Solving The Intractable Human Problems That Persist in the 21st Century – Part 2: Food Security

Unlike war which I described as being a natural human condition in Part 1 of this series, hunger and a lack of food security are cause-and-effect issues. We believe our species evolved from scavengers and hunter-gatherers. The domestication of plants and animals changed our relationship with the environment. We could begin to assert control over the food supply. Eventually, we got good at it so that even when the environment was uncooperative we could rely on surpluses in food to tie us over until the next harvest.

In the 20th century, a revolution occurred that was equally impactful as the agricultural revolution that preceded it by some nine thousand years. It was the emergence of modern healthcare and antibiotics that extended lifespans from 30 to 50 to 80 plus years. Today, the world has millions of nonagenarians and thousands of centenarians. Our lifespan is no longer a slave to our biology as technological and scientific advancements provide the means to live lives of more than one hundred years. Some in the medical field believe that our natural lifespan can be extended to 130 in this century. Others talk about immortality as being within reach.

Longevity has been accompanied by global human population growth. There were 1.6 billion humans on Earth at the beginning of the 20th century, 6.1 billion at the beginning of the 21st, and more than 8 billion of us today. Along with the human population has come livestock growth. Chickens, turkeys, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs make up the vast majority of domesticated animals that humans rely on for food. The current number of chickens on Earth is 26.56 billion. A census of livestock from 2014 indicated 462 million turkeys, almost 1.5 billion cattle, 1.2 billion sheep, and 1 billion goats and pigs inhabited the planet. That’s a lot of mouths to feed to help feed us.

By 2050, imagine all those numbers being significantly higher. It is, therefore, no wonder, that food security is of paramount interest for those who govern the planet. Global warming is changing precipitation patterns, causing droughts to go longer and be more severe, producing rainfall events that lead to floods, raising sea levels along coasts where most of humanity lives leading to seawater inundation into freshwater underground aquifers, and more.

Agriculture, therefore not surprisingly, is the sector of the global economy that is most impacted by climate change. The risks to food security from our warming atmosphere cannot be understated when looking at food production in the Global South where population increase is the greatest. This area of the planet contains the warmest countries already. It also contains some of the driest.

Temperatures are rising across the Global South and approaching thresholds where habitability is being challenged and where food crops’ normal growth and maturation are being compromised. Warmer air draws moisture from the soil and leaves, a phenomenon known as evapotranspiration. Warmer air tends to hold more moisture which then increases rainfall intensity which damages growing crops. The race between higher evapotranspiration and higher precipitation in warming climates is being won by the former over the latter.

The cause of the warming, anthropogenic greenhouse gasses includes more carbon dioxide (CO2) which some argue stimulates plant growth and photosynthesis. Hotter temperatures, however, counter the potential of enhanced CO2 growth causing damage to crops as they mature.

Closer to the equator means a lessening in crop tolerance in a changing climate. This is where we are likely to see greater food insecurity and potential famine. Although more temperate mid-latitude countries may gain greater yields from global warming, these are the countries least in danger of food insecurity and the ones experiencing the lowest population growth. This means surplus food produced by these countries needs to offset the food insecurity that may become more common in Global South countries.

But no climate models right now can predict for how long global warming will continue to give the agricultural producers in the Global North greater surpluses to share with areas of the planet that will increasingly feel the devastation of global warming. Because, even in the more temperate latitudes, sizable agricultural losses are bound to occur because of extreme weather events brought on by a destabilized atmosphere.

Is there a rescue plan for global agriculture to address food insecurity?

Several technological and adaptive solutions can mitigate the worst scenarios.

These go beyond the obvious solution to reduce and eliminate anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere and include:

1. Global adoption of genetically modified food crops purposefully designed to grow and produce significant yields in the face of changing climate conditions.
2. Adoption of urban farming including vertical agriculture infrastructure in cities where the growing majority of humanity resides. bringing producers closer to consumers.
3. Widespread carbon fertilization of soils to inhibit increased evapotranspiration on farms in the Global South.
4. Reduction in large livestock farming to reduce carbon emissions.
5. Reforestation and afforestation projects to mitigate atmospheric heat where humans live and food crops are grown.
6. Manage population growth to ensure the agricultural yield capacity of the planet is equal to human global food requirements.
7. Improve distribution infrastructure to ensure food surpluses get to areas where there is inadequate production and high food demand.