A new analysis argues for the need
to address food insecurity by recognizing the interconnected nature of global
food systems.
Share on PinterestA recent paper
asks whether the global food system can cope with shocks.
In a commentary for the
journal One Earth, Franziska
Gaupp, Ph.D., a research scholar at the International Institute of Applied
Systems Analysis (IIASA), argues that global food insecurity is increasingly
susceptible to shocks because of the interdependence of the parts that make up
the global food system.
For Gaupp, shocks to the supply of food — for example,
extreme weather events that may damage or destroy crops — are challenging.
However, in our increasingly interconnected, globalized
world, these shocks can come from events not directly related to growing food
and can have far reaching consequences.
Gaupp — who is working jointly with IIASA’s Ecosystems
Services and Management and Risk and Resilience programs — points to the
COVID-19 pandemic as one such shock that is not directly related to food but
has had a significant effect on global food systems.
Despite the world producing more than enough food for
everyone on the planet, around one-quarter of
the world’s population does not have access to food that is nutritious and
sufficient.
Gaupp argues that this extreme
inequality will get worse as there is increased demand for food from growing,
affluent populations, placing more stresses on the environment that secure food
systems depend upon.
Climate change has also placed severe stress on
global food systems, destroying the quality of land, increasing
desertification, disrupting conventional rainfall patterns, and causing sea
levels to rise.
These stresses will get worse if temperatures significantly
increase, as scientists predict.
However, while these are pressing concerns for the world’s
ability to produce food, the interconnected nature of global food systems means
that many other factors can affect food security.
According to Gaupp, the global supply chain of food is
concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer companies.
Even so, interconnected sectors that depend on many others
to be able to function properly increasingly make up this global chain.
This means that while the system functions within conditions
understood as “normal,” efficiency may be increased for those populations who
have access to these markets and the wealth to engage with them.
However, if conditions are
anything other than “normal,” the interconnectedness of the global food system
means that it is increasingly susceptible to shocks from events not directly
related to food.
These shocks can have a bigger negative effect, as global
supply chains cease to function if parts of the chain break.
In Gaupp’s words, “[t]rade networks are more interconnected
and interdependent than ever, and research has
shown that they can be intrinsically more fragile than if each
network worked independently because they create pathways along which damaging
events can spread globally and rapidly.”
Just as the global supply chain can be affected by events
not directly related to food, so can major negative effects on the global
supply chain affect other social, cultural, economic, or political issues.
Gaupp’s commentary highlights the relationship between the
failure of wheat crops due to 2010 droughts in Russia, the Ukraine, and China,
and the 2011 civil unrest in Egypt.
Other shocks that occur at the same time can also amplify
individual shocks around the world.
Again, the global interconnection, and climate change, make
these shocks more likely to coincide because of their increased frequency, and
their ability to generate other simultaneous shocks themselves.
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For Gaupp, the COVID-19 crisis has been exemplary at
demonstrating the vulnerability the world faces due to interconnected food
systems and the concentration in ownership of the markets that make up these
systems.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a health crisis first, but its
effects have also shaken global food systems.
According to Gaupp, “[a]lthough harvests have been
successful, and food reserves are available, global food supply chain
interruptions led to food shortages in some places because of lockdown measures.
“Products
cannot be moved from farms to markets. Food is rotting in the fields as
transport disruptions have made it impossible to move food from the farm to the
consumer. At the same time, many people have lost their incomes, and food has
become unaffordable to them.”
– Franziska Gaupp, Ph.D.
To respond to these challenges, Gaupp argues, it requires
first understanding the way the global food system is deeply interconnected
with various other systems operating across the world.
Improving the models that can predict the complex effects of
significant shocks to interconnected systems may help populations avoid the
worst consequences.
Having the tools to predict and understand the effects of
major shocks better could also help in the development of taxes that accurately
reflect the damage done by the actions of major businesses and corporations,
Gaupp writes.
This intervention might, hopefully, ameliorate some of this
damage and dissuade these businesses from causing the harm in the first place.
However, while recognizing the complexity of the global food
system is necessary for solving global food insecurity, it is unlikely to be
sufficient on its own.
Understanding the political economy of global food systems —
that is, the structural effects that economic systems have on both the
efficient distribution of food and the justice of this distribution, as well as
the chances of governments and international institutions holding large
companies to account — is also likely to be a part of the puzzle.
Overall, the paper calls for collaboration: “We need global
collaboration to work toward better management of trade barriers to ensure that
food value chains function even in moments of crises.”
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