Abstracts - University College Dublin

In association with the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Feeding the World in

2050

A POLICY SYMPOSIUM

UCD O’Reilly Hall, University College Dublin, Ireland

January 15th & 16th 2013

Feeding the World in 2050 PROGRAMME 8.30

DAY 1

9.15

REGISTRATION

WELCOME: Dr Hugh Brady, President, UCD SESSION CHAIR: Mr. Joe Walsh, Chair, Hunger Task Force

9.30 - 10.15

10.15-11.00 11.00 11.15 - 11.45

Population and climate change

Global inequality, exporting and food insecurity

12.30-2.00

Professor Patrick Paul Walsh, University College Dublin, Ireland

Official Opening Address by President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins COFFEE & NETWORKING

Malnutrition: Causes, consequences and solutions

11.45 - 12.30

Professor Brian O’Neill, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Dr Tom Arnold, Concern Worldwide, Ireland

LUNCH

SESSION CHAIR: Mrs. Mary Robinson, President, Mary Robinson Foundation: Climate Justice

2.00-2.45

2.45-3.30

Strategies to reduce the food security risks of production, trade, finance, and speculation

Professor Joachim von Braun, Centre for Development Research, University of Bonn, Germany

The contribution of global agriculture to greenhouse gas emissions

Dr Tommy Boland, University College Dublin, Ireland

COFFEE

4.00-4.45 4.45

Professor Tim Wheeler, University of Reading, UK

General discussion Close Day 1 and Drinks Reception

5.30

DAY 2

The implications of climate change for agricultural output

SESSION CHAIR: Professor Patrick Cunningham, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

9.00-9.45 9.45-10.30

Food v Fuel: The great ethical dilemma

Biotechnology and food security

Professor Shane Ward, University College Dublin, Ireland Professor Ian Graham, Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, University of York, UK

COFFEE

11.00-11.45 11.45-12.30 12.30 1.00

The future of water in agriculture

Feeding the billions (starting from the bottom): How markets and policy need to adjust to changing diets in 2050

Dr Siwa Msangi, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, USA

General Discussion and Summary Facilitated by Mr. Kevin Farrell, Ireland’s Special Envoy for Hunger Close of Seminar by Mr. Simon Coveney, T.D., Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine LUNCH AND DEPARTURE

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Dr Mark Rosegrant, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, USA

Feeding the World in 2050: A Policy Symposium

Welcome The Institute of Food and Health at University College Dublin organises regular policy workshops and the present symposium is part of that series. These workshops are intended to provide an interface between UCD research in food and health and policy makers. Today’s symposium will focus on how we will feed the world in 2050. In what has been described as a “perfect storm”, a number of factors will operate in tandem to challenge the world to secure enough food to feed its citizens. The starting point is not so encouraging since currently almost a billion of the Earth’s citizens go to bed hungry each night and mortality and morbidity from undernutrition remains unacceptably high. By 2050, the global population will have expanded to nearly 9 billion and most of that increase will occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Climate change will influence agricultural productivity, particularly in these regions, and water availability will limit agricultural productivity in others. Economic growth specifically in India and China will drive up food commodity prices and will cause widespread food shortages. Rising oil prices will drive the use of land and crops toward biofuels with serious implications for global food production. There are, however, signs of hope, particularly through the UN initiative “Scaling Up Nutrition” (http://scalingupnutrition.org) which has the welfare of mothers and children as the focus in what is termed the first 1,000 days from conception to two years of age. Some thirty countries have signed up to follow a targeted programme toward mothers and children and involving all of the relevant agencies, which have a role to play in helping to scale up nutrition. Indeed, the Irish Government’s Hunger Task Force identified the need to target women and children in improving nutrition and to ensure that nutrition does not fall between the cracks of government administrative structures.

Contents Symposium Programme

1

Welcome

2

Abstracts

3

Professor Brian O’Neill

3

Professor Patrick Walsh

5

Dr Tom Arnold

6

Professor Joachim von Braun

9

Dr Tommy Boland

10

Professor Tim Wheeler

12

Professor Shane Ward

14

Professor Ian Graham

16

Dr Mark Rosegrant

17

Dr Siwa Msangi

20

Biographies

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UCD is uniquely positioned to participate in and support research in this area since it is one of few universities in Europe that combines agriculture, food science, nutrition, veterinary medicine and public health medicine. We hope that the present symposium will help shape Ireland’s interest in research in the area of Feeding the World in 2050. Professor Michael J Gibney Director, UCD Institute of Food and Health

www.ucd.ie/foodandhealth/2050

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Population and Climate Change Professor Brian O’Neill National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA Changes in the numbers and characteristics of people around the world are a key component of the outlook for future sustainable development, including food security, climate change, and energy access, among other issues. This talk will briefly assess current demographic trends and expectations over the next 40 years, review research on how demographic changes may affect the outlook for climate change, and discuss policy implications. By 2050, the global population is likely to be larger, older, more urban and better educated. However, the outlook for different regions and countries varies considerably. While some areas including much of Africa experience continuing population growth, many industrialized countries, and some developing countries including China, are likely to have declining populations by midcentury. Aging is expected to occur everywhere, although it will advance farther in countries like Europe and Japan where fertility has been low for decades and life expectancies are high. It will occur to a lesser extent in regions such as Africa where fertility remains high and life expectancy is growing more slowly. Some developing countries however will also experience substantial aging. China, for example, has had low fertility for about 40 years and is expected to age more rapidly than any country has ever experienced. Urbanization is already well advanced in industrialized countries and Latin America, but in other regions outcomes could vary from slow increases to rapid transitions over the next several decades. Populations in developing countries are transitioning from having large proportions of their populations with low levels of education to substantially better educated societies. How fast this transition will take place, however, is uncertain. Demographic change is important to the climate change issue because it can affect both emissions of greenhouse gases that drive changes in climate as well as the ability of society to cope with the impacts of those changes. Two different approaches to studying the role of demography in driving emissions show that it is not only the change in the size of the population that matters, but also other changes including aging, urbanization, and education trends. The first approach, empirical analysis of historical trends, tends to show that CO2 emissions from energy use respond almost proportionately to changes in population size; i.e., if population size increases by 10%, the effect on emissions also increases by 10%. These same studies find that aging and urbanization have less than proportional but statistically significant effects. Simulation of the effects of projected changes in population size and composition on emissions, within a structured modelling framework, is a complementary approach to statistical analysis of historical data. Studies taking this second approach show that alternative population growth paths could have substantial effects on global emissions of CO2 several decades from now, and that aging and urbanization can have important effects in particular world regions. In our own work using a global model of economic growth, energy use, and emissions, we have found that a decrease in the rate of population growth could lead to substantial reductions in global emissions, particularly in the long run. For example, if the world population were to follow a low rather than a medium growth path, worldwide emissions would be reduced by 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon (gigatonnes, GtC) per year in 2050 and 5.1 GtC per year in 2100, or by about 15% and 40%, respectively. However, if the population were to follow a high growth projection rather than a medium projection, emissions would be increased by 1.7 GtC per year in 2050 and by 7.3 GtC per year in 2100, or by about 17% and more than 60%, respectively. We also found that changes in population composition can substantially affect emissions in particular regions, separately from the effect of changes in population size. Aging can reduce emissions in the long term by up to 20%, particularly in industrialized regions, mainly due to effect on labor supply. In the analysis, aging populations were associated with lower productivity or labor force participation, which led to slowing economic growth and reduced emissions. By contrast, urbanization can lead to an increase in projected emissions by more than 25%, particularly in developing regions, also mainly through effects on labor supply. Education is another important characteristic of populations that is expected to change substantially in the future, at least in developing country regions. Alternative projections of future composition across four education categories have been produced for 120 countries of the world through mid-century and recently extended to 2100. These scenarios show the potential for large differences in educational composition over the next 50-100 years, with potential implications for both demographic and economic outcomes. Education has the potential to affect emissions of greenhouse gases. On the one hand, improvements in education can be expected to lead to faster fertility decline and slower population growth which, all else equal, would be expected to reduce emissions. On the other hand, education can also be expected to lead to faster economic growth, which would tend to increase

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emissions, and also to changes in consumption patterns. The net effect of education on future emissions is therefore ambiguous. Education can also affect vulnerability to climate change impacts, for example as measured by its affect on the Human Development Index (HDI), an indicator of well being sometimes also used to measure vulnerability. Recently we have assessed the net effect on emissions and on HDI for developing country regions with our economic growth and energy model. Our results indicate that an optimistic scenario for increasing education enrollment rates would have substantial benefits for well being and for reducing vulnerability to climate change, advancing development (as measured by the HDI) by 1020 years in developing country regions. We find that this more rapid development would lead to higher emissions by mid-century, although the increase is not very large, about 10% in most cases, up to 20% in some countries. Moreover, in the longer term, faster improvements in education lead to lower emissions, as the effect of lower fertility overtakes the effect of faster economic growth. We conclude that education, along with other compositional aspects of populations, deserves greater attention in climate change analysis and can be relevant for both mitigation and adaptation analyses. Analyses so far of the relation between demographic change and the emissions of climate-active pollutants have implications for policy and further research. Analyses of historical data for CO2 emissions from energy use and of future scenarios that explicitly focus on demographic effects show that population growth can have a substantial effect on future CO2 emissions. Although population changes are interlinked with many factors, including economic development, both improved education and improved family planning and reproductive health services can substantially affect fertility trends. Both of these actions would have substantial benefits to well being in their own rights. Research on the climate change issue shows that they would probably also have climaterelated benefits because of reduced CO2 emissions, reduced vulnerability to impacts, or both.

Global CO2 emissions, three different population paths

Future Urbanization


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Global Inequality, Exporting and Food Insecurity Professor Patrick Paul Walsh Professor of International Development Studies, UCD Global household consumption has never been so polarised. In 2012 the richest 20 per cent of the earth’s population consumed 80 per cent of goods, while the poorest 20 per cent only consumed 1.5 per cent. The incentives to export food have never been greater as a result of prolonged commodity price booms. The exporting of food can be linked historically to famines and to current food insecurity. Monopolistic global commodity markets, adherence to high health and safety standards and high levels of processing are greatly reducing the volume (waste) and nutrition of food globally. Consumption patterns in the richest 20 per cent of the earth’s population also lead to waste and poor nutrition. The food we grow on farm should be able to meet the basic nutrition requirements of 7 billion people. Yet, the structure of global incomes and food markets ensure that the rich pay a lot for poor quality food and the poor lack access to food. A global institution that regulates prices, standards and competition in the food industry is badly needed.

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Malnutrition: Causes, Consequences and Solutions Dr Tom Arnold CEO, Concern Worldwide

“It is time for the global community to recognise that nutrition is – and must be – more than a footnote in the food security debate. In fact, [good nutrition] should be an essential element of every least developed country’s national development plans, as critical as clean water, as indispensable as education.” Tony Lake, Executive Director, UNICEF Nutrition: A multidimensional problem Nutrition provides the critical foundation for optimal human health and development. But despite that, the rates of undernutrition today are staggering. Almost one billion people are undernourished, while a further two billion suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. Malnutrition is an underlying cause of one-third of child deaths, or 2.7 million children each year. Simply put, that is five children per minute. On top of that, 1 child in 4 is stunted owing to undernutrition. Malnutrition is in essence the insufficient, excessive or imbalanced consumption of nutrients. Malnutrition refers to both undernutrition (when a person’s diet does not provide them with adequate calories and protein for maintenance and growth, or they cannot fully utilize the food they eat due to illness), and overnutrition, when a person consumes too many calories. It also can take several forms ranging from stunting, wasting to micronutrient deficiency. Several factors contribute to a person’s nutritional status. Some of these are more direct, primary causes such as inadequate food and nutrient intake, as well as a person’s overall state of health, optimum feeding and caring practices, health seeking behaviour and water and sanitation facilities. Underlying these are a series of additional determinants including poverty and social, economic and political factors. Figure 1: IFPRI causal framework – adapted from UNICEF causal framework

The importance of ensuring adequate nutrition At least 170 million children are already affected by stunting.1 It will soon be too late to act for millions more. It has been estimated that 450 million children will be affected by stunting in the next 15 years, if current trends continue.2 Stunting irreversibly affects the physical and mental development potential of children.

1 M de Onis, M Blossne and E Borghi, (2011) ‘Prevalence of stunting among pre-school children 1990-2020’, Growth Assessment and Surveillance Unit, Public Health Nutrition, 2011, July 14:1–7 2 S Horton (1999) ‘Opportunities for investments in low income Asia’, Asian Development Review, 17, p.246–73; World Bank (2010) Scaling Up Nutrition: What will it cost?


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Pervasive, long-term undernutrition is slowly eroding the foundations of the global economy by destroying the potential of millions of children. Add to that the effects of climate change, volatile food prices and demographic shifts, policy-makers have many issues competing for their attention. However, they are all intrinsically linked and acting on one without acting on the others has significantly less impact. Malnutrition costs societies billions of dollars in lost productivity and health care costs and undermines the investments we make in all other global health, agriculture and economic development priorities. Without urgent and intensified action to improve nutrition, progress on hunger and poverty alleviation will be harder and costlier to achieve. Malnutrition reduces people’s productivity and an estimated 2-3 percent of a country’s national income can be lost to malnutrition3. In addition, malnutrition can reduce an individual’s life time earnings by as much as 12 percent3. In 2004, 2008 and again in 2012, the Copenhagen Consensus Expert Panel of top global economists concluded that improving nutrition is the best investment that can be made in global health and development. The crisis of the rapidly-increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity is in addition, increasingly posing economic burdens both on healthcare systems and on economic productivity. According to the World Health Organization, malnutrition is the gravest single threat to global public health. Ensuring good nutrition early in life generates a lifetime return in terms of preventing illness. Children who are malnourished in early childhood are more likely to suffer from non communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. An estimated 11 percent of the total global disease burden is related to malnutrition. The right nutrition early in life helps ensure healthy foetal development, brain development, strong immune systems, better educational performance, higher income and earning potential, helps break the cycle of poverty and, together with all the aforementioned elements, contributes to improving people’s resilience. The converse is equally true. We know what works: working together towards a holistic approach The first 1,000 days of a child’s life, from conception to the child’s second birthday, is the most critical period in a child’s life. It is the window of opportunity in which one must act to ensure that a child receives adequate food and a balanced diet: good nutrition. Equally as important to a child’s wellbeing during the 1,000 days is the proper nutrition of the mother, although a mothers’ nutritional status is of importance even in the immediate weeks prior to conception. If both mothers and children are not targeted during this window, it is often too late to reverse lifelong adverse effects. There are proven, low-cost solutions to the above unacceptable and avoidable facts and figures. In 2008, the Lancet medical journal identified a package of 13 direct interventions – such as vitamin A and zinc supplements, iodised salt, or the promotion of breastfeeding – that were proven to have an impact on the nutrition and health of children and mothers. Evidence further exists on the importance of gender equality to realizing reductions in hunger. An IFPRI study found that women’s social status significantly affects child nutrition as women with a higher social status have a better nutritional status themselves, are better cared for, and provide higher quality care for their children4. Undernutrition does not result from a lack of understanding of the problem – science and research have shown repeatedly that undernutrition is solvable. Moreover, undernutrition does not result from a lack of food, or from a lack of resources. Strong political leadership and will, and timely and effective action are critical for ensuring nutrition security. These elements are particularly crucial when it comes to realising progress on underlying drivers such as inequality and discrimination. Sustainable progress in nutrition requires looking beyond “traditional” nutrition activities. Nutrition needs to be used to leverage and optimize broader development efforts for food security and good nutrition for all. Because the effects of undernutrition reach across sectors, efforts to improve nutrition also need to engage multiple sectors. These include agriculture, health, education, and economic development.

3 S Horton and J Ross (2003); ‘The Economics of iron deficiency’, Food Policy 28 (1). 4 Smith et al (2003); ‘The Importance of Women’s Status for Child Nutrition in Developing Countries’. International Food Policy Research Institute. Research Report 131.

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How to accomplish this? The possibilities include: • bundling direct nutrition interventions with services or actions from other sectors at the time these are delivered. • incorporating nutrition from the beginning of a development effort by assessing potential nutrition impacts as part of the planning phase. • including nutrition indicators in the list of desirable outcomes of a range of projects and policies. Integrating nutrition into development efforts not only furthers nutrition goals, but in turn strengthens the impact of investments in other sectors. Nutrition responses can make a greater impact on people’s resilience when part of a food, healthcare and service delivery package. For instance, every dollar spent on Vitamin A and zinc supplementation alone would generate benefits of more than $17.5 A variety of initiatives have been taken in recent years but they need to be translated into tangible outcomes and results at the country level, for the poorest and vulnerable individuals and communities suffering from undernutrition. A revised strategy for the Scaling-Up-Nutrition (SUN) movement was launched at the UN General Assembly at the end of September 2012 and has been developed to build on the momentum of the previous two years and accelerate nutrition improvement, particularly in high burden countries. Most recently, a high-level Global Hunger Event at the close of the Olympics in London focused on nutrition security. Such initiatives and commitments must now be translated into concrete actions. It must also be acknowledged that funds committed for nutrition at the moment represents only a fraction of what is required. There is a need for more donors, including non-traditional donors and philanthropists to provide their support. Wherever possible, external development assistance must complement and align its efforts behind country-led plans. To conclude, investing in nutrition is investing in the future of a country. It creates stronger, more resilient communities with a healthier, smarter and more productive population. Adequate nutrition is at the core of realising resilience, and will require a holistic, multi-stakeholder approach and the integration of nutrition across different sectors and programmes.

5 Copenhagen Consensus, « The World’s best investment : Vitamins for undernourished children, according to top economists, including 5 Nobel Laureates, » press release, 30 May, 2008


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Strategies to Reduce the Food Security Risks of Production, Trade, Finance and Speculation Professor Joachim von Braun Director, Center Professor, Economics and Technological Change for Development Research (ZEF Bonn), University of Bonn, Germany Global risks have severe impacts on the food security of the poor. These risks include: the risk of high and volatile food prices, financial and economic shocks, climate change, the risks of human diseases and crop and livestock diseases, and the risks of political disruptions and failed political systems. These complex global system risks can assume a variety of patterns and in combinations can become catastrophic. International actions are required that first, address the root causes of risks with actions for production and technology; secondly, respond to and prevent food emergencies with trade and grain reserves policy, and prevention of excessive speculation in food markets; and thirdly, preventing under-nutrition directly with new and sustained social policies actions, such as income transfers and enhanced early-childhood nutrition programs. National and international policy making – including food security policy by the European Union - needs to take note of the challenge that these complex and changing and context specific patterns of food security risks require an equally complex system of responses in order to be to be effective and efficient.

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The Contribution of Global Agriculture to Greenhouse Gas Emissions Dr. Tommy Boland School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland

Globally agriculture is at the centre of a perfect storm with the confluence of unprecedented pressures placing enormous demands on the planets resources to feed its burgeoning population. Global population is likely to reach nine billion by the year 2050. Individual wealth is predicted to increase, necessitating a more high quality varied diet and the associated resources to produce such food. On the supply side, demand for scarce and in some instances dwindling resources, such as land water and energy will intensify, dictating an intensification of production. This requires development of new technologies, or the wider acceptance of existing technologies to meet this demand. Just fewer than one billion people worldwide experience hunger, where the lack of sufficient supplies of major macronutrients (carbohydrate, protein and fats) place them at serious risk. Another one billion lack sufficient supply of key micronutrients (minerals and vitamins) with consequential retardation of physical and mental development. Agricultural output has increased substantially in the last 100 years, though much of this increase has been in the absence of the current demands for sustainability. In addition there is a globally asymmetric distribution of food production and food demand with increased reliance on food imports in many developing countries. This results in major energy costs in transport and real issues over the affordability of food resources. Food production leaves a significant footprint on the natural environment, through the utilisation of non-renewable resources, accelerated utilisation of renewable resources and its release of greenhouse gases and other waste products to the environment. Agriculture itself is estimated to contribute 12–14% of greenhouse gas emissions, including those associated with fertiliser production; the figure rises to 30% or more when costs beyond the farm gate and especially land conversion are added. Moreover, agriculture contributes a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gases with high impact on warming: approximately 47% and 58% of total CH4 and N2O emissions respectively. The concentration of the major greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has increased by approximately 40% in the last 200 years and is now higher than it has been for 650,000 years. This increase has occurred mainly as a result of fossil fuel use in transportation, building, heating, cooling and the manufacture of cement and other goods. Furthermore, deforestation has contributed to this increase in CO2 concentration due to forestry being a carbon sink, and its removal releases CO2 to the atmosphere. Similarly, methane (CH4), which is produced as a result of human activities such as agriculture and landfills and due to natural processes such as methanogenesis in wetlands, has increased to twice its preindustrial concentration. In their Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC concluded that it is now very likely (> 0.90) that the observed increases in atmospheric CH4 concentration are due to human activities, of which agriculture is one of the largest contributors. The atmospheric concentration of Nitrous oxide has also increased significantly, the main anthropogenic sources of which are artificial fertiliser use in agriculture and fossil fuel burning, with natural processes in soils and oceans also contributing to this increase. As a result of the increases in the concentrations of greenhouse gasses, perturbations in the radiation balance of the earthatmosphere system have occurred. This has resulted in the mean global temperature of the earth increasing by 0.8ºC over the past century, and it is expected that the world will be 1 to 2ºC warmer by the year 2030, and up to 6.4°C warmer by the end of the 21st century. It has been estimated using life-cycle analysis and including all parts of the livestock production lifecycle (e.g. fossil fuel use in the production of mineral fertilisers used in feed production and N2O emissions from fertiliser use; CH4 release from the breakdown of fertilisers and from animal manure; land-use changes for feed production and for grazing; land degradation; fossil fuel use during feed and animal production; fossil fuel use in production and transport of processed and refrigerated animal products), that livestock account for 18% of global anthropogenic emissions. Furthermore, ruminant livestock produce ~80 million tonnes of CH4 annually contributing ~0.28 of the total anthropogenic emissions of CH4 totalling ~ 2.2 Gt of CO2 equivalents. The entire food chain has to be examined in order to reach reduction targets and secure sustainable intensification of food production. Advancements in science and management must combine to deliver these reductions. Primary agriculture must be based on the most efficient conversion of scarce resources (nutrients, land, water) into ‘food’ while minimising the impact on the environment. This presents significant challenges, as regions of the world where agriculture makes the largest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, also tend to be the least developed. There are notable exceptions to this including Ireland, Australia and most notably New Zealand. The role of biofuels requires special consideration. Issues relating to the use of a scarce land resource for the production of energy must be examined in detail. The use of corn for bio-ethanol production is even more challenging when a significant portion of the global population suffer some form of nutrient deficiency.


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Globally, food production, or farming represents much more than simply producing food. It has wide ranging socioeconomic implications, it helps to retain and sustain rural communities, the resources used therein (land and livestock) act as a store of wealth. This requires a somewhat different view of the challenges facing the food industry. Policy instruments exist whereby reduction targets are set, but in the absence of widespread adaptation of these policies there is a risk of relocating food production and a resulting increase in the carbon footprint of this production. The mantra ‘you cannot manage it if you cannot measure it’ is especially true when one talks about the environmental impact of any system. The term ‘farm to fork’ is often used to describe food production but this fails to capture the true carbon cost of food production, with pre-farm gate sources often excluded from the calculation (e.g. fertiliser production). This leads to challenges in terms of objective comparison of production systems across diverse geographical regions and management practices. Decisions made in the short and mid-term in relation to management of our natural resources to feed the burgeoning population have the potential to exert disproportionate influence on the future of the planet, presenting major challenges and opportunities for all sections of our global society.

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The Implications of Climate Change for Agricultural Output Professor Tim Wheeler Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for International Development; Professor of Crop Science, University of Reading, UK Agriculture is inherently sensitive to climate variability and change, whether due to natural causes or human activities. Climate change due to emissions of greenhouse gases is expected to directly impact crop production systems for food, feed or fodder, affect livestock health, and alter the pattern and balance of trade of food and animal products. There is increasing evidence from climate observations that the climate is changing. Global mean temperature has risen by 0.8°C since the 1850s, with warming found in three independent temperature records over land, over seas and in the ocean surface water. Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have gone up from about 284 parts per million in 1832 to 391 parts per million in 2012, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels, with smaller contributions from land-use changes. There is a clear theoretical link through fundamental physics between more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and increased global warming. Thus, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in its last report in 2007 that ‘most of observed increase in globally averaged temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely (more than a 90% chance) due to observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’. Climate change due to human activities is expected to bring warmer temperatures, changes to rainfall patterns and increased frequency of extreme weather. How could climate change affect crops grown for food and cereals and oilseeds that are grown for livestock feed? Projections of climate impacts on crops show that there will likely be both opportunities for increased productivity in some parts of the world and considerable threats to crop productivity in different parts over the next 20-50 years. This broad-scale global response is consistent across more than a decade of crop simulation studies that have used a range of projections of climate change (Figure 1). These studies provide much needed information on potential shifts in the area of crop production and the productivity of crops in the future, and has important implications for food and feed supply chains.

Figure 1. Projected change in crop yields by the year 2050. World Bank Development Report 2010


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Many decisions on climate change adaptation in the agriculture sector also require information at a much finer scale than the global information shown in Figure 1; that is, information at field-, farm-, county- and country-level. Projections of possible impacts on crops at these smaller scalesare much more difficult to make, and are more uncertain, for a number of reasons. The climate models that are used to provide projections are at their current limits of detail at a grid size of about 25 km. And the crop simulation models, into which the output of these climate models are fed, need a dense network of input data that are often not available, even over such comparatively small domains. Thus, there is spatial and temporal mismatch between crop and climate models that provides a real barrier to the skill of climate change impact assessments in agriculture. Crop scientists have known for a long time that the yield of annual crops such as wheat and maize will decline as the mean seasonal temperature warms, all else being equal. This is explained by a reasonably simple relationship between the duration of a crop growing season, from seed sowing to harvest, and mean seasonal temperature. As temperature warms, crop duration shortens, at least until an optimum mean temperature is exceeded that is often about 25°C for temperature crops and 30°C or more for tropical ones. Shorter duration of crop growth reduces the amount of radiation intercepted by the leaf canopy and hence biomass and yield of the crop decline. How extremes of temperature, in particular hot temperatures, affect crops is less well understood. The sensitivity of crops to hot temperatures does vary within the crop life cycle. One sensitive stage for annual crops is the time of flowering (anthesis), when only a single day of hotter than 32-35°C can disrupt pollination, reducing the number of grains that are formed, and so drastically lowering final yield (Figure 2). Such a response is occasionally found in the current climate and contributed to the decline in the wheat harvests across Central Europe in the exceptionally hot summer of 2003. It is almost certain that such a response will become more common in the future.

Figure 2. After a single day of hot temperature > 33°C, only the brown grains will fill for harvest (Jagadish et al. 2010. Journal of Experimental Botany, 61 143-156) A broad range of adaptation and resilience options have been developed to better prepare agriculture for the impacts of climate change. These include the generation of crops more tolerant to heat, drought and flooding; crop management techniques to buffer the effects of extremes of climate, and new financial instruments such as insurance products to counter some of the increased risk of farming in more variable climates. On balance, we should anticipate substantial risks to the volume, volatility and quality of food crop and animal feed supply chains from climate change. Adaptation strategies and investment informed by high quality research evidence will be needed, both to respond to climate change and to meet the increasing demand for food products expected over the coming decades. The consequence of all these studies for decision-makers, either as policy-makers, retailers or practitioners, is that there is not one single trajectory of climate change impacts for agricultural output in the future. Instead, there will be a range of possible outcomes in the future, some more likely than others, and all dependent on what part of the world you look at. Nevertheless, we can be confident about one thing. The climate risks to agricultural output and to food systems will increase over time and so should not be ignored by those making medium- and long-term planning decisions in the agricultural sector.

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Food v. Fuel: The Great Ethical Dilemma Professor Shane Ward UCD School of Biosystems Engineering, University College Dublin, Ireland Society’s requirement for energy has been increasing inexorably since the industrial revolution, and is now growing at an annual rate of ca. 2%. This growth is a consequence of two phenomena: increasing world population (ca. 1% annual growth rate) and increasing demand for energy (ca. 1% annual growth rate), mainly amongst the less developed countries (the “catch up” scenario). Total annual world energy consumption is in the region of 600 EJ, and this is predicted to double by 2050. Biomass has the potential to supply half (or all) of this, but at the cost of shifting land away from food and feed production. Currently, ca. 2% of global agricultural land is used for biomass-for-energy, supplying ca. 10% of the global energy mix. Most of these are traditional woodbased systems, mainly in Asia. While 2% of the total agricultural land may appear small, the challenge of feeding the world’s growing population, combined with water shortages, makes it very difficult to increase this to any great extent. There is major disagreement regarding the future potential of biomass as an energy source. For example, there are many published estimates of the annual total global bioenergy potential by 2050, ranging from ca. 30 to > 1000 EJ (Hoogwijk et al., 20031), with energy crops from surplus agricultural land having by far the largest potential contribution. In order to keep up with world population growth, more food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been produced over the past 10,000 years. This buoyant demand for agricultural commodities arises from both the increasing world population and rising food consumption per capita as incomes increase, particularly in Asia (Figure 1). Since the early 1960s, the global average food energy consumed per person has increased by ca. 1/3rd. In China, the rise in average food consumption has been particularly pronounced, more than doubling over the past 50 years; and many of the world’s least developed economies are following suit. There is also a clearly defined trend towards increased meat and sugar consumption as economic prosperity takes hold (Figure 2). According to the UN’s food and agriculture programme, almost a billion people do not have sufficient food for an active and healthy life.

Figure 1

Figure 2

A key factor adding to global pressure on food supplies has been an increase in the use of agricultural land (and commodities) for non-food purposes, particularly for biofuels. In an effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and combat “climate change”, many governments have implemented biomass-to-energy (b2e) programmes over the past decade or more. For example, India has pledged to meet 10% of its vehicle fuel needs with biofuels; while in the United States, bioethanol production now uses more than one-third of the total corn crop and, in Brazil, sugarcane is used extensively to produce ethanol. Globally, the OECD estimates that almost one-quarter of total sugar cane production is now used for non-food purposes, and this share is expected to increase significantly. Similarly, a substantial increase is predicted in the use of vegetable oil for non-food uses. Ethanol production (mainly in the United States and Brazil) tripled from ca. 25 million tonnes per annum in 2001 to ca. 75 million tonnes per annum in 2007. 1 Hoogwijk M., Faaij A., Van den Broek R., Berndes G., Gielen D. &Turkenburg W. 2003.Exploration of the ranges of the global potential of biomass for energy. Biomass and Bioenergy 25(2), 119–133.


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During that same period, biodiesel production (mainly for sale in the European Union) rose almost 10-fold, to about 10 million tonnes per annum. This increase in b2e activity has resulted in the displacement of significant land area from food production to fuel; and the impact of these biofuels on “climate change” is uncertain - there are indications that several b2e systems are, at best, no better than fossil fuels with respect to “climate change” impacts. This shift in land use away from food production runs a real risk of generating significant regional and global food insecurity, including rising food prices. The use of land for growing food (and feed) must be a first priority for humankind, to enable it provide the level of nutrition necessary to meet the needs of the word’s growing population; hence a balance must be struck between the various land-use scenarios. The ill thought out b2e policies of yesteryear have wreaked significant damage on the environment (e.g. rainforest degradation, accelerated soil C and N release) and need to be redressed. Not alone did they, in many cases, exacerbate “climate change” drivers, but also led to pressure on food supply. The unquestioned science of “carbon neutral biofuels” has been peddled for a couple of decades now, despite contrary opinion of a substantial number of scientists: and it is only now that the wider scientific community is seriously questioning the totality of this “carbon neutral” premise. The principle to consider in assessing the “climate change” impact of b2e systems mirrors that of opportunity cost used in economics; where with b2e systems, one has to assess the opportunity use of the land with respect to its “climate change” impact, including the “do nothing” scenario. When this is done properly (in so far as that is possible), in the vast majority of cases the only types of b2e systems that make sense are those that utilise waste streams (where the product would decay in the C cycle anyway) or utilise unproductive “marginal” land that is not accumulating carbon on any significant scale. According to the FAO, water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population growth over the last century. By 2025, almost 2 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be under waterstress conditions. Irrigation increases yields of most crops by 100 to 400 percent, and irrigated agriculture currently contributes ca. 40% of the world’s food production. Water is becoming a limiting factor in crop growth and there is a real issue arising regarding the requirement for water to enable food and feed production targets be met. It is forecast that by 2020 water use will have increased by 40%, and there are serious concerns regarding the feasibility of achieving this level of supply. This is a major constraint on the future capacity of the world’s food production systems. This water constraint points towards the need to concentrate on food (and feed) production from land, not biofuels. Displacing land currently used for feed or food is generally counter productive from two respects: negative food supply impacts and adverse “climate change” drivers. It is time that mankind concentrated efforts on utilising the world’s land resource for food (feed) production and focused elsewhere for energy needs (with the exception of waste streams and unproductive “marginal” land, where such exists). Indeed, the EU recently revised its biofuels target, with a 5% limit (down from 10%) placed on the use of foodbased biofuels within the EU’s renewable energy policy; and for the first time, the estimated global land conversion impacts – Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) – will be considered when assessing the greenhouse gas performance of biofuels. This is a small step in the right direction, but insufficient to address the environmental and food supply issues associated with biofuels.

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Biotechnology and Food Security Professor Ian Graham Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, Department of Biology, University of York, UK Global demand for food is projected to increase by 50% by 2030 and double by 2050 in response to changing consumption patterns and a rapidly expanding population that is predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050. To meet this demand an increase in food production must be achieved against a backdrop of climate change and a growing scarcity of water and land. In 2009 the Royal Society highlighted the need for ‘sustainable intensification’ of global agriculture in which yields are increased without adverse environmental impact and without the cultivation of more land. Plant and Crop Science is now in a good place to respond to this challenge. Opportunities for improvement of the crops that we grow range from increasing harvest and storage efficiency to increasing tolerance to pests, diseases, weeds, flooding, salinity and drought. In addition better yields through improved photosynthetic efficiency, nutrient uptake, nitrogen fixation and water use efficiency are all now realistic targets. This presentation will look at the part that can be played by biotechnology in meeting this urgent challenge. The focus will be on the genetic improvement of crops through either modern molecular breeding or genetic modification to introduce improved or new ‘stepchanging’ traits. We will look at the current global status and distribution of commercialised biotech crops which in 2011 were grown by 16.7 million farmers on 160 million hectares, approximately 50% of which are in developing countries. Current biotech crops mainly offer improved insect and herbicide resistance for better pest and weed control. Over the last 50 years, genetic improvement, be it through conventional breeding or genetic modification, has focussed mainly on the major commodity crops such as wheat and rice. However, many of the world’s poorest farmers, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, rely on hundreds of different so called ‘orphan’ crops that have not been subjected to the same genetic improvements as the major crops. Orphan crops can be defined as a group of crops that are vital to the economy of developing countries due to their suitability to the agro-ecology and socio-economic conditions, but remain largely unimproved. Recent advances in DNA sequencing and molecular genetic techniques means orphan crops can now benefit from some of the same approaches that have produced significant improvements to the major crops. New understanding of how plants grow and develop is raising the prospect for truly step-changing technologies such as significant increases in photosynthetic efficiency and the ability to fix nitrogen and so alleviate the demand for nitrogen fertiliser in some of our major crops. Developing perennial forms of our major crops that do not need to be planted each year could also offer new possibilities to increase outputs while decreasing inputs. We will finish by taking a forward look at the potential impact of some of these exciting prospects and the need to ensure that we continue to invest in the scientific research essential to ensure that at least some of this potential is realised.

Africa Technology Development Forum 2009, Vol 6: 3&4.


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The Future of Water in Agriculture Dr Mark Rosegrant Director, and Dr Claudia Ringler, Deputy Director, Environment and Production Technology Division, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC, USA The Challenge Growing water scarcity and water quality constraints are a major challenge to current and future food security, especially as agriculture continues to be the largest user of freshwater resources for all regions. As non-agricultural demand for water increases, water will be increasingly transferred from irrigation to other uses in many regions. The intensifying sectoral competition and water scarcity problems will put downward pressure on food supplies. The reliability of the agricultural water supply is projected to decline without significant improvement in water management policies and investments. Already today 36% of the global population — approximately 2.4 billion people — live in water-scarce regions and 22% of the world’s GDP (US$9.4 trillion at 2000 prices) is produced in water-short areas. Moreover, 39% of global grain production is not sustainable in terms of water use. For China and India and many other rapidly-developing countries, water scarcity has already started to materially risk growth — in these two countries alone 1.4 billion people live in areas of high water stress today. Business-as-usual (BAU) levels of water productivity under a medium economic growth scenario will not be sufficient to reduce risks and ensure sustainability. Under BAU, 52% of the global population (4.8 billion people), 49% of global grain production, and 45% (US$63 trillion) of total GDP will be at risk due to water stress by 2050, which will likely impact investment decisions, increase operation costs and affect the competitiveness of certain regions (Figure 1) (Ringler et al. 2012). Increasing water scarcity is projected to contribute to slowing agricultural growth and rising food prices. Figure 1. Under BAU, 52% of the population, 49% of cereal production, and 45% of GDP will be at risk due to water stress by 2050.

Source: Veolia Water & IFPRI, 2011.

The Business-as-Usual scenario for agriculture assumes a continuation of current trends and existing plans in agricultural and water policies and investments in agricultural productivity growth. Population projections are the “Medium” variant population growth rate projections from the Population Statistics division of the UN and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) projections are estimated by the authors, drawing on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005). BAU results in rising food prices (Figure 2) and slow improvement in food security with slow declines in the population at risk of hunger in South Asia and small increases in the number of hungry in Sub-Saharan Africa between 2010 and 2050 (Figure 3).

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Figure 2. Percent change in world prices of cereals between 2010 and 2050, BAU.

Figure 3. Population at risk of hunger, BAU.

Source: IFPRI IMPACT Model, 2012 simulations.

Source: IFPRI IMPACT Model, September 2011 simulations.

Options for Improved Management While pricing and regulation have been successful in reducing water consumption levels in the domestic and industrial sectors, water savings in irrigated agriculture remain more difficult, particularly in large surface schemes. Interventions on the water supply side continue to evolve and include large-scale inter-basin transfers, such as those proposed or ongoing in India and China, respectively; renewed investments in water storage infrastructure, including rainwater harvesting; growth indesalination of sea and brackish water sources; investment in on-time delivery infrastructure and metering in surface water systems; the switch from less certain, reliable surface water sources to on-demand groundwater supplies; the rapid increase in microirrigation systems, from less than 0.5 million ha in 1981 to 6.1 million ha by 2006; and the development of institutions aimed at linking across water users horizontally and vertically. However, supply side management is unlikely to generate all the water needed to meeting future food demands. Instead, as the value of water increases in water scarce environments, demand management tends to gain in prominence. Key water demand management mechanisms include incentives, such as water prices or taxes and the trading of water (use) rights; paying water users to use water more efficiently; raising awareness of growing scarcity and increasing ownership and thus responsibility over the resource. Of particular importance for agricultural water management have been investments in agricultural research and development (R&D) geared at increasing the crop yield ceiling; those aimed at increasing plant resilience under abiotic and biotic stresses; and those geared toward reducing post-harvest losses. While most of these investments were not directly aimed at water conservation, they have resulted in larger, overall water savings than interventions directly aimed at irrigated agriculture. Finally, increased opening of agricultural trade has also helped alleviate water shortages through imports of staple foods from water-abundant countries that otherwise would draw down scarce national supplies. Thus, policy reforms and investments in agricultural productivity and supporting interventions geared towards water conservation and productivity enhancement in rainfed and irrigated agriculture can significantly offset impacts of water scarcity on the environment and risks to farmers.To assess the potential for improved food security outcomes, we simulate a Bioeconomy scenario, which includes increased agricultural R&D that generates crop productivity growth with respect to water and land; increased water use efficiency across irrigation, households and industry, and commercialscale, second-generation biofuels starting five years earlier than Business As Usual. The significant increases in crop productivity and in water use efficiency across all sectors generate increases in agricultural and total GDP growth increases (Rosegrant et al., forthcoming). The Bioeconomy scenario results in significant improvements in food security as can be seen in Figure 4.


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Figure 4. Percent change in population at risk of hunger between BAU and Bioeconomy Scenario, 2050.

Source: IFPRI IMPACT Model, 2012 Simulations.

Policy reforms to bolster the water sector and improve water use efficiency are urgently required to obtain the outcomes in the Bioeconomy scenarios. This includes support for improved demand management, such as incentives and flexibility; the strengthening of public-private partnerships, particularly on irrigation infrastructure and water user associations; the establishment of economic incentives for efficient water use; the increase of investment in water and irrigation. Investments in agricultural R&D need to focus on crop productivity improvements with respect to water, not just land.

References Ringler, C., T. Zhu, S. Gruber, R. Treguer, A. Laurent, L. Addams, N. Cenacchi and T. Sulser. Can changes in water productivity affect economic growth? Insights from a water and foodprojections model.Under review.Global Environmental Change. Rosegrant, M.W., C. Ringler, T. Zhu, S. Tokgoz, P. Bhandary. Water and food in the bioeconomy—challenges and opportunities for development. Special Issue of Agricultural Economics (forthcoming).

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Feeding the Billions (Starting from the Bottom): How Markets and Policy Need to Adjust to Changing Diets to 2050 Dr Siwa Msangi and Miroslav Batka International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC, USA

The sharp increases in food prices that occurred in global and national markets over the 2006-2008 period, helped to heighten the awareness of policy makers and agricultural economic analysts to the stresses facing global food systems and the ecosystems that support them. The underlying factors to the rapid increases in food prices are varied – both in nature, and in their relative strength in driving the market dynamics across various commodities. A number of factors have been attributed to the rapid increase in food prices, both within the published literature as well as within the press, and range from the rapid increase in first-generation, foodbased production of biofuels , to the increase of cereal and meat demand from East and South Asia – or the increase in speculative activity in food markets. The steady decline in the level of cereal stocks, globally, as a result of the private sector taking over the operation of cereals stocks from government, and adopting a more ‘just-in-time’ management orientation, has also been cited as a factor that has reduced the ability of national governments to stabilize consumer and producer prices. Most authors, however, do not isolate a single cause as being to blame for the current world food situation, but cite a complex interaction between several coincident factors. The policy debate that centered on the underlying causes of the food price spike of 2006-08 briefly touched on the attribution that was made in some circles about the contribution of India and China’s rising food demand growth – although this has been discounted on further analysis of the underlying data on market fundamentals over that period. While demand growth may not be a good explanatory factor for shorter term dynamics of agricultural markets – they do factor into the evolution of market conditions over the medium- to long-term period. The growth in food consumption (and related requirements for animal feed) largely determines the pace at which supply growth has to also evolve in order to keep up with the domestic and export demand for agricultural goods. Little research has taken place to try and draw out the implications for changing consumption patterns over time on the future outlook of the world agricultural economy, and what other implications might come from those changes in consumption – such as nutrition and food security. Looking beyond just China and India, there are a number of other fast-evolving regions – like Brazil and Indonesia – whose patterns of urbanization, demographic change and increases in household wealth imply changes in food consumption patterns that are likely to have profound effects on regional food systems around the world. In this paper, we address this gap by looking more closely at the implications of changing food consumption patterns, and what they imply for market prices, food security and nutrition. We use a model-based approach to illustrate the implications of tendencies towards more ‘healthy’ and balanced diets, and what kind of shift in market outcomes might arise from that. Based on this analysis, we conclude with some final recommendations for both policy intervention and further research. The main socio-economic factors that drive increasing food demand are population increases, rising incomes, and increasing urbanization. Figure 1 shows the growth of total population to 2030 in various regions of the world, as is projected according to the UN Medium Variant population projections.


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Figure 1: Total Population Growth projected to 2030

Source: calculated from UN Medium Variant Population projections (2008 revision) As can be seen from the graph of total population growth, most of the future growth will come from developing countries, with the most sizable shares from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This has important consequences for the future demand for food products, as well as for the feed stuffs that will be needed to support the additional required production levels. But there is also the aspect of population urbanization which has implications for the change in consumer tastes that is expected to occur in future, as well, and which will manifest itself in terms of the increased demand for higher-value food products, which are expected to be more rich in proteins and oils, and less intensive in the coarser grains. Figure 2 shows how the share of population living in urban areas is expected to change to 2030, with developing countries remaining with a lower overall share of urban dwellers compared to high-income countries, even in 2030, but with faster rate of growth of urban populations over the intervening period. Figure 2: Change in Urbanization Rates to 2030

Source: UN Medium Variant Population projections (2008 revision)

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The combination of rising income and urbanization is also changing the nature of diets. Rapidly rising incomes in the developing world has led to the increase in the demand for livestock products. In addition, it has been shown that urbanized populations consume less basic staples and more processed foods and livestock products (Rosegrant et al., 2001). Diets with a higher meat content put additional pressure on land resources for pasture and coarse grain markets for feed, including maize. As a result of these trends, it is predicted that by 2020 over 60 percent of meat and milk consumption will take place in the developing world, and the production of beef, meat, poultry, pork, and milk will at least double from 1993 levels (Delgado et al., 1999). In order to determine how best to focus our attention – in terms of nutritional deficiencies – we have used the observed levels of average, national intakes of key macronutrients, in order to identify those regions that seem to be falling the farthest behind, in terms of meeting the defined ‘target’ values of macro-nutritional intakes. These targets are defined by the body of work that has come out of the World Health Organization (WHO) and its collaborations and consultations with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to define the parameters of a ‘healthy diet’. We focused on 3 key macronutrients – carbohydrates, proteins and fiber – which offered the most straightforward means of quantifying intakes and food content, in all countries. The lion’s share of dietary energy intake comes from carbohydrates and proteins, whereas fiber plays a critical role in enhancing digestive functions (which is a key determinant of the human body’s ability to absorb and use (macro or micro) nutrients. We first discuss some baseline projections for macronutrient intakes that characterize the future trends for key regions of the world. To show how the macronutrient availability of the different regions compares to the recommended dietary intakes that have been weighted by demographic age- and sex-classes for each region. We then contrast the baseline trajectory of food consumption in the IMPACT model with a number of scenario-based variants that illustrate the various ways in which the key drivers of change in food markets can be affected through policy intervention and behavioral change. Through these illustrative scenarios, we demonstrate the various ways through which the nutritional outcomes of the bottom billion might be improved over time, and which policies might be most effective in realizing these changes. Among the scenarios that we illustrate, are those of changes in food preferences – particularly those in industrialized and upper-middle income countries. Changing consumer preferences are a powerful force for change in food systems, and they can evolve in ways that shift towards more energy- and land-intensive agricultural products, or perhaps even towards more vegetable-based and low-input types of food commodities. In this study we simulate a scenario in which the pathway of consumption towards key food commodities is altered to reflect the evolution towards ‘healthier’ diets in high income and transitional countries –in which reduction of red meats (beef, lamb) is accompanied by increased intakes of white meats (poultry, pork) as well as cereals, relative to the baseline case. We demonstrate that a strong shift towards nutritionally healthier diets will have significant impacts on the prices and consumptions of livestock products, as well as those cereal commodities used for food and feed uses – generally lowering meat prices while increasing those for staple grains, and having a positive effect on protein, carbohydrate and dietary fiber intakes. The effect of crop productivity is not as effective as the demand-side options of increasing the purchasing power of consumers, through raising household incomes. By linking food security to poverty alleviation within well-designed national programs, the success of targeted cash transfer and social protection programs can extend beyond the effects seen on the recipients, themselves, and also provide benefits for future generations, in terms of earning potential and their ability to escape (and stay out of ) poverty. Careful consideration of the policy context in which dietary change could be addressed in the medium- to long-term reveals that, most conventional policy interventions are better suited towards short-term corrections, rather than towards adaptation over the longer-term – whether this be in the realm of environmental or food policy. Since the ‘driver of change’ that we have been considering comes from the demand side of the food balance equation – it seems only logical that the household or consumer should be the relevant target and unit of analysis for policy makers. The analytical framework used in this study does not directly address all the important aspects of food safety and consumer health that we have mentioned here – but could be expanded in future work to bring more clarity on what implications such changes in policy could have on future outcomes within markets and for human well-being. References Delgado, C. L., M.W. Rosegrant, H. Steinfeld, S. Ehui, and C. Courbois. 1999. Livestock to 2020. The Next Food Revolution. 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment. Discussion Paper No. 28. Washingon D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute.


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Biographies Mr Tom Arnold, Chief Executive, Concern Worldwide Tom Arnold was appointed CEO of Concern Worldwide in 2001. He was previously Assistant Secretary General and Chief Economist in the Department of Agriculture and Food in Ireland. Tom has served on a number of high level bodies including the UN Millennium Project’s Hunger Task Force, the Irish Hunger Task Force, the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund’s (CERF) Advisory Group, the European Food Security Group (EFSG) and the Irish Government’s Commission on Taxation. He serves on the Board of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) charged with leading the reform of the international agriculture research system. He is a member of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) Advisory Board. In April 2012, he was appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon to the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. He is Chairperson of the Irish Times Trust and a Director of the Irish Times and is also a member of the Advisory Board of the UCD Institute of Food and Health. Tom is a graduate in Agricultural Economics from University College Dublin and has Masters Degrees from the Catholic University of Louvain and Trinity College Dublin. He has received Honorary Doctorates of Laws from the National University of Ireland and Science from University College Dublin.

Dr Tommy Boland, Lecturer in Animal Production, University College, Dublin, Ireland Dr. Tommy Boland graduated from Agricultural Science in UCD in 2001 and was awarded his Ph.D. in animal nutrition in 2005. Since then he has been a lecturer in ruminant nutrition and sheep production and is extremely active in ruminant nutrition research. He is also a part time farmer. His current research interests include rumen function, including dietary effects on fermentation, methane emissions, nitrogen metabolism and the interaction between diet and rumen microbial profile, impacts of in utero nutrition on subsequent animal performance and feedstuff analysis. Dr. Boland is secretary on the organising committee of GGAA2013 and has given invited presentations at the UNFCCC in 2007 and 2009. He has published approximately fifty peer-reviewed scientific papers in the area of ruminant nutrition on a range of topics including digestion kinetics of ruminant animals, enteric methane mitigation, reduction of nitrogen losses from dairy systems, grazing management systems for dairy cows and mineral nutrition.

Professor Joachim von Braun, Centre for Development Research, Bonn, Germany Joachim von Braun is a Director of the Center for Development Research and Professor for Economic and Technological Change at the University of Bonn, Germany. From 2002 to 2009 he was Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) based in Washington DC, the world’s premier research institute addressing food, agriculture, nutrition and related development policies. Before these positions, von Braun was professor of Food Economics and Food Policy at Kiel University, Germany. He received his doctoral degree in agricultural economics from the University of Goettingen, Germany in 1978. von Braun serves on the boards of several academic journals, as well as on the international advisory boards of a number of research and policy organisations. From 2000 to 2003 he was president of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE). He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a member of the Academy of Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and a member of the international advisory board of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS). He received an Honorary Doctoral Degree from the University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim in Germany, and from the Royal Swedish Academy for Agriculture and Forestry he received the Bertebos Prize. He has published research on international development economics topics, including science and technology; on policy issues relating to trade and aid, famine, health, and nutrition; and on a wide range of agricultural economics research issues. von Braun has worked in Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, Egypt, Russia, and China.

Professor Patrick Cunningham, Professor of Animal Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Patrick Cunningham is Professor of Animal Genetics at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). He graduated from University College Dublin (UCD) in 1956 with first class honours in Agricultural Science followed by an MSc in Animal Nutrition in 1957, and a PhD in Animal Genetics from Cornell University in 1962. In 1962, he began a research career with An Foras Talúntais (now Teagasc), becoming Department Head in 1970 and Deputy Director (Research) in 1980. Professor Cunningham’s early work focused mainly on genetic improvement in the Irish cattle population. He pioneered methods of genetic evaluation, introduction and assessment of new breeds and strains, and the economic evaluation of breeding options and strategies. His research has been published in over 100 papers in refereed journals, and has twice been featured on the cover of Nature. He was elected President of the Commission on Animal Genetics of the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP) in 1974, President of EAAP in 1978 and President of the World Association for Animal Production in 1984. In 1964, Professor Cunningham began to contribute to the newly-established Department of Genetics in TCD, and in 1974, he was appointed Professor of Animal Genetics.

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In 1988, he moved to the World Bank as visiting professor at the Economic Development Institute. From 1990 to 1993, he was appointed Director of Animal Production and Health at the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the UN in Rome. During this period he also directed the Screwworm Eradication Programme for North Africa, the largest international campaign of biological control ever undertaken. On his return from the World Bank in 1989, he initiated a new programme of research in TCD. This was based on the use of newly-developed methods of reading DNA to measure genetic diversity and plan livestock improvement in developing countries. The first results of this work, emerging in the early 1990s, rewrote the history of animal domestication, demonstrating for the first time the separate domestication of cattle in India on the one hand and in Africa and Europe on the other. This work has since been expanded by Professor Cunningham and his colleagues to other species including horses, salmon and humans, placing Irish research at the forefront of international work in this area. Following the BSE crisis in 1996, Professor Cunningham and his colleagues developed a system of DNA traceability for the meat industry. They went on to establish a biotechnology company IdentiGEN, which deploys these technologies in Europe and North America. In January 2007 Professor Cunningham was appointed Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) to the Irish Government. He led Ireland’s bid to host and deliver Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF2012) and Dublin City of Science 2012. He completed his term as CSA in August 2012.

Kevin Farrell, Special Envoy for Hunger, Irish Aid Kevin Farrell is Ireland’s Special Envoy for Hunger, appointed to assist in highlighting issues around global hunger, and Ireland’s work in addressing them. He had previously been a member of Irelands Hunger Task Force, whose report in 2008 has been seen as a landmark one, and which has served as the key policy guideline for Ireland’s very important international role in hunger alleviation. As Special Envoy he has prepared a report in 2010 on Ireland’s ongoing hunger response, making several important recommendations which have helped further guide Irelands strategy on the issue. Between 1989 and 2007 Mr Farrell had held several key positions with United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), including as Head of WFP’s Great Lakes Operations in the aftermath of the Rwanda refugee crisis, and later as UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Northern Iraq. He has also, over the period, served as WFP Representative in Uganda, Somalia and, between 2002 and 2007, in Zimbabwe. Prior to his career with WFP he had worked with CONCERN Worldwide in Bangladesh. He was educated at UCD, TCD and University College Swansea. Mr Farrell has a strong track record on hunger issues, bringing a wealth of valuable field experience, in both development and in emergency humanitarian response, to his current role as Special Envoy. He has been especially active in ensuring that due importance and focus be given to the issue of under-nutrition in Ireland’s hunger effort, and in that of global partners.

Professor Ian Graham, Weston Chair of Biochemical Genetics and Director of the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, University of York, UK Ian holds the Weston Chair of Biochemical Genetics and is the Director of the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP: www.cnap.org.uk) at the University of York. His research interests focus on the metabolic regulation of gene expression in higher plants and metabolic engineering of novel oils and other high value chemicals. Current projects include the development of novel oilcrops such as Jatropha curcas and medicinal crops such as Artemisia annua, the primary source of the leading anti-malarial drug artemisinin, and Papaver somniferum (opium poppy), the source of a number of important analgesics and other drugs. Funding for Ian’s research comes from a range of sources including industry, UK Government, EU, UK and overseas charities. Ian also chairs the board of the recently established Biorenewables Development Centre Ltd (BDC), a not-for-profit company based on the York Science Park, with extensive facilities for feedstock development, extraction and processing. The BDC remit is to translate R+D activities into commercially viable biorenewables-based processes and products in collaboration with industry. Following graduation from The Queen’s University of Belfast with a first class honours degree in Botany and Genetics in 1986, Ian obtained a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology from the University of Edinburgh in 1989, and went on to do postdoctoral research at The University of Oxford and The Carnegie Institution Plant Biology Laboratory at Stanford University. He took up a faculty position at The University of Glasgow in 1993, before moving to the University of York in 1999. Ian has served on a range of national and international committees that inform policy relevant to plant and crop science, and currently is a Trustee Member of the Governing Council of the John Innes Centre, Norwich, as well as Chair of its Science & Impact Advisory Board, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Genoplante (a French public-private plant and crop science research initiative), and a member of the BBSRC Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy (IBBE) Strategy Advisory Panel.

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Dr Siwa Msangi, International Food Policy Institute, Washington D.C., USA Siwa Msangi is a Senior Research Fellow in the Environment and Production Technology Division, and co-leads IFPRI’s research theme 1, which focuses on the major socio-economic and bio-physical drivers affecting agricultural production and trade, and their impacts on nutrition, poverty and the environment. Much of Siwa’s current research activity focuses on the linkages between energy and agriculture (especially the impacts of biofuels), and the contribution of aquaculture to global food supply, and its interactions with livestock. Siwa also has a broader research background in natural resource management — especially that of surface and groundwater management policy – and in studying the dynamics of user behavior in the exploitation of common pool resources. A Tanzanian national, Siwa joined IFPRI in August 2004 as a post-doctoral fellow, after obtaining his degree in Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California at Davis. He earned a Masters degree in International Development Policy at the Food Policy Research Institute at Stanford University, where he also received an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering.

Professor Brian O’Neill, National Centre for Atmospheric Research, Boulder Colarado, USA Brian O’Neill leads the Integrated Assessment Modeling (IAM) group within the Climate Change Research section at NCAR. The IAM group is also part of NCAR’s Integrated Science Program (ISP). Brian holds a Ph.D. in Earth Systems Science and an M.S. in Applied Science, both from New York University, and has worked previously on the science staff of the Environmental Defense Fund in New York, and as an Assistant and Associate Professor (Research) at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. During the period 2005-2009, he founded and led the Population and Climate Change Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. His research interests are in the field of integrated assessment modeling of climate change, which links socio-economic and natural science elements of the climate change issue in order to address applied, policy-relevant questions. Current areas of focus include the relationship between socio-economic development pathways, emissions, and climate change impacts, and scenario analyses linking long-term climate change goals to shorter-term actions. Brian is the lead author (along with Landis MacKellar and Wolfgang Lutz) of Population and Climate Change, published by Cambridge University Press. He has also served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report in a volume on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability (Working Group II), and for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) in a volume on Scenarios. He is currently serving as lead author in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, in Working Group II.

Mrs Mary Robinson, President, Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Change Mary Robinson is President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Elders and the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama. She is a member of the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders she was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010. Mary Robinson serves as Honorary President of Oxfam International and Patron of the Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the European Climate Foundation. Mary is the Chancellor of the University of Dublin since 1998.

Dr Mark W. Rosegrant, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C., USA Mark W. Rosegrant is the Director of the Environment and Production Technology Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC. With a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, he has extensive experience in research and policy analysis in agriculture and economic development, with an emphasis on water resources and other natural resources and agricultural policy issues as they impact food security, rural livelihoods, and environmental sustainability. He currently directs research on climate change, water resources, sustainable land management, genetic resources and biotechnology, and agriculture and energy. He is the author or editor of 7 books and over 100 refereed papers in agricultural economics, water resources, and food policy analysis. Dr. Rosegrant has won numerous awards, such as Outstanding Journal Article (2008), Quality of Communications Award (2004), and Distinguished Policy Contribution Award (2002) awarded by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association(formerly American Agricultural Economics Association); and Best Article Award (2005) from the International Water Resources Association. Dr. Rosegrant is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

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Mr Joe Walsh Chairman of the Hunger Task Force Joe Walsh was T.D. for the West Cork constituency until May 2007 and is the Chairman of the Hunger Task Force. He served as Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food from 1987-1992. He was appointed to the critical Government position of Minister for Agriculture and Food in 1992 and served in this position until 2004. During this period he demonstrated his outstanding leadership abilities while presiding over a period of unprecedented growth and development in the Irish food industry.

Professor Paul Walsh, University College Dublin, Ireland Patrick Paul Walsh took up the Chair in International Development Studies in the School of Politics and International Relations on July 1st 2007. He received a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1994. During 1992-2007 he worked in Trinity College Dublin. He left Trinity College Dublin an Associate Professor, College Fellow and Dean of Social and Human Sciences (Schools of Law, Business, Social Science, Education, Social Work and Policy and Psychology). He was a Visiting Professor at K.U. Leuven during 1997-1999 and a Research Scholar in the Department of Economics, Harvard University, during the academic year 2002-2003. He coordinates the UCD Ph.D. in Global Human Development; chairs the first ever joint degree between UCD and TCD, the TCD-UCD Masters in Development Practice, which is part of a Global Association based at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and funded by the MacArthur Foundation. He is chair of the Academic Steering Committee of the Global Association. His professional activities include honorary secretary and editor of the Journal, the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland. This runs a related IRCHSS funded “Our Polestar is Truth” project based in the Long Room Hub in TCD. He is currently a World Bank Consultant (EU Growth and Austerity Project). His current research is focused on Human Development, Elections Conflict Resolution and HIVS-AIDS in East Africa.

Professor Shane Ward, UCD School of Biosystems Engineering, UCD, Ireland Dr Shane Ward is Professor of Biosystems Engineering at the National University of Ireland, Dublin. With over 200 peerreviewed publications and links to industry, Professor Ward has a long track record in research and innovation. He has developed collaborative research programmes with industry and has led several national and EU funded international research consortia, such as the FP6 SigmaChain project on food chain integrity. He successfully bid for the Irish Government’s flagship Charles Parsons biomass-to-energy(b2e) programme (a €3 million fund plus €1 million “leveraged” from industry). The Charles Parsons programme focuses on biomass-to-energy, including the use of “smart systems” (viz. systems optimization using sensors, logic, cloud computing, etc.) to enhance the operational efficiency of energy systems within the agri-food sector. Professor Ward recently completed a term as a member of the university’s Senior Management Team Executive (2008-2011), and Head (2008-2011) of UCD’s largest school, the UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science & Veterinary Medicine (including Biosystems Engineering). At its peak, this school had annual research and innovation expenditure of ca. €50 million, and annual operational budget of ca. €30 million. Professor Ward has a particular interest in the food v. fuel debate, which addresses the challenge of how to exploit the b2e potential of agriculture while also meeting the food needs of mankind and the output aspirations of the industry. This is particularly important in the context of the expansionary targets of the Irish Government’s Food Harvest 2020 strategy.

Professor Tim Wheeler, Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for International Development,; Professor of Crop Science, University of Reading, UK Professor Tim Wheeler is Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser at the UK Department for International Development. He is on secondment from the University of Reading where he is Professor of Crop Science. At DFID, Professor Wheeler oversees most of the research commissioned by the Research and Evidence Division. He has extensive experience of working with policy-makers in the UK and internationally: providing evidence and advice to Ministers and acting as Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords in 2010. Professor Wheeler has published more than 165 scientific publications over the last 20 years on how climate change could impact on the sustainability of agriculture and food, undertaking research in Bolivia, Honduras, The Gambia, Uganda, China and India. He has provided advice on the sustainability of food and farming to agribusinesses and food multi-nationals, often up to Board level. In 2005 he gave the prestigious Royal Society Public Lecture on ‘Growing crops in a changing climate’. Professor Wheeler is a member of BBSRC Council.

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UCD Institute of Food and Health University College Dublin Belfield Dublin 4 Tel: +353 1 716 2808 Email: [email protected]

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