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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] The Links Between Food Security And Climate Change
  • Date: Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:21:27 -0700


The Links Between Food Security And Climate Change
Kanayo F. Nwanze, Copenhagen official site
http://en.cop15.dk/blogs/view+blog?blogid=2560

The future of global food security is highly dependent on two important and
inter-related factors. The first is the degree to which developing countries
will succeed in raising agricultural productivity through technological
change and effective natural resource management. The second is the degree to
which the world will succeed in limiting climate change, while helping
developing countries adapt to climate change and mitigate its effects.

The scale of the challenge of assuring global food security is reflected in
current projections for population growth, and the accompanying projected
growth in the demand for food. On current trends, the world’s population is
projected to swell from 6.8 billion to 9.1 billion by 2050. Most of the
growth, as can be expected, will occur in developing countries. Feeding 9.1
billion people will require that overall global food production grow by 70
per cent. Production in the developing countries will need to almost double.

The enormous burden of feeding a growing global population is made heavier by
the expected adverse impact of climate change on food production. Recent
studies and projections paint a dire picture. In Eastern and South Asia,
climate change is expected to affect rains, increase the frequency of
droughts, and raise average temperatures, threatening the availability of
fresh water for agricultural production. In sub-Saharan Africa, arid and
semi-arid areas are projected to increase significantly. And in Southern
Africa, yields from rain-fed agriculture are expected to fall by up to 50 per
cent as early as 2020.

The impact of climate change on agriculture is therefore likely to lead to a
loss of stability in productivity and an overall decline in food production.
Unless urgent action is taken, climate change will undoubtedly worsen global
food security and dramatically increase the number of people facing hunger
and malnutrition. Current estimates indicate that climate change could put 63
million more people at risk of hunger by 2020.

...Such efforts must necessarily focus on the 500 million smallholder farmers
worldwide who currently support around 2 billion people, or one third of the
world’s population. Increasing their productivity is essential not only to
secure the food and nutrition needs of these farmers, but also of the
millions of people who depend on them.

The recent global food security initiatives must be complemented by concrete
steps to limit climate change if their goals are to be met. It is therefore
vital that at Copenhagen negotiators indeed ‘seal a credible climate deal’. I
hope that the agreement not only delivers cuts in emissions, but also
recognizes the close and unique relation between food security and climate
change...
(11 Nov 2009)
The hopes for a firm treaty at Copenhagen have been all but shattered now. -KS

related: http://www.ciwf.org.uk/resources/publications/eating_the_planet.aspx
and
http://www.ciwf.org.uk/news/factory_farming/we_dont_need_factory_farming...





  • [Livingontheland] The Links Between Food Security And Climate Change, Tradingpost, 12/08/2009

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