Food Security
By Burson-Marsteller

The world we eat in is changing

• Close to a billion people in the world are hungry and there is growing poverty, unemployment, and displacement in the rural sector. Conditions have rapidly been getting worse for families globally as they are battered by surging food prices. Rising costs are dragging more people into poverty, fuelling political tensions and forcing ever more people to go hungry.
• Food is now costing up to 70% of family income in the poorest areas of the world. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index — which covers 90 countries — was up 22% in March 2010 from the previous year.

From credit crunch to food crunch
A deep-rooted set of factors is destabilising the world food market:

• The US, once the world’s greatest exporter of grains, is now diverting 20% of its cereal harvest to biofuel. The grain needed to fill the tank of a typical American SUV would meet the annual needs of one person in developing countries.
• The rising demand for animal feed for intensive meat production. This has given rise to a campaign for Meat Free Mondays.
• Poor harvests from traditional cereal exporters, such as Australia and Russia, which have been linked to climate change.

Global land grab

• The world community is in widespread agreement about the urgency of more investment in agriculture. The food crisis, partly characterized by unstable markets and low reserves, has led governments to seek measures to meet their food security needs more directly than through global trade.
• Governments and corporations, looking to outsource food and energy more directly themselves, are promoting a new wave of land acquisitions, known as "land grabs." Persian Gulf states are working out land deals in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. India has set up agricultural projects in Brazil. South Korea recently tried to buy up nearly half of the island of Madagascar.

Longer term food supply problems looming

• Currently, the world’s population stands at 6.8 billion and is predicted to rise to between 8 billion and 10.5 billion between 2040 and 2050.
• In 1996, the World Food Summit set a goal of halving the number of undernourished people by 2015. The Food and Agriculture Organization says that target is not going to be met: World Agriculture towards 2030/2050 (pdf, 1.54 Mb).
  
• The UK government, in consultation with the EU, has put together a strategy around 6 core issues: healthy diet; resilient food system; sustainable production; reducing emissions; reducing waste; increasing impact of knowledge & technology:Food 2030 (pdf, 1.77 Mb).
  

Food Security was originally published in Future Perspective, a Burson-Martellar newsletter.