Biodiversity and Food: The transition towards a sustainable food - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Biodiversity and Food: The transition towards a sustainable food system Erik Mathijs

Belgian Biodiversity & Public Health Conference Brussels, 30/11/2011

Challenges towards 2050

• One billion people hungry
• World population increases with 30% and will live

primarily in megacities in the South

• Incomes rise and cause a diet shift towards more meat

and vegetable oils

• Natural resources such as oil, P, water and biodiversity

become scarce (reinforced by climate change)

• Ecosystems are being destroyed such that essential

ecosystem services are declining

Biodiversity hotspots

Source: Leadley et al. (2010)

Systems analysis

ecosystems production consumption

recycling Waste and pollution (sink) Natural resources (source) Ecosystem services

population income

Systems analysis

ecosystems production consumption

recycling Waste and pollution (sink) Natural resources (source) Ecosystem services

Scarcity of natural resources Ecosystem destruction Loss of ecosystem services population income

Systems analysis

ecosystems production consumption

recycling Waste and pollution (sink) Natural resources (source) Ecosystem services

population income

Systems analysis

(1) (3) (4) (5) (2)

Building blocks

• 1. Increase productivity and input efficiency
• 2. Recycle nutrients
• 3. Increase consumption efficiency
• 4. Accelerate demographic transition
• 5. Reduce material consumption (affluence)

(1) Increase productivity and input efficiency

• Close yield gap by better use of inputs
• Increase production limits and input efficiency by

crop improvement (conventional or GM)

• Reduce yield losses

Achieving 95% of the yield potential would increase the amount of calories with 58% (Foley et al., Nature, 2011, 478:337-342)

(2) Recycling nutrients

• Within the agroecosystem

– Improve soils – …

• Outside of the agroecosystem:

– Energy – Pharma – …

(3) Increase consumption efficiency

• Reduce food waste

– Low price food – 10% of income spent on food

• Change diet composition towards health

recommendations:

– Less meat (100 g per day) – Less sugar – More vegetables and fruit

The production of 1 kg beef requires 5-7 kg cereals and 15.000 liters water.

(4) Accelerate demografic transition

• Education
• Economic

development

• Rol and

status of women

(5) Reduce material consumption

• Dematerialisation not possible for food as services

cannot be separated from product

• No crops for biofuels
• Sufficiency: decrease consumption to real needs

– Consume less on a voluntary basis – Rationing – Financial instruments (e.g. fat tax)

Combining building blocks into a transition

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Source: VITO

www.urgenda.nl

Two Narratives

• Narrative: discourse based on a coherent set of

assumptions and principles underpinning and communicating a certain worldview

• Levidow (2008):

– descriptive accounts: claims about objective reality as threats, opportunities and imperatives – normative accounts: claims about necessary or desirable responses to that objective reality – policy instruments for carrying out those responses “Regardless of its stated aims, a dominant narrative succeeds in the normative sense of gaining resources and power, while pre-empting alternative futures”

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The Productivity Narrative

• The problem - World population 9.2 billion in 2050 - agricultural

productivity slowing down - rising income levels shift diets to more protein rich food and will increase energy demand - serious threat that food demand will not be met - hunger and political instability - resource constraints and climate change limit the world’s capacity to expand food production.

• The solution - Scientific advances have the potential to bring forward

varieties, breeds and technologies that boost productivity and take into account resource scarcities and environmental problems - massive investments into R&D -removal of barriers to adoption by farmers, such as infrastructure, trade barriers and access to markets.

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MORE WITH LESS

The Sufficiency Narrative

• The problem - World population 9.2 billion people in 2050 - dramatic

environmental problems - no Earth capacity to support consumption - current food systems produce waste and overconsumption - mass health problems - destruction of important ecosystems will have dramatic feedback effects that undermine the foundations of our food systems - more poverty and conflict.

• The solution - Scientific advances have the potential to bring forward

agro-ecosystems that are both productive, respectful for ecosystems and resource saving - demand increases need to be mitigated through behavioural change - environmental externalities need to be internalized in markets -appropriate governance structures that address disruptive effect of trade.

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LESS IS MORE

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Productivity Narrative Sufficiency Narrative “We should produce more efficiently”

Business model contested

“We should consume less”

No business model or small niche market

SYNTHESIS

What is the integrative business model?

Can organic farming feed the world?

• Is it possible to feed the

world humanely and sustainably?

• Is it possible to, in

addition, also contribute to the world’s energy demand?

Can organic farming feed the world?

Can both paradigms be reconciled?

Technological paradigms Genetic engineering Agroecological engineering Basic definition Deliberate modification of the characteristics of an organism by the manipulation of its genetic material Application of ecological science to the study, design and management of sustainable agroecosystems Implicit objective Engineering plants: modify plants to our best advantage by making them productive in adverse conditions or by designing them to fit new objective Engineering systems: improve the structure of an agricultural system to make every part work well; rely

• n ecological interactions and

synergisms for soil fertility, productivity and crop protection Scientific paradigm underlying the technological paradigm Reductionism Ecology and holism Examples of subtrajectories progressing along the technological paradigm Bt insect resistant plants, herbicide-tolerant plants virus- resistant plants etc. Biological control, cultivar mixtures, agroforestry, habitat management techniques etc.

Vanloqueren and Baret, Research Policy, 2009

Van tegenstelling naar synthese?

CREPE (2011)