Priorities for Public Sector Research on Food Security and Natural Resources Report Presentation by Frank Place, ICRAF and Alexandre Meybeck, FAO on April 12, 2013 at the Food Security Futures Conference in Dublin, Ireland.

1. Food Security Futures conference,
11-12 April 2013, Dublin, Ireland
Food security and sustainable resource
use – what are the resource challenges
to food security?
Frank Place, ICRAF, CGIAR , Alexandre Meybeck, FAO
Contributing authors: Linda Colette (FAO), Cassandra de Young (FAO),
Vincent Gitz (FAO), Ehsan Dulloo (Bioversity), Stephen Hall (World Fish
Center), Eva Müller (FAO), Robert Nasi (CIFOR), Andrew Noble (IWMI),
David Spielman (IFPRI), Pasquale Steduto (FAO), Keith Wiebe (FAO),

2. Outline 1/2
 Food Security Context: Food Consumption
and Production Needs in 2050
 Natural Resources for Food Production:
Current Status and Trends
 Land
 Water
 Fisheries
 Rangelands
 Forests & trees
 Genetic resources
 Landscapes and ecosystem services

3. Outline 2/2
 Key Natural Resource Challenges for food
security
 Inequitable distribution
 Accessibility
 Optimize use for food security
 Addressing the challenges
 Research
 Development
 Policy
 FAO and CGIAR Roles

4. Food Security Context:
Food Consumption Needs in 2050
 From FAO: World Agriculture Towards 2030/2050
 Agricultural production will need to increase by 60%
between 2006 and 2050 to meet projected growth in
demand
 This does not take into account climate change nor
possible increased demand for biofuels

5. Food Production Increases Needed
by 2050
 Production can be met with various assumptions, but as
expansion of land for food becomes more difficult, FAO
estimates that 80% is to be met by yield increase
 New land will account for about 20% of the increase in
production
 Yield increases will need to be on the order of 0.64% per
annum globally; but 1.8% in SSA and 1.0% in S. Asia
 Globally, cereal yields are increasing, but at decreasing
rates (from 3.1% in 1960s to 1.3% in 2000’s)
“Global resources are sufficient, but the devil is local”

6. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Land
Source: Fisher et al. 2011: GEAZ model
 More than 1 billion ha of good land could be brought into
cultivation, but much is in forests, rangeland or other land
use; others may be difficult to convert
 If yield increases can be maintained, the net new land
area is a modest 70 million ha – mainly from SSA and L.
America

7. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Land Quality
 The 1991 GLASOD study estimated that 15% of all land
was degraded.
 More recent studies by FAO (LADA) and Bai et al. find
about 25% of areas degraded or degrading – with a
significant proportion on farmland
 Globally, only half the nutrients that crops take from the soil
are replaced, with nutrient depletion in many Asian
countries equivalent to 50 kg/ha annually.
 Globally, 34 million ha are now impacted by salinity
representing 11% of the total irrigated equipped area
 Tan et al. noted that the ratio of crop yield to NPK fertilizer
application has fallen dramatically between 1961 to 2000,
from 494 to 71

8. Use of Nutrient Inputs in Food Production
 Estimated that fertilizer accounted for 33-50% of yield
growth in developing countries between the 1970s and
2000s
 High rates per ha observed in Asia, North America,
Europe; L. America is catching up; rates remain very
low in SSA
 The use of organic nutrients is also high – brown and
green manures

9. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Water
 The FAO projections indicate that the global demand for
water withdrawals from agriculture will increase by 11%
from a 2006 baseline to 2050
 By 2050, more than half the world’s population will live in
countries with severe water constraints
Comprehensive Assessment of Water
Management in Agriculture, 2007

10. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Water
 In rainfed agriculture, less than 30% of rainfall is used by plants in
the process of biomass production
 The importance of irrigated agriculture cannot be overstated. At
present it accounts, with 16% of the arable area, for 44% of total
crop production
 There are water supply limits to the expansion of irrigation: more
than 40% of global area withdraws more than 20% of renewable
water resources which is considered to be a critical level
 The intensive agricultural economies of Asia withdraw 20% of their
internal renewable resources, of which more than 80% goes to
irrigation
 The aggregate projection shows that the area equipped for
irrigation could expand by 20 million ha over the period from
2005/2007 to 2050, nearly all of it in the developing countries, thus
leading to about 240 million ha under irrigation

11. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Fisheries
 Countries that depend most on fish for food and nutrition
security rely primarily on catches from the wild
 The most recent estimate states that 29.9% of stocks
were over-exploited, depleted or recovering in 2009 – but
data from parts of Asia and Africa are lacking
 Demand is almost certain to outstrip future gains in
productivity thus achieving a sustainable offtake level is a
key objective

12. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Rangelands and Feed
 Permanent meadows and pastures are 3.35 billion ha
globally or about 26% of land area
 There has been degradation of rangelands recorded with
management and environmental contributing
 Estimates put the world feed use of cereals at 742 million
tonnes, or 36% of world total cereal use.
 The growth rate of cereal feed is lower than that of
livestock production – partly due to shifting growths
among livestock types
 Oilcake feed production is increasing (e.g.
soybeans for use in China) and is expected
to be faster than that of cereal feed to 2050
(80% vs 50% growth)

13. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Forests and trees
CRP6 Proposal for Forests,
Trees and Agroforestry, 2011
 Forests cover about 4 billion ha about 31% of the world’s land area
 Tree cover of at least 10% is found on half of agricultural lands
 Forests provide rich sources of nutrients and fuelwood in forested
landscapes; trees on farms provide fruit, nuts, leaves and contribute to
crop and livestock productivity significantly in some regions (e.g. the
Sahel); fruit and vegetable consumption is highest in SSA in areas of
high tree cover
 Provision of essential ecosystem services

14. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Genetic Resources
 Presently, the world’s food comes just from 103 plant
species based on calories, protein and fat supply.
 Maize, wheat, rice and sugar supply almost 60% of
the calories and proteins in the human diet
 Breeds of five main livestock species provide the
bulk of global food supply
 But 7, 000 plants have been used by humans for
food, 1,400 crop wild relatives are considered to be
important for food security (e.g. for phenotype or
genotype traits)

15. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Genetic Resources
 About 900 cultivated plant species and 22% of the
more than 8,000 animal breeds are threatened by
extinction
 Crucial importance of associated biodiversity:
pollinators, soil microorganisms... Much less known
 Land use change and unsustainable practices are
major threats to biodiversity. At the same time when
biodiversity is essential to increase resilience of agro
ecosystems to risks and global changes.

16. Natural Resources for Food Production:
Landscapes and Ecosystem Services
 For individual resources to be healthy and sustainably
productive, their integrated management is important at
landscape and other scales
 Examples: improved management of farmland and yield
increases helped to reduce conversion of forests and
other lands; retention of natural vegetation helps to
prevent sedimentation into fisheries and provides
environment for pollinators
 Ecoagriculture Partners (2012) found a growing number
of integrated management of landscapes, with
involvement of key stakeholders:
 agriculture-pastoral-wildlife managed landscapes in east and
southern Africa
 watershed rehabilitation in China and India
 tree crop and ecotourism landscapes in Central America

17. Global availability/local accessibility?
 Land and water are unequally distributed
 Adequate management requires investment
 The distribution does not always favor the countries
which are relying the more on natural resources for
their growth
 Population growth and climate change could
increase discrepancies between needs and
availability
 Ex: Niger, Mali, Burkina Fasso

18. Distribution: land
Regions Cultivated Population Cultivated
land (million) land per
(million capita
ha) (ha)
Low- 441 2 651 0.17
income
countries
Middle- 735 3 223 0.23
income
countries
High- 380 1031 0.37
income
countries
Total 1 556 6 905 0.23

19. Water: some critical areas
 Northern Africa: withdrawals exceed renewable
resources
 Middle East, China, parts of USA, parts of India:
water tables decline significantly
 Western, Central and South Asia: severe water
shortages
 SSA: lack of investments

20. Trends in fertilizer use

21. Systems at risk

22. Systems at risk
 densely populated highlands in poor areas;
 small holder rainfed farming in semi-arid tropics;
 densely populated and intensely cultivated areas in
the Mediterranean basin
 intensive rainfed cropping in temperate climate;
 irrigated rice-based systems;
 crops depending on irrigation by groundwater;
 rangelands on fragile soils;
 deltas and coastal areas;
 periurban agriculture.

23. Access to resources
 The poorest and the more vulnerable, women,
indigenous people, poor fisherfolks, are the more at
risk of not having or losing access to resources
 Increasing prices could intensify competition for
resources

24. Resource efficiency for food security
 Multiple inputs: land, water, nutrients, genetic
resources. Optimizing the use of one often requires
the other. (+ knowledge)
 Multiple outputs: produce, income, diet (ecosystem
services). They do not always go together.
 Different levels: farm, landscape, food chains

25. Improving resource efficiency
 At field level
 At landscape level
 Along food chains
 At broader levels: diets, trade

26. Global Food Losses Throughout the Food
Chain for Selected Commodities

27. Addressing resource challenges
 Assessments of resources
 Measurements of resource use/systems, practices
and of associated economic, social, environmental
performance/impact
 Governance of natural resources: multi stakeholder,
multiresources, multipurposes (landscape)
 Transfer of resources (water, fish stocks)

28. Systems, practices, technologies
 Promote wide practice of integrated natural resource
management from field to landscape, including soil
conservation, minimum tillage, use of organic
nutrients, agroforestry, rainwater harvesting, micro-
irrigation, integrated crop-livestock, rotational
grazing, watershed protection, biodiversity
corridors…..
 Develop dissemination systems that encompass
experiential learning and sharing of knowledge
 Promote collaboration across sectors for effective
management all important resources for food
production and ecosystem services.
 A food chain approach, involving all economic actors

29. Policies
 Harmonize policies across sector – empower local
governments to design and implement locally
relevant programmes
 More efficient, food, input and credit markets are
needed and supporting infrastructure development
 Long term commitment towards NRM objectives
 More attention to NRM related policy instruments
such as property rights, rewards for environmental
services, longer term finance,
 More investment in research in agriculture and NRM

30. Research, knowledge
 Assessments
 gaps in resource assessments (e.g. in soils)
 measures and assessments of resource efficiency
 the ex-ante assessment of consequences of resource
degradation and investments in natural resource
management
 Using assessments to design tests of integrated
NRM practices at different scales
 Monitoring effects of technical, institutional and
policy innovations in NRM
 Developing a variety of dissemination products for
development and policy stakeholders

31. Priority areas for action FAO/CGIAR
1. There is a need to have a clearer picture of resource
“availability’ (land, water, biomass,…) and of how it can
respond to growing and competing demands
2. There is an urgent need to develop approaches and data
banks that consider at the same time all aspects and
impacts of resource management
3. Change the way to do research and dissemination, more
local specific and farmer centered
4. Improving governance for sustainable management of
natural resources, at every level, requires shared
understanding of the issues, adequate assessment and
monitoring tools and appropriate institutions and policies to
engage all stakeholders, including with adequate
science/policy interfaces