, which member states can complement up to 200% with national funds.
In addition, the EU is allowing flexibility to pay more of the CAP direct payments in advance to support farmers’ cash flow, and to use safety net market measures to support the pig sector. Farmers will also be allowed to utilise fallow land to produce more crops and forage without suffering penalties on their CAP Greening payments. Import requirements on animal feed are also to be loosened up to alleviate market pressures. Other measures include the mapping of risks and vulnerabilities of the EU supply chain with the identification of mitigation measures, and the creation of a Temporary Crisis Framework to cover farmers, fertiliser producers and the fisheries sector.
Internal EU food security may not be a major concern, but the Commission fears that many EU member states are not self-sufficient in feed, and it wants to support farmers whose margins are badly squeezed by skyrocketing costs. It also wants to reassert the EU’s potential to respond to developing countries’ food security needs in the wake of the war.
The French Government have committed a €400m fund to support farmers facing rising feed costs, and, among other energy related measures, have also extended to agricultural fuel the 15c/l price rebate conceded on motor fuel for all other consumers.
Other European governments have also come up with measures to support hard hit farmers, utilising the EU fund.
In Ireland, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue called on farmers, including livestock farmers, to dedicate some of their land to grow more crops and encourage the establishment of multi species swards – less greedy in N fertilisers – in a bid to maintain forage yields. A €12m scheme funded from the EU €500m fund referenced above has been made available which will pay farmers between €150/ha and €400/ha for grain, protein, or mixed crops.
Meanwhile in the US, The USDA have announced a US$250m investment plan to promote US production of fertilisers to replace costly imported fertilisers and promote national crop production.
Does EU Farm to Fork strategy need to be rethought?
Numerous studies of the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy, the agricultural core of the EU commission’s ambitious Green Deal and its Fit for 55 policies, have been carried out in the last couple of years. We reported on them in some detail in our December 2020, October 2021 and especially in our February 2022 newsletters. The USDA, the EU Commission’s JRC itself and Wageningen University to name just a few, have all come to similar conclusions. Farm to Fork would reduce the EU’s production capacity, damage its international competitiveness, increase its dependence on potentially less sustainably produced imported foods, thereby exposing the EU to carbon leakage. Critically, all those studies also pointed to the risk which reducing the EU’s production capacity held for global food security.
This is because Farm to Fork plans for a reduction of at least 20% in fertiliser and 50% in pesticide uses by 2030 – and this, the EU Commission tells us, without deterioration to soil fertility – because it will “act to reduce nutrient losses by at least 50%”. In addition, the strategy plans for an increase in organic farming from around 8% of EU agricultural land to 25%, all of this by 2030.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions have pushed food security to the forefront and shown up the inadequacy of our food policies. This is leading to apparent U-turns which politicians tell us are short term, and, let’s face it, necessary in the face of the immediate emergency. These “temporary” policy changes also relate to our use of fossil fuels as prices rise and availability comes into question. And they are understandably causing genuine jitters among those who care about the environment.
Climate change, losses of biodiversity, air and water pollution are all urgent issues which are not made less so by the war in Ukraine or the inflation in food and energy costs. Environmental and climate deterioration worsens food insecurity, as crops can fail because of weather events as certainly as because war prevents planting or harvesting. Food inflation due to either cause leads to hunger and social strife, more armed conflict, more population displacements, more food shortages, and more humanitarian tragedies.
Our food policies need not just temporary, but more fundamental changes to deliver on both climate action and adequate quantities of sustainably produced food for the growing global human population. We need more than temporary concessions against existing environmental rules to boost food production or diversify our fossil fuel sources. We must do better and ensure that our environmental and climate rules permanently enable farmers to produce plentiful food while emitting less GHG and promoting the recovery of biodiversity. We must also speed up the development of renewable energy production, and accept the need for transition fuels like LPG and nuclear on our way to reducing our dependence on fossil fuel. None of this is impossible, but it requires a rethink of existing policies to make sure regulatory restrictions on fertiliser, pesticide and fossil fuel use are accompanied by regulatory facilitation of massive investment in and technical support for viable alternatives.
Climate action need not be sacrificed for food security
Reducing our exposure to climate events damaging food production capacity is at least as urgent as reducing our exposure to fossil fuels by pushing hard for the rapid development of renewable energy generation. There appears to be added momentum from the war in Ukraine on the latter, and the former cannot fall away while we scramble to replace lost food production capacity. We must produce more food, more sustainably, in those regions which have the best sustainability prospects and natural advantages, while supporting less food secure regions in developing their production capacity.
The challenge is to muster all technologies, including those which the EU has been sniffy about – like gene editing and genetic modification. These have been proven to help reduce the usage of fertilisers and pesticides and produce higher yields without requiring additional land. Organic food production does have a part to play, but only insofar as it is market led, in response to increased demand, and with adequate margins to justify the higher costs and lower yields.
Conventional agriculture with lower inputs, greater technological engagement, support to farmers to develop multi species swards, and more habitats for biodiversity can deliver more on the environmental front. This was convincingly shown by a scientific literature review published in 2021 which shows that conventional farming, where biotechnology (GM) and/or integrated pest management is used, can achieve good profitability, as well as social and environmental/climate improvements.
And before we go… Daily Bread
Daily Bread is the title of an award-winning photography exhibition and book 
by Gregg Segal, an American photographer who approaches his work with the sensibility of a sociologist. For this project, he travelled around the world meeting children, and asked them to keep a weekly diary of the food they consume. He then photographed them with the foods in question. This makes for a fascinating insight into the diets of children around the world, the impact of affluence, and the influence of globalisation on their (and our) eating habits.
Some of the photographs can be seen here:
https://www.1854.photography/awards/openwalls/winners/gregg-segal/
© Catherine Lascurettes, Cúl Dara Consultancy
