The sixth annual Global Food Security Index, which was released earlier this month, provides a global ranking of how well countries can feed their own people.
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The researchers found that global food security fell for the first time in five years.
They attribute this to increases in the number of refugees, weather disasters, and a decline in global political stability.
I was surprised to see that, for the first time, the US dropped from the top spot, and Ireland is now the world’s most “food-secure” nation. However, I was not surprised to see that Australia has fallen from fifth to 14th place. This represented one of the largest drops in the surveyed countries.
According to the UN, the number of people suffering from hunger rose by about 38 million to 815 million in 2016. Climate change is seen as a driver of increasing weather volatility which is contributing to famines in developing nations.
Government investment in agricultural research is decreasing.
- Jan Davis
This year, adverse weather combined with conflict was tied to famine and severe food shortages in South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen.
Richer nations have fewer problems providing inexpensive, plentiful and safe food to their citizens.
Still, risks remain, and some are increasing, according to the study.
One of the factors which mitigates risk is government support for agricultural research, which the study says is important in keeping nutrition inexpensive and available as food needs increase.
This is where Ireland has excelled, building off the learnings of the 19th century potato famine, which saw a half-million residents migrating largely to the new-world countries of Australia and America.
It is also where some wealthy countries including Australia, the US, and Canada have fallen behind. These countries have highly productive food systems.
However, government investment in agricultural research is decreasing and that is impacting on production efficiencies.
Agricultural systems in these countries often use more water than they need to, leaving them more vulnerable to increasingly severe droughts expected because of climate change.
Furthermore, strains caused by an ageing population, which pays less in taxes and demands more social services, are also resulting in increased food insecurity.
“Food security is in reverse,” said one of the report’s authors. “If we’re aiming for zero hunger, we’re going in the wrong direction.”
Australians have never been hungry – and we take our food for granted. That’s not a given in today’s tough business climate, where agribusiness is burdened with increased costs and lower returns.
There’s an old saying that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman and a preacher; but every day, three times a day, you need a farmer. We need to be sure there are enough farmers around to feed all the world’s people, three times every day.
