Food security: as important as climate action

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 and its consequences on the global food supplies and prices made us all realise just how deeply interconnected and global our food chain is. Global food trade has increased exponentially since the 90’s. Between 2000 and 2021, the UN Commission on Trade and Development tells us in a joint study with WHO, food trade has increased by 350% to a value of US$1.7 trillion.

Yet, it also tells us that 783 million people face hunger, and that 70% of those live in areas afflicted by war and violence.

Beyond food, the farming inputs necessary to its production, animal feed ingredients, fertiliser components and pesticides are also traded globally. This trade is also impacted by geopolitics and climate events, and shortages or price swings impact directly the profitability of primary producers, and therefore the availability and price of food.

The world population is expected to grow to close on 10 billion people by 2050, and demand for food to grow by 70% over the same period. Providing food security for all will require producing more food with smaller climate and environmental footprints, wasting less of it, and distributing it more fairly.

Food insecurity contributes to a vicious circle of geopolitical unrest, wars and crisis migration. “Zero hunger” is rightly the second of the UN 17 Sustainability Goals, just after “No poverty”.

In countries of the global north, “food deserts” have been found to contribute to poor nutrition, obesity, diabetes and cardio-vascular ill-health.

For those who care as much for humanity as for the planet, food insecurity is at least as much a threat as climate change.

Not just a poor country problem

When we think about food insecurity, our minds go to regions where armed conflict or climate challenges prevent impoverished and stressed populations from growing, harvesting or otherwise accessing food. This is certainly the most serious aspect of the global food insecurity crisis, if one reads the most recent reports from the World Bank, or the Global Report on Food Crises 2024. The tragedy of Gaza is currently the highest profile example of armed conflict and geopolitics leading to catastrophic food shortages and famine, but there are many other warzones, and drought or flood-stricken regions.

Food insecurity also affects parts of the global north. “Food deserts” are areas where populations lack easy access to or affordability of quality, fresh, nutritious food. In the US, they are found in zones that are relatively thinly populated, have a higher rate of abandoned or vacant homes, and have populations with lower educational, earning and employment levels. They are disproportionately associated with Black communities. They are measured by the distance to the nearest store, or the number of stores in an area; the level of household resources, including income and car ownership, and local infrastructure, including public transport. More about US food deserts in this Annie E. Casey Foundation blog.

In the European Union, the second State of Food Security in the EU based on a survey of stakeholders in January and February 2024 makes for sobering reading. The survey suggests the challenges to global food supply will persist. Those include continued high and volatile input costs, low commodity prices squeezing the profitability of vulnerable farms, extreme weather events challenging crop plantings and harvests, international supply chain bottlenecks related to issues in the Red Sea, the continued impact of the Russian war in Ukraine, and more.

The report also reviews European food insecurity from the consumers’ perspective. While inflationary pressures have eased, food prices remain significantly above what they were two years ago, and consumers’ purchasing power has been eroded as wage increases have not kept up.

The consequences of food insecurity

Food is one of our most basic physiological needs, as outlined in Maslow’s hierarchy. Not only is it indispensable to our survival, but nutritious food is also essential to human health, another fundamental need.

Apart from the physiological consequences, the lack of availability of food leads to social unrest, at worst to famine. In addition to the insecurity caused by conflict, food insecurity is often at the root of migration, and in the context of the current migration crisis should be a high priority for all of us.

In peaceful developed countries, lack of access to fresh, nutritious food, also a form of food insecurity, can affect between eight and 20 percent of populations. Reliance on food banks is a growing trend in many countries of the Global North. In the UK, research by the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation last year found that state benefits fell £140/month short of the minimum living costs.

The “food deserts” expression used in US research suggests geographical areas with insufficient density of food sources, or insufficient ease of transport, personal or public, to access the food. However, all the research I have looked at suggests food deserts are at least as much about issues such as lack of resources and lack of access to transport in certain populations as they are about their geographical isolation.

Inability to access or afford nutritious, fresh food has serious health implications – diabetes, obesity, cardio-vascular diseases, and many more health issues with life threatening and societal consequences. Improving security is as important as climate action.

Food waste

A scandalous 30% of food is wasted globally. The UNFAO says that, if food waste were a country, it would be the third highest global emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China and the US.

Food waste arises at various points of the chain, reflecting the type of crop/produce, the level of economic development, the cultural and social practices in various regions.

The graph below shows a substantial level of waste in agriculture in almost every region. While developed countries have relatively efficient post-harvest, processing and distribution, they show remarkably high levels of waste in consumption. Developing country food waste is very significant at all stages except consumption.

Food waste in the food chain, by region

Source: UNFAO 2017

Solving food waste along the chain would go a very long way to improve food security.

The often-repeated advice to consumers on ‘best before’ versus ‘sell by’ dates, shopping with a list and a meal plan for the week, does not seem to make much impact. Perhaps including those types of basic life skills as part of the school curriculum for all children and teenagers and returning to a generalisation of home economics as part of the school programme would make a bigger impact. Including basic nutrition and cooking education would make for better, healthier future consumers, too, for the greater good of society at large.

At primary production level, it can be difficult to match supply and demand, as the cycle of crops or animal productions is different from the consumption cycle, and demand for produce can fall unexpectedly – the COVID19 linked restaurant closures led to a lot of wasted crops.

Food produced may not be harvested due to damage caused by weather, pests or diseases. Crops can be left unharvested because the price available from the market does not cover the cost of harvesting.

Labour shortages can also lead to crops being left in the field – Brexit-related changes in immigration laws, and the fall off in the number of foreign workers British agriculture relied on is a good example.

Finally, “ugly produce”, i.e. produce which falls outside of a relatively narrow retail spec focused on appearance or blemishes, also contributes to food waste.

Harvesting and processing crops that will otherwise be wasted, say to utilise them through food banks, is a costly exercise, and one which only government or NGOs would likely take on.

There are some interesting private initiatives trying to address food waste, including the obsession with appearance in what are perfectly good, fresh and nutritious produce, by roping in the conscious consumer at one end, and the CSG conscious food business at the other.

In Ireland, Food Cloud sets out its mission to use technology to connect “businesses that have surplus food to communities that can use it.”

Cream of the Crop Food, masterminded by Brazilian Chef Giselle Makinde, has been producing “artisan gelatos and sweet treats from surplus foods”.

Australia’s Good and Fugly sells produce of imperfect appearance direct to consumers through a box scheme.

In France, Les Gueules Cassées (the broken mugs, a name given to the disfigured World War One soldiers) operates a scheme which works through a number of established big brand retailers. This initiative has evolved to also take into account a fair remuneration of farmers for their produce, and this project gave rise to the C’est Qui le Patron phenomenon, a consumer co-operative brand set up to pay a fair price which equitably remunerates the producer.

This brand, without any marketing spend beyond social media, developed massively, first with milk, then numerous other products and is now present in all retailers. I wrote about this in the March 2022 newsletter.

What contribution does Ireland make to global food security?

Those who question the sustainability of Irish food production sometimes argue that Ireland produces food for an affluent global elite, and therefore makes little or no contribution to global food security. This point is generally made in the context of radical arguments to cut animal-based food production to reduce GHG emissions.

Is that a fair assessment?

While the success of the Kerrygold butter brand as a premium offering is well documented – currently No. 1 brand in Ireland and Germany, and second brand in the US – few people realise how Irish milk powder, including enriched milk powder is also sold in African and Middle Eastern countries to satisfy more basic nutritional needs.

Top beef cuts are exported to the UK and Europe, but we also export meat and live animals to various North African and Middle Eastern countries.

Ireland exports food to 180 countries, though our 10 top food export destinations as outlined in the graphic below are largely developed countries, and the top three products we export are dairy and beef (both a varied portfolio) and beverages (mostly alcoholic beverages, beers and spirits).

Source: Department of Agriculture Annual Review and Outlook 2023 based on CSO data.

Irish food exports are important, particularly within certain markets and segments – Ireland is the sixth most important exporter of food to the UK (US$2.8bn in 2021, source: WITS, World Bank), and the UK is only around 60% self-sufficient in food. It is also the tenth most important supplier of food to France. Irish food has a strong, established and deserved reputation for high quality.

It is probably fair to say that Irish food exports contribute to the diversity and quality of the global food supply, because of the strong focus on sustainability we have developed, especially in the last decade. It is a very different role in the context of global food security to, say, staple crop producers such as countries like Ukraine (pre-war), Brazil or the US.

Those of us who have travelled to the above countries and seen some of their prevalent production systems can testify that Ireland’s agriculture still has a lot of work to do, but is an exemplar of sustainability in the global context.

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