RESULTS:

For thousands of years nature has gracefully provided the necessary inputs to feed us and we have in many occasions taken these precious gifts for granted. This report “Food Systems and Natural Resources” is an effort to account for these inputs looking at how we are using and managing them the consequences of that management and the options to improve the efficiency with which they are managed.

This chapter provides background information on the use of natural resources as needed for food production processing retail and consumption as well as the environmental impacts related to these activities. Food production is critically dependent on a large array of natural resources such as land fresh water genetic resources and minerals. Many of these resources are in principle ‘renewable’ and given proper management can be used for centuries or more as they are naturally replenished or regenerated. When this is however not the case the potential of these resources to provide a resilient basis for food systems and notably food production will be reduced including lower crop yields fish catches or livestock production. This intrinsically connects the issue of natural resource use to the food security challenge.

We are undergoing a revolution in food systems. Every day there are new evidence-based studies reports and articles on how food affects so many aspects of people’s lives. At the same time there is also fervent debate about how to produce the food we need on a planet now under serious threat from the impacts of climate change. Clearly we cannot continue by merely increasing production at a high cost to the environment. The way food is produced and consumed has far-reaching implications in shaping people’s diets and the health of the planet. The nutrition–environment–development equation has never been so hard to solve. How we can address the challenge of promoting sustainable food systems that also offer healthy diets for all?

This Annex lists a number of resource specific biophysical options to make more sustainable and efficient use of the various natural resources as being used in food systems. It has to be stressed that the choice of options is very resource-specific and therefore no general recommendations can be given. Additionally much more can be said about options for each individual resource than is feasible in the context of this report. For more detailed options and their consequences specific literature should be consulted (i.e. literature cited below).

Food systems are complex non-linear multidimensional and heterogeneous networks of social economic institutional and environmental relations evolving over space and time. They are characterized and affected by webs of complex interactions - cutting across borders both within and between countries - and feedback loops broad constellations of policies as well as multi-scale power relations and the political economy. These features have strong consequences on the way policies should be conceived and on the way how knowledge should be assembled and conveyed to inform them and policy action.

In the post-war era insufficient production of food was the major cause of food insecurity in the world. Not only was it considered urgent to increase available cropland but increasing yields was also seen as a strategic priority. The intensification of crop production around the world began in earnest with the Green Revolution often referred to as the Second Agricultural Revolution. Beginning in the 1950s and expanding through the 1960s crop varieties and agricultural practices changed worldwide (Royal Society 2009). The production model which focused initially on the introduction of improved higher-yielding varieties of wheat rice and maize in high potential areas (Hazell 2018 and Gollin et al. 2005) relied upon and promoted homogeneity: genetically uniform varieties grown with high levels of complementary inputs such as irrigation fertilizers and pesticides which often led to depletion of agroecological resilience and hence natural capital (FAO 2011b). Fertilizers replaced soil quality management while herbicides provided an alternative to crop rotations or other means of controlling weeds (Tilman 1998). The high growth in food production in Asia during the Green Revolution was due largely to the intensive use of mineral fertilization along with improved germplasm and irrigation. World production of mineral fertilizers increased almost 350 percent between 1961 and 2002 from 33 million tonnes to 146 million tonnes (World Bank 2007).

Food security as defined by the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security is the condition in which all people at all times have physical social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Over the coming decades a changing climate growing global population increasing incomes changes in food choices rising food prices and environmental stressors such as increased water scarcity and land degradation will have significant yet uncertain impacts on food security. There are different aspects having direct links to meeting food security at the global level including globalization of markets.