Global food shortage and high prices could severely disrupt the world’s economy and social order unless immediate action is taken, according to a report released by Sir John Beddington, the UK Government’s chief scientific advisor. The report prepared by consultancy Foresight and titled, “Global Food and Farming Futures”, predicts a global-food-initiated crisis unless immediate action is taken by governments.
“The Foresight study shows that the food system is already failing in at least two ways. Firstly, it is unsustainable, with resources being used faster than they can be naturally replenished. Secondly, a billion people are going hungry with another billion people suffering from ‘hidden hunger’, whilst a billion people are over-consuming,” Sir John Beddington told the BBC.
“Demand is going to go up,” he said. “We have twenty years to arguably deliver something of the order of forty percent more food, thirty percent more available fresh water, and of the order of fifty percent more energy.”
He stressed the urgency of the current situation by saying we cannot afford to wait for even ten years before taking action, with world population increasing by six million monthly.
“We’ve got to actually think very seriously about taking these together — climate change, food, water, energy — we’ve got to think about them as something that’s integrally linked,” Beddington said.
Amongst the action Beddington recommends is reducing subsidies and breaking down trade barriers to food commerce, consideration of technologies such as genetic modification, and massive technological aid to countries in Africa and Asia where farming needs greater international support.
He also called for greater international action on food price stability, especially as major natural disasters continue to increase in frequency and compromise food supplies.
These are all actions, he claims, that need to be taken now as part of global preparation for the shortages we know are coming, and the stresses these will cause to global communities.
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