The Atlas of Food. Erik Millstone

The Atlas of Food

of ethanol from food crops.

China – dairy demand

The increasing demand for milk and dairy products in China has led to it not only being the third-largest milk-producing country but the largest importer of milk products.

Mauritania – rising food prices

In November 2007, people protested at rising food prices. The price of locally grown foods had increased by 28%, and imported wheat by 75%.

Yemen – food riots

In August and September 2007, people protested in Yemen about rising food prices, caused by higher import prices.

China – big freeze

Early in 2008, the most severe winter weather in 50 years killed millions of livestock and damaged crops, leading to soaring food prices.

Bangladesh – cyclone

In 2007, a cyclone destroyed a rice crop worth $600 million and the price of rice rose by 70%.

Ghana and Benin – biofuel crops

Australia – drought

Plans are being made to plant millions of hectares with jatropha and sugar cane to produce biofuels.

The long-running drought affecting much of Australia led to a halving of the wheat harvest in 2007, and to no grain being exported from east-coast ports.

Tanzania – biofuel crops

Thousands of small-scale farmers have been evicted to make way for jatropha and sugar plantations.

Zambezi valley – floods

Substantial flooding early in 2008 will have a devastating effect on agriculture in the region.

Feeding the World

MORE THAN ENOUGH FOOD is produced to feed everyone in the world, and yet more than 850 million people do not get enough food to lead active and healthy lives. They are consuming too little protein and energy to sustain a healthy weight, and suffer from deficiencies in the composition of their diet that leave them vulnerable to disease. In 2005, the UN FAO estimated that the world’s total production of cereals was about 2.2 billion tonnes. Divided equally between the 6.5 billion people in the world, that would give each person approximately 340 kilograms of cereal a year – sufficient to provide at least 2,000 calories of energy a day for everyone. Most undernourished people live in countries where food is in chronically short supply because of war, natural disasters, poor food distribution, low productivity, or a number of these factors combined. What they all have in common is that they are poor. In wealthy countries, by contrast, the amount of food available is sufficient for people to be able to consume significantly more than the 2,500 calories recommended by nutritionists, even though the food they eat may result in the other extreme of poor nutrition – obesity. Country averages hide wide disparities. In the fast-growing economies of Brazil, China, and India, the more prosperous citizens are switching to western-style diets, high in animal fats and sugars, while their poorest compatriots spend an ever-higher proportion of their household income on food, and still suffer from undernutrition. The World Food Programme and other agencies aim to supply the most vulnerable people with basic foodstuffs, responding both to long-term needs and to emergency situations as they arise.

Bolivia

Severe floods in 2007 and 2008 left thousands of families in need of WFP assistance.

Tajikistan

Freezing temperatures in 2008 led the WFP to appeal to extend its food aid to include food for a further 200,000 impoverished people, hit by rising fuel and food prices.

Afghanistan

In 2008, the WFP provided emergency food for up to 2.5 million Afghans who could no longer afford wheat because of global price rises.

Zimbabwe

The WFP is providing food for people affected by shortages and escalating prices.

3 Unequal Distribution; 6 Nutritional Deficiencies; 7 Over-Nutrition; 11 Animal Feed; 31 Changing Diets

Unequal Distribution

CHRONIC UNDER-NUTRITION is not a consequence of overall scarcity, but of unequal access to land, technology, education and employment opportunities, coupled with a whole range of socio-economic and environmental factors. The world’s population is unevenly distributed, as is the quantity of food produced, and there is a mismatch between the largest populations and the most productive agricultural land and farming methods. Although the overall production of cereals has grown roughly in line with population increase, the regions where the largest strides have been made in terms of agricultural production are not those that have experienced the greatest increases in population. Productivity has improved substantially in South America and Asia in the last half century, but in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the need is greatest, the increase was not as marked, and in some parts productivity has declined. Climate change is likely to affect agriculture in many and complex ways, but current predictions show reduced outputs in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Food is redistributed around the globe both as trade and aid – and a mixture of both – but the redistribution is neither sufficient to solve the problem of under-nutrition nor desirable as a long-term solution. Improvements are needed in agricultural practices and in social structures so that more food can be produced and consumed where it is most needed. While technological change can raise agricultural productivity, if the technologies are too expensive for poor farmers they will make the well-off richer and the poor even poorer. Technological change without social change can therefore aggravate inequalities. Predictions for further population growth vary, but even if the rate of increase continues to slow, as it has done since 1970, the number of people in the world is still likely to exceed 9 billion by 2050, with more than 60 percent of people living in cities.

2 Feeding the World

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