Modelling future food security

There are many paradoxes surrounding future food security.
We are told that we need to produce more food yet we currently produce 50 per cent more than we consume. Enormous amounts go to waste at every stage of food production and consumption. We have the capacity to feed the world yet we appear unable to distribute or produce it where it’s needed.
There are also now more people dying of obesity-related disorders than of hunger. Yet the long-term social and economic burdens of obesity and hunger have been looming for a long time.
Another conundrum is that unhealthy foods with less nutritional value also require energy and resources to produce. If the edible crops used to produce biofuels today were used for human food there would be enough food for 12 billion people. Yet we continue to use the limited fertile land for growing biofuel when we have other sustainable clean options for energy.
Australia has its own set of unique challenges in food security with extreme weather, water supply, land quality, transport costs, energy costs, and trade agreements.
Grappling with the economic, political, social, and environmental conundrums of future food security are researchers like the University of Melbourne’s Dr Seona Candy. She is working with the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab on an ARC-funded project called ‘Modelling policy interventions to protect Australia’s food security in the face of environmental sustainability challenges.’
“In this research project we use a model of the entire physical economy of Australia,” Dr Candy explains.
“It will inform government policies to ensure future food security. We essentially explore the questions: How will we feed our population in the future? How do we plan for sustainable food production with our limited resources such as water and land as well as infrastructure capability? How do we achieve positive health outcomes for our communities alongside the dynamics of supply and demand in local and global consumer markets?
“When we model scenarios we explore the question: Do we change our diet or change the way we produce and distribute things? Current foods like meat and dairy are very resource and energy-intensive. Think of the fossil fuel-based pesticides and herbicides used to create high yield crops to feed livestock and the roast isn’t even near our dining room table yet.
“Whilst there are people researching food waste solutions and things like GM foods, we are looking at it from a whole system perspective. Our scenario modelling isn’t trying to predict the future, it’s exploring the ‘what if’ to allow for proactive planning.”
Dr Candy says the research also includes extreme scenarios such as ‘the squander model’, where we use up resources, we don’t change farming practices, and current government policies on climate don’t evolve.
“Then there is the ‘Fortress Australia model’ where we are concerned only with feeding ourselves, focusing on the best places to grow grain, our transport costs and energy use issues with the objective of consuming a balanced diet. These scenarios are all trade-offs of the preferred, the probable, and possible futures,” Dr Candy says.
Current conventional food production, distribution, consumption and wastage are driven by economic gains but there is room for new economic markets, alternatives, innovators, and mavericks.
Dr Candy says there are however some refreshing trends in the scenario, and the rise of alternatives in the food industry may be one of the welcome aspects to future food security.
“The emergence of farmers’ markets, ethical producers, food swaps, healthy vegiebox and fruit box services are important,” she says. “There is also the emergence of old grains, heritage varieties of produce and the ‘ugly food movement’ where we embrace the sale of misshapen and blemished foods.”
There are alternatives to producing food like regenerative farming, which is starting to gain momentum.
Dr Candy says the story of farmer Colin Seis is an example of necessity being the mother of invention.
“Colin Seis found his conventional methods for farming were just not working,” she explains. “He had little or no money left to buy fertilizer and sow new pasture. There had to be another way. Col let the native pasture grow back and ran his livestock over that pasture so their manure would fertilize the soil. He then started to put some crops in between the pasture cover. He drew this idea of pasture cropping from other farmers who practised what is now called regenerative farming. He noticed that although the little bugs had returned to eat the crops, so had the bigger bugs that eat the little bugs, so the crop losses stabilised to an acceptable level. Sure enough his profitability eventually increased as he no longer had herbicide and pesticide costs. Colin’s story should be an inspiration to future farmers.”
Recently Dr Candy has been working on a participatory design to develop floating vegetable gardens to improve food availability and nutrition for improvised communities living on lake Ton le Sap in Cambodia.
“The key to food security will be small-scale diverse, agro-ecological methods and away from conventional monoculture and agro chemical dependant systems. Increased yields and wastage are not sustainable; it’s about accessibility to enough nutritional food. It’s a welcome radical re-think on how we produce, consume and value food and how our resources can be used for our nutritional benefit globally.”
www.ecoinnovationlab.com
www.abp.unimelb.edu.au