Over recent months, since the publication of its
Food Waste report, the Institution has been developing further its thinking about the global issue of food wastage, with particular emphasis on the losses of perishable product experienced in developing economies due to a lack of suitably engineered infrastructure. Soon, it will publish its latest energy and environment report on the subject.
The current topic of thought leadership is the broader issue of food security. Food wastage plays a part in this, in its impact on human development, resource depletion and environmental risk, such as climate change. This work is particularly timely with the recent publication of the
IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), which highlights the need to enhance food security in response to continued global warming and the role that food production itself plays in the scale of greenhouse gas emissions. It is also worth noting that 2014 is being celebrated by the African Union as the
'Year of Agriculture and Food Security'.
Food security is partly about having enough nutritious food to avoid hunger, but there is much more to it than that. It is also about wider issues of access, human development and stability and involves aspects of politics, economics, social science, engineering, agricultural science and, increasingly, climate science. It also depends on whether you look at it from a local community, national or an international level.
At the individual and community level, it is a key enabler to finding a route out of poverty and a mechanism to increase well-being. Historically, no country has significantly reduced the poverty of its population without achieving a high level of agricultural productivity and successfully connecting farmers to market options. These steps shift communities from subsistence farming to some sort of agricultural production (for example, it is estimated that growth in agriculture is 11 times more effective at reducing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa than growth in other primary industry sectors).
In the broader national context, food security is about guaranteeing the stability of the state through ensuring the well-being of citizens and supporting development. This is achieved by the provision of things like infrastructure, transportation for food distribution and communications. Internationally, it’s about reducing geopolitical tensions through participation. If we have a sustainable mix of local food production and food imports-exports, that leads to a more stable international system centered on global trade in food.
Working towards ensuring sustainable food security not only brings these benefits to human society but also a raft of associated positive outcomes. Through the high dependency relationship between food and water, energy and land-use, it can also enhance water and energy security and reduce land-use tensions as well as environmental degradation and risk.
As engineers we are consistently called upon to deliver ever-increasing amounts of water and energy in a sustainable way and to improve land stewardship capabilities in a world of increased competition for natural resources. As natural capital comes under growing pressure from increasing populations and demographic shifts to higher levels of affluence, engineering will be under extreme pressure to deliver sustainable solutions not only for food, but also for other human endeavours. However, because food sits at the centre of a web of substantial resource utilisation, food wastage has a particular bearing on the likelihood of a sustainable outcome to these global trends.
When food is wasted or lost in the food system, not only is the food not reducing hunger directly, but the water, energy and land that went into producing that food is also wasted. In many developing countries those resources are often in short supply. The pressing need for development is to connect local farmers with market options both locally, nationally and internationally.
The twin challenge for engineers is to do that in a way which minimises food wastage in the emerging supply chains without recreating a fossil fuel-based infrastructure in the developing world. In other words, we need to help establish a sustainable and resilient infrastructure based on clean technologies from the beginning. In so doing, we facilitate a ‘clean-tech leapfrog’ over the unsustainable fossil fuel dependence stage of development previously experienced by mature economies.
There are two elements that are crucial to moving forward. One is to ensure affordability through deployment in off-grid and micro-grid scenarios in developing economies.
The second is empowering communities through access to appropriate finance mechanisms. All of the technologies that would allow these economies to move forward through a clean-tech leapfrog are in existence today. In a local context, many have reached cost parity or below in distributed deployment against the alternative of establishing large-scale fossil fuel based infrastructure. It is also recognised that energy security benefits are gained in such deployments when issues like future competitive tensions around sources of diesel are factored in, for example, which could translate into a risk of diesel shortages and higher costs.
On the finance side, it is essential to put in place the financial and investment system that will enable communities to put clean distributed infrastructure in place. The aid donors, development institutions, NGOs, national governments and others have an important role to play here as intermediaries to help communities access and use these finance facilities. If we can successfully address these two challenges, it will have a very positive impact for all.
Food security is a complex interdisciplinary issue in which engineers must play their full part. At the Institution we have been working hard to show how mechanical engineers and engineering more broadly can lead clean technology based initiatives that will result in a sustainable food secure outcome.
In late Spring, as part of our commitment to improving the world through engineering, and in recognition of the
Year of Agriculture and Food Security, we will publish our latest energy and environment report. This presents solutions to the pressing need for sustainable cold-chain infrastructure to enhance food security in developing economies. I would encourage you to read the report and share it with your colleagues and friends as an example of what can be achieved for enhanced human well-being through the application of visionary engineering to food security.