Volume 13, Number 32: 11 August 2010
In a recent editorial in Science, Uma Lele (2010) -- a former senior advisor to the World Bank -- begins her short treatise on the subject of world food needs with the remarkable statement that "there are at least one billion poor people living with chronic undernourishment, and the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of substantially reducing the world's hungry by 2015 will not be met." Well, perhaps "remarkable" is not the best word to describe Lele's assessment of the world's future food outlook, considering the fact that the UN's Millennium Development Goal was little more than a lofty-sounding expression of wishful thinking by an organization that seems to specialize in making such noble pronouncements. But we digress.
"The main battlegrounds for poverty reduction are Asia and Africa," according to Lele, where, as she continues, "97% of the world's food-insecure reside." And she adds that "according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [another creation of the United Nations], a 2°C increase in temperature could lead to a further 20 to 40% fall in cereal yields, mostly in Asia and Africa." Therefore, she states that "lifting a billion people out of poverty and feeding an extra 2.3 billion by 2050 will require increasing cereal production by 70%," which is equivalent to "doubling the output of developing countries," for which quantitative statements Lele cites the findings of the World Summit on Food Security held in Rome (Italy) in mid-November 2009, which was sponsored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization -- yet another construct of that less-than-illustrious multi-country entity.
So how are the tremendous food needs of the world's teeming masses to be met? Lele lists such things as improved access to knowledge, technologies and markets, as well as innovations involving natural resource management, restructuring the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and "the 2009 pledge of the G8 countries of $20 billion in new aid to food and agriculture over the next three years, with a focus on Asia and Africa." This new listing of good intentions is, again, little more than a litany of lofty-sounding expressions of both wishful thinking and meddlesome tinkering, which leads us to wonder: Does anyone really believe that the United Nations' new lip service will prove any more effective than its old lip service?
Fortunately, nature herself will come to our aid, as the air's CO2 content continues to climb ever higher, enhancing both the productivity and the water use efficiency of the world's crops, which sustain people, and the planet's natural vegetation, which sustains the rest of the biosphere ... if we let it. Unfortunately, we may not, as many in the world seem intent on turning back the clock on industrial and technological development by curtailing the use of fossil fuels to produce the energy we require to (1) sustain or improve our economies, (2) elevate or maintain our standard of living, and (3) protect and preserve what yet remains of wild nature.
Will we the people do what we must do to save ourselves and the rest of the biosphere? ... and at one and the same time? Well, will we? The answer does not reside with us. It resides with you.
Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso
Reference
Lele, U. 2010. Food security for a billion poor. Science 326: 1554.