In a significant turn of events at COP28 in Dubai, more than 130 country leaders have collectively called for a reevaluation of global and national food systems in response to the growing concerns about climate change. This marks the first official recognition at a U.N. climate summit of the pressing issues surrounding food security and the emissions generated by agriculture.
The Intersection of Climate Change and Food Security:
Climate change, driven by fossil fuel emissions, is causing increasingly extreme weather events – from prolonged droughts and heavy rains to heatwaves and gradual sea-level rise. These factors collectively pose a threat to crop production, disrupt farmland, and make agricultural activities more challenging.
The warming climate is also facilitating the spread of crop diseases and pests, impacting harvests and reducing overall yields. Coupled with other pressures on food systems, such as conflicts, export restrictions, and market speculation, the result is a decrease in food affordability and an increase in global hunger.
The U.N. World Food Programme estimates that 333 million people are facing “acute” food insecurity in 2023 in the 78 countries it operates in, a significant rise from approximately 200 million before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Addressing the Threats:
Farmers worldwide are adapting to climate extremes through various strategies, including creating irrigation ponds to store floodwater for dry periods and adopting climate-smart seeds. However, challenges like more frequent and severe heatwaves pose difficulties that are harder to overcome.
The financial support for small-scale farmers, who contribute about a third of the world’s food, falls short. In 2021, they received only about 0.3% of the total international climate finance from public and private sources. As a result, many small-scale farmers are shouldering the costs of climate adaptation themselves.
Efforts to enhance global food security must extend beyond farms to address issues such as speculation in food markets, discourage export clampdowns, and revamp humanitarian aid systems that are becoming increasingly overwhelmed.
Sustainable Solutions and Growing More Food:
While expanding agricultural land and using fossil-fuel-based fertilizers have historically been methods to increase food production, these practices often lead to deforestation and environmental degradation. Efforts to intensify food production on existing land have shown some success but can require substantial amounts of expensive fossil fuel-based fertilizers.
In recent years, more environmentally friendly farming methods have gained traction, providing hope for sustainable agriculture practices. Analysts emphasize that the most effective way to increase global food supplies is not necessarily to grow more but to address the staggering amount of food wasted annually. Approximately one-third of the world’s produced food is lost or wasted along the supply chain, according to the United Nations.
As nations grapple with the complex interplay between climate change and food security, finding holistic and sustainable solutions becomes imperative for ensuring a resilient and equitable global food system.
