Food security - what security?

Areas most prone to flooding by seawater are densely populated river deltas that are fertile and consequently are areas that are major producers of food crops. Deltas of the great rivers of Asia, particularly the Irrawaddy, Mekong, Ganges, Brahmaputra, the Yellow and the Yangtze-Kiang) provide water and food for between 1 and 2 billion people. All are subject to flooding by the sea in the event of a 1 metre rise in sea level - a rise which we believe will occur.

Inundation by salt water of river deltas that produce food and sustain large populations will destroy property, infrastructure and cultivation and cause the salination of fresh water sources. The latter may never recover due to on-going rises in sea levels. There is no means of protecting against these losses or the disastrous effects on populations confronted with loss of food, water and housing.

Ocean acidification: as the level of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the amount absorbed by seawater also increases, causing the water to become more acidic. This has two effects on calcifying animals such as corals, pteropods and other plankton. First, it attacks their exoskeletons leaving them vulnerable to attack; second, it dissolves aragonite and other calcium in solution from which these animals make their protective shells.

The combined effect is to seriously deplete the population of pteropods on which many fish species feed, reducing the food available to larger fish on which humans depend. It also places fish habitats provided by coral reefs at risk - a risk compounded by warming of surface water as air temperatures rise.

Warming air temperatures, changing ocean currents and other factors associated with global warming produce climate change affecting our ability to grow food crops. A warmer climate will increase crop losses due to insect, fungal and other infections. It becomes too warm or too dry to grow crops requiring a moist temperate climate, while reduced river flows are unable to provide sufficient water for both crop irrigation and human consumption.

This is already evident in southern Australia, southern Africa and Argentina. In all of these areas, the ability to produce food crops and livestock has been reduced. In Russia, a third of the 2010 grain crop has been lost due to scorching heat and drought that have caused crops to wilt and die before they were ready for harvesting.

Our ability to grow food crops is hampered by two further factors: peak oil and more damaging, peak phosphate. Both have already occurred. Both make it difficult and increasingly expensive to produce fertilisers needed to maintain soil fertility. Consequently crop yields will decline significantly by 2050 and contribute to higher costs of cultivation and food prices.

Waste and inefficiency

Significant quantities of food are lost through poor farm storage, distribution and retailing practices.

Farmers, even in developed countries may lack appropriate storage facilities for their crops, particularly grain crops. As a result, substantial quantities of harvested product are lost to rodents and other pests. The high quality demanded by consumers in developed countries means that “B-grade” product may not be harvested and is often left to rot in the field, rather than collected and used as a processed or discount product.

Less developed countries often lack the infrastructure needed for efficient distribution of harvested foodstuffs to markets. As a result fresh product which does get to retailers may have to be discarded because it has deteriorated or is no longer fit for human consumption.

Major retailers, particularly those in developed countries, discard millions of tonnes of product each year. Processed meats are usually sold sliced, the “ends” often thrown out rather than processed and sold in non-slice form or offered at a lower price.

Fresh meat unsold by its use-by date is binned. Fresh fruit and vegetables if unsold at the offered price will deteriorate and be thrown-out rather than be priced to ensure minimum waste or clearance. In the USA, a massive 25 per cent of food production is wasted.