What are the interactions between Food Security and Planetary Boundaries?

1. What are the interactions between Food Security and Planetary Boundaries? ? John Ingram NERC Food Security Leader Environmental Change Institute University of Oxford

2. Food security… ... exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. (UN-FAO World Food Summit 1996) … is more than food production … is underpinned by food systems

4. GECAFS Food System Concept Food System ACTIVITIES Producing food: natural resources, inputs, markets, … Processing & packagingfood: raw materials, standards, storage requirement, … Distributing & retailingfood: transport, marketing, advertising, … Consumingfood: acquisition, preparation, customs, … ... exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. (World Food Summit 1996) Food System OUTCOMES Contributing to: • Social Welfare • Income • Employment • Wealth • Social capital • Political capital • Human capital • Environmental • Welfare • Ecosystem stocks & flows • Ecosystem services • Planetary Boundaries Food Security, i.e. stability over time for: FOOD UTILISATION FOOD ACCESS • Nutritional Value • Social Value • Food Safety • Affordability • Allocation • Preference FOOD AVAILABILITY • Production • Distribution • Exchange

5. So what are the contributions of Food Systems to crossing Planetary Boundaries? Food System ACTIVITIES Producing food Processing & Packaging food Distributing & Retailing food Consuming food ?

6. 1: Agriculture as a driver of Land-cover Change Extensification Pressure on many (?all) Planetary Boundaries Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

7. 2: Agriculture as a driver of GHG emissions 70% of arable GHG emissions connected with N fertilizer (manufacture, use): CO2 & N2O Agriculture 13% EarthTrends, 2008

8. Contribution of agriculture to crossing planetary boundaries Campbell 2011, based on Bennett et al. (in prep.)

9. Contribution of capture fisheries to crossing planetary boundaries

10. But ‘Food Systems’ involve more than producing food … Food System ACTIVITIES Producing food: natural resources, inputs, markets, … Processing & packagingfood: raw materials, standards, storage requirement, … Distributing & retailingfood: transport, marketing, advertising, … Consumingfood: acquisition, preparation, customs, …

11. … and a major proportion of GHG emissions from food systems are not from agriculture Edwards et al., Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy,2009

12. Food Processing • Common characteristics of wastes from the industry • Large amounts of organic materials such as proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids • Large amounts of suspended solids depending on the source • High biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and/or chemical oxygen demand (COD) • High N concentration • High suspended oil or grease contents • High variations in pH • Most have higher levels than municipal sewage • Kroyer, 1995

13. Processing Food Food processing plants are responsible for 4.7% of total manufacturing intake but account for 5.2% of total consumption Dupont & Renzetti, Can J Ag Econ, 1998

14. Packaging Food • Packaging: • some environmental issues • Litter • Use of raw materials for packaging • Ease and convenience of packaging disposal • Adverse consequences of careless disposal of packaging • Feasibility of recycling or reuse • Real and virtual energy content

15. Retailing food Refrigerant leakage accounts for 30% of super-markets’ direct GHG emissions (Environment Investigation Agency, 2010) Guardian 1 February 2009

16. But the retail industry is “tidying up” Net GHG emissions connected with premises, transport and refrigerants The Co-operative Group Sustainability Report 2008/09

17. Consuming Food Breakdown (%) of energy use in commercial kitchens in the US (broadly similar in the UK) 19 19 23 Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, 2009

18. Consuming Food Environmental and operational CO2 usage (kgCO2) per meal served Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, 2009

21. ‘Food Security’ is now the BIG ISSUE Independent; 16 October 2011: World Food Day

22. Food systems are already failing many:1.02 billion people hungry in 2009 Developed 15m “In New York City the number of people having trouble paying for food has increased 60%, to 3.3m, since 2003 and ... a staggering one in five of the city's children rely on soup kitchens - up by 48% since 2004” Economist, Jan 14th 2010 NENA 42m Asia & Pac 642m SSA 265m LAC 53m “One new food bank opens every week in UK as more people find they cannot afford to feed themselves and their families” London Times, April 17th 2012

23. Food systems are failing a further 2 billion! • 1 billion with insufficient nutrition • 1 billion with too much food and/or “poor” diet

24. How do changes in Climate and other Planetary Boundaries affect Food Security? ? Food Security, i.e. stability over time for: FOOD UTILISATION FOOD ACCESS • Nutritional Value • Social Value • Food Safety • Affordability • Allocation • Preference Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. (World Food Summit, 1996) FOOD AVAILABILITY • Production • Distribution • Exchange

25. Concern that climate change will undermine food production in many parts of the world… Anticipated wheat yield decline by 2030 Australia exports 15 Mt/yr (~19% of world exports) Kokic, et al. Australian Commodities, 2005

26. … further compromised by O3 pollution. The accumulated hourly mean ozone concentration above 40 ppb, during daylight hours • Significant yield losses for important food crops • Adaptation strategies were modelled, e,g. change of timing of crop growth period to avoid peak ozone, but no marked improvement was found

27. Extreme weather events also disrupt food distribution systems …

28. … and food storage …

29. … and food safety. • Mycotoxinsformed on plant products in the field or during storage • Residues of pesticides in plant products affected by changes in pest pressure • Trace elements and/or heavy metals in plant products depending on changes in their abundance and availability in soils • Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in foods following changes in long-range atmospheric transport and deposition into the environment • Marine biotoxinsin seafood following production of phycotoxins by harmful algal blooms • Pathogenic bacteria in foods following more frequent extreme weather conditions, such as flooding and heat waves. Miraglia et al., Food and Chemical Toxicology, 2009

30. Weather-induced price spikes affect affordability

31. Consequences of the2008 Food Price Crisis

32. Bringing it all together Need to consider FS:PB interactions in context of drivers and feedbacks Environmental feedbacks e.g. water quality, GHGs GEC DRIVERS Changes in: Land cover & soils, Atmospheric Comp., Climate variability & means, Water availability & quality, Nutrient availability & cycling, Biodiversity, Sea currents & salinity, Sea level Food System ACTIVITIES Producing food Processing & Packaging food Distributing & Retailing food Consuming food ‘Natural’ DRIVERS e.g. Volcanoes Solar cycles DRIVERInteractions Food System OUTCOMES Contributing to: Food Security Social Welfare EnvironWelfare Socioeconomic DRIVERS Changes in: Demographics, Economics, Socio-political context, Cultural context Science & Technology Food Utilisation Food Access Food Availability Socioeconomic feedbacks e.g. livelihoods, social cohesion

33. So what do we do about it? • Adapt to inevitable change • Mitigate further change

34. Adaptation“doing things differently” Producing food Processing & packaging food Distributing & retailing food Consuming food => adapt our Food System “Activities”

35. Adaptation: Improved agriculture, livestock, horticulture, aquaculture, fisheries, … • More varied crops • Stress-tolerant varieties • Wider range of food stuffs • Novel food producing systems • Improve water mgmt • Insurance for producers • …

36. Adaptation: Preserving crop varieties for the future • Opened 2008 • > 4,000,000 samples • -18 oC • “Climate-change proof”

37. Adaptation: Improving food storage ~ 15-25% losses to pests and damp in store

38. Adaptation: Considering novel foods?

39. Tuomisto & Teixeira de Mattos. Env Sci & Tech, 2011

40. Mitigation: improving N-use efficiency? China grain production and fertilizer consumption (1980 = 100) Fertilizer Grain Considerable food production achievement BUT inefficient use (quantity, timing)

41. Still a need to improve N-use efficiency Vitouseket al, Science,2009

42. Mitigation: reduced tillage? • Reduce SOC oxidation • Reduce input energy

43. Mitigation: Sequestering more carbon in soil? • At a C/N ratio of 12 in soil organic matter (SOM), 1 tonne of stored C requires 83 kg N/ha • At approximately $0.85/kg N applied, N cost of 1 tonne SOM is $71/ha • Current price of C on European market is <$25… N Cost of Carbon Sequestration Ken Cassman, perscomm

44. Mitigation: Reducing food miles? The Well Travelled Yogurt Pot: Stefanie Böge

45. What about us as individuals? Adaptation/Mitigation: Accepting less choice? Tesco Oxford has 25,000 different food lines…

46. Adaptation & Mitigation: Modifying our diets? => One of the biggest, most immediate impacts!

47. Behavioural Change and Personal Action CO2 emissions Emissions reductions (MtCO2e) achievable if adopted by 100% of the US population

48. Input Suppliers Farmers Processors Transporters Retailers Final Consumers Reducing food waste • May occur anywhere along the supply chain, from farm to final consumer • Difficult to measure • Globally, 15-50% of food is lost post-harvest • Often unnoticed until too late Waste

49. Reducing food waste Derived from Lundqvist, 2009 & Godfray et al, 2010

50. Reducing food waste • Every household in the UK wastes between £250 and £400 of food per year • Avoidable waste of cereal-based food in the UK and USA could lift 224 million people out of hunger • Producing and distributing edible food that goes to waste accounts for around 5% of all UK GHG emissions • Food Ethics Council, 2009 Alleviating food insecurity by reducing food waste is as important as by increasing food production… … environmentally, economically and ethically!