A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.

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Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(13)60937-X.pdf

Maternal and child undernutrition and overweight in low-income and middle-income countries

Productivity of crops grown for human consumption is at risk due to the incidence of pests, especially weeds, pathogens and animal pests. Crop losses due to these harmful organisms can be substantial and may be prevented, or reduced, by crop protection measures. An overview is given on different types of crop losses as well as on various methods of pest control developed during the last century.Estimates on potential and actual losses despite the current crop protection practices are given for wheat, rice, maize, potatoes, soybeans, and cotton for the period 2001–03 on a regional basis (19 regions) as well as for the global total. Among crops, the total global potential loss due to pests varied from about 50% in wheat to more than 80% in cotton production. The responses are estimated as losses of 26–29% for soybean, wheat and cotton, and 31, 37 and 40% for maize, rice and potatoes, respectively. Overall, weeds produced the highest potential loss (34%), with animal pests and pathogens being less important (losses of 18 and 16%). The efficacy of crop protection was higher in cash crops than in food crops. Weed control can be managed mechanically or chemically, therefore worldwide efficacy was considerably higher than for the control of animal pests or diseases, which rely heavily on synthetic chemicals. Regional differences in efficacy are outlined. Despite a clear increase in pesticide use, crop losses have not significantly decreased during the last 40 years. However, pesticide use has enabled farmers to modify production systems and to increase crop productivity without sustaining the higher losses likely to occur from an increased susceptibility to the damaging effect of pests.The concept of integrated pest/crop management includes a threshold concept for the application of pest control measures and reduction in the amount/frequency of pesticides applied to an economically and ecologically acceptable level. Often minor crop losses are economically acceptable; however, an increase in crop productivity without adequate crop protection does not make sense, because an increase in attainable yields is often associated with an increased vulnerability to damage inflicted by pests.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/AD61661AD6D503577B3E73F2787FE7B2/S0021859605005708a.pdf/div-class-title-crop-losses-to-pests-div.pdf

Crop losses to pests

Emerging recognition of two fundamental errors under-pinning past polices for natural resource issues heralds awareness of the need for a worldwide fundamental change in thinking and in practice of environmental management. The first error has been an implicit assumption that ecosystem responses to human use are linear, predictable and controllable. The second has been an assumption that human and natural systems can be treated independently. However, evidence that has been accumulating in diverse regions all over the world suggests that natural and social systems behave in nonlinear ways, exhibit marked thresholds in their dynamics, and that social-ecological systems act as strongly coupled, complex and evolving integrated systems. This article is a summary of a report prepared on behalf of the Environmental Advisory Council to the Swedish Government, as input to the process of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa in 26 August 4 September 2002. We use the concept of resilience—the capacity to buffer change, learn and develop—as a framework for understanding how to sustain and enhance adaptive capacity in a complex world of rapid transformations. Two useful tools for resilience-building in social-ecological systems are structured scenarios and active adaptive management. These tools require and facilitate a social context with flexible and open institutions and multi-level governance systems that allow for learning and increase adaptive capacity without foreclosing future development options.

https://bioone.org/journals/AMBIO-A-Journal-of-the-Human-Environment/volume-31/issue-5/0044-7447-31.5.437/Resilience-and-Sustainable-Development--Building-Adaptive-Capacity-in-a/10.1579/0044-7447-31.5.437.pdf

Resilience and sustainable development: building adaptive capacity in a world of transformations

This first report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment describes the conceptual framework that is being used in the MA. It is not a formal assessment of the literature, but rather a scientifically informed presentation of the choices made by the assessment team in structuring the analysis and framing the issues. The conceptual framework elaborated in this report describes the approach and assumptions that will underlie the analysis conducted in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The framework was developed through interactions among the experts involved in the MA as well as stakeholders who will use its findings. It represents one means of examining the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being that is both scientifically credible and relevant to decision-makers. This framework for analysis and decision-making should be of use to a wide array of individuals and institutions in government, the private sector, and civil society that seek to incorporate considerations of ecosystem services in their assessments, plans, and actions.

/pdf/ecosystems-and-human-well-being-a-framework-for-assessment-4qlt46fj9i.pdf

Ecosystems and human well-being: a framework for assessment

The term “food security” has been used over time to mean different things. This brief article discusses the various meanings attached to the concept and suggests that it can be a useful measure of household and individual welfare, particularly if combined with estimates of household food aquisition and allocation behavior. If nutritional security is the goal of interest, estimates of access to food should be combined with estimates of access to clean water and good sanitation. Anthrometric measures are likely to be more appropriate than food security estimates to target policies and programs to improved child nutrition.

Food security: definition and measurement

Fish provides more than 4.5 billion people with at least 15 % of their average per capita intake of animal protein. Fish’s unique nutritional properties make it also essential to the health of billions of consumers in both developed and developing countries. Fish is one of the most efficient converters of feed into high quality food and its carbon footprint is lower compared to other animal production systems. Through fish-related activities (fisheries and aquaculture but also processing and trading), fish contribute substantially to the income and therefore to the indirect food security of more than 10 % of the world population, essentially in developing and emergent countries. Yet, limited attention has been given so far to fish as a key element in food security and nutrition strategies at national level and in wider development discussions and interventions. As a result, the tremendous potential for improving food security and nutrition embodied in the strengthening of the fishery and aquaculture sectors is missed. The purpose of this paper is to make a case for a closer integration of fish into the overall debate and future policy about food security and nutrition. For this, we review the evidence from the contemporary and emerging debates and controversies around fisheries and aquaculture and we discuss them in the light of the issues debated in the wider agriculture/farming literature. The overarching question that underlies this paper is: how and to what extent will fish be able to contribute to feeding 9 billion people in 2050 and beyond?

/pdf/feeding-9-billion-by-2050-putting-fish-back-on-the-menu-1fmfydaj6e.pdf

Feeding 9 billion by 2050 – Putting fish back on the menu

Maternal and child undernutrition: effective action at national level

https://agrilifecdn.tamu.edu/worldcoffee/files/2011/07/World-Food-Prospects.pdf

World Food Prospects: Critical Issues for the Early Twenty-First Century

Increasingly, developing nations which are land rich are sanctioning the sale or transfer of user rights of large tracts of farmland for foreign investment. While this issue is of relatively recent origin, caused in large measure by the recent global food crisis and related to desires by food importing countries to have greater control over their food supply, the impact on food security could be very significant. Because of the newness of the matter, most of the available evidence is found outside traditional academic literature. Poor, smallholder farmers without formal land titles currently occupy much of the land sold in these transactions, threatening the internal food security of the lessor state. Factors driving the global acquisition of land include development aid shortfalls, the global food crisis, the burgeoning middle class in middle- and high-income nations, and the increasing acceptance of biofuels as a viable alternative source of fuel by governments of these nations. The risks associated with the global acquisition of land on food security of the seller country are manifold. This article reviews the current literature available on the subject and makes policy suggestions for equitable investment and benefit-sharing for all stakeholders. Opportunities and risks abound but if the risks are mitigated, then the global acquisition of land has the potential to be an unparalleled development opportunity for lessor states.

Per Pinstrup-Andersen

Papers

Food security: definition and measurement

Feeding 9 billion by 2050 – Putting fish back on the menu

Maternal and child undernutrition: effective action at national level

World Food Prospects: Critical Issues for the Early Twenty-First Century

Global land acquisition: neo-colonialism or development opportunity?