International Food Security Assessment: 2012-22

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Food security is estimated to improve in 2012 as the number of food-insecure people in the 76 countries covered in this report declines from 814 million in 2011 to 802 million in 2012. The improvement is partially due to the slightly warming climate and slightly elevated CO2, both of which contribute to increased crop yields. The share of the population that is food insecure remains at 24 percent. Over the next decade, the share of the population, that is food insecure is projected to decline from 24 percent in 2012 to 21 percent in 2022, but the number of food insecure people is projected to increase by 37 million. Regionally, food insecurity is projected to remain most severe in Sub-Saharan Africa. Food-insecure people are defined as those consuming less than the nutritional target of roughly 2,100 calories per day per person.

Historical Perspective

The highest periods of food security in human civilisation have occurred in the Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period and Medieval Warm Period. The periods of greatest food insecurity and famine occurred during the Greek Dark Ages, Dark Ages and Little Ice Age, when temperatures were quite cold, and massive crop failures occurred. The growing seasons were longer and crop production was very high due to elevated temperatures of those periods. It is worth noting that these warm periods had nothing to do with greenhouse gases, but arose from natural external forcing.

USA Reporting

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ERS) has, since the late 1970s, reported annually on food security in a number of developing countries. A key indicator is the number of food-insecure people (those who each consume less than a nutritional target of 2,100 calories per day). In the latest report in PDF format (International Food Security Assessment: 2012-22), ERS estimates food security in 76 countries, in four regions.

For 2012, ERS estimates the situation overall to improve, with the number of food-insecure people declining to 802 million people, from 814 million in 2011. The decade ahead presents a different picture, with food-insecure numbers rising by 37 million, although this 4.6 percent increase is below the 16.7-percent rise in population.

The key factors ERS measures in determining the level of food security are countries’ domestic food production and their import capacity. In the Asian and Sub-Saharan African regions studied, domestic food production generally plays the most critical role in food security, so increasing output of staple crops will be crucial in improving food security. The countries studied in Latin America and North Africa import a large share of their food supplies, so the capacity to pay for imports is more significant.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the region where food insecurity is generally more concentrated, the number of food-insecure people is estimated to decline by 4.3 percent between 2011 and 2012. That improvement can be almost entirely attributed to higher expected food production levels.due to small increases in Carbon dioxide and a slight warming trend But over the next decade a sizable increase in food insecure people chiefly due to population growth outstripping increases in crop yield– 15 percent – is projected for the region. The bright spot for the decade is that the share of the population that is food insecure in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to fall from about 42 percent in 2012 to 38 percent in 2022.

Conditions vary within regions, and even within Sub-Saharan Africa, the food security situation is expected to improve for some countries. Among the factors in raising food production levels are a country’s ability to make needed investments in new technologies, and farmers’ skills and willingness to adopt the provided technologies.

ERS's latest International Food Security Assessment contains data on another key indicator of food security: the distribution gap, or the quantity of food needed for each income decile within a country to reach the nutrition target of about 2,100 calories per day. Overall, the distribution gap is projected to hold constant over the next decade. ERS's report also points out differences among and within regions.

Food markets across the globe. A. China (Courtesy: Xiuhua Wu); B. Turkey (Courtesy: Peiman Zandi); C. Malaysia (Courtesy: Peiman Zandi); D. Mexico (Courtesy: William Cetzal-Ix); E. Japan (Courtesy: Sukrishna Ishii); F-​H​. Iran (Courtesy: Peiman Zandi); I. Syria (Courtesy: Peiman Zandi); J. Thailand (Courtesy: Chittiwat Silapat); and K. Russia (Courtesy: Olga Osdachuk). Source: Saikat Basu, own work.

Further Reading


Citation

Sydney Draggan & U.S. Department of Agriculture (2014). International Food Security Assessment: 2012-22. ed, C.Michael Hogan. Encyclopedia of Earth. . Retrieved from http://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/International_Food_Security_Assessment:_2012-22</div>