Food problem in the world arose simultaneously with the appearance of man in it and changed its scale and features as humanity developed, becoming global in the 2nd half of the twentieth century. The food problem in the broad sense of the word usually refers to the production, exchange, distribution and consumption of food in individual countries and in the world as a whole. In a narrow sense, it must be understood as providing food for the population, its groups and different social classes.

The food problem today is one of the most pressing global problems facing humanity. The eradication of malnutrition and hunger in our society is inseparable from solving such a pressing issue, also of a global nature, as the eradication of poverty. According to available estimates, more than 850 million people on the planet are on a starvation diet (less than 1000 kcal/day), which causes physical degradation of the body. Chronic malnutrition affects 1.5 billion people. More than 5 million children die every year from the consequences of hunger. What gives the problem an international dimension is the fact that its solution cannot be achieved through the efforts of individual countries.

The volume of agricultural production and the level of its development in various countries are explained, first of all, by the availability of suitable crops for raising livestock and cultivating and the efficiency of their use, natural and climatic conditions and the material and technical base. The food problem is most acute for a number of the poorest countries, which are unable to allocate any significant funds for food imports. The problem of hunger is exacerbated by rapid population growth. The number of inhabitants in these countries is ¾ of the planet's population, and yet they consume only a third of global production. The saddest part of all this is that the gap in per capita food consumption is steadily growing.

A consequence of population growth is increased urbanization and increased turnover, which causes a reduction in arable land. This lies in the fact that arable land is taken away for the construction of roads, cities, industrial facilities. In addition, lands for agricultural purposes become unsuitable due to their contamination with pesticides, radionuclides, petroleum products, heavy metals, and if they are not used properly, desiccation, salinization, waterlogging of soils or their erosion under the influence of wind and water can occur.

The global food problem is not just a lack of food. It is also closely related to politics, economics and others whose work has its drawbacks. An important fact influencing the number of hungry people on the planet is the impossibility of solving the problem within the framework of an individual state. Its solution lies in the joint efforts of starving countries and countries that have achieved abundance in food production, which are even forced to “fight” excess consumption and the diseases that arise in connection with this.

The food problem that is taking place largely hinders not only progress, it is also a source of political and social instability in these countries. The eradication of hunger is inseparable from the solution, since only a significant increase will create conditions where people can purchase food without compromising other areas of their lives: education, health care, cultural development, etc.

The food problem is a solvable issue. Modern science has great potential for increasing food production by increasing land fertility, applying the achievements of selection and genetics (in livestock and agriculture), using biological resources of the seas and oceans, etc.

The problem of food supply to the population is one of the most pressing. During the entire post-war period, humanity has failed to solve this most difficult problem. Of course, food consumption increased after the war in all regions of the world, but this increase was distributed extremely unevenly across individual continents and states. An important factor: the growth of food production and population growth are almost the same - the harvest of grain over the past 30 years has increased almost 2 times, and the world's population has increased 1.8 times.
But food shortages are becoming a growing problem. In order for humanity to feed itself, food production must be tripled, which, according to experts in the field of agriculture, is unrealistic at the current level of development of science and production. Strong development of biotechnology is necessary. It is unacceptable, as it is today, to spend 10 energy calories on the production of 1 food calorie. The situation is complicated by the fact that soil erosion in the next 25 years will lead to the loss of 20% of farmland, and oil, gas and uranium reserves will be practically exhausted by 2100.
Based on the level of food supply, 4 specific zones can be distinguished in the world. First, the industrial zones of the capitalist world are Western and Northern Europe, North America and Japan. These are regions of abundance of high-quality food. The second zone is the regions of Southern Europe and Western Asia, including Greece, Portugal, Turkey, as well as most countries of Latin America, the Maghreb countries and ASEAN, the level of food security in which is close to the norm established by the UN WHO. The third zone includes the countries of Eastern Europe and the former USSR, as well as India, Egypt, Indonesia, where also according to UN WHO standards, deviations in food supply from the norm are at an “acceptable” level.
Finally, the fourth zone is developing countries, where the majority of the population experiences not only the full severity of the food crisis, but also simply hunger.
The total number of people worldwide suffering from acute hunger is increasing: if in the early 70s it was 400 million people, and in the 80s - 500 million, then due to the worsening food crisis in Africa in the 90s reaches more than 700 million people. This phenomenon is constant and widespread.
This problem can only be solved through major social changes and, above all, through truly democratic land reform. The essence of such a reform in developing countries lies primarily in the need to redistribute land in favor of the poor and those with little land. Small farms, which make up 90% of all farms, occupy from 7 to 17% of all cultivated land. Large estates, which account for 37 to 82% of all land used for agricultural production, do not exceed 7% of the total number of farms in these countries. Thus, the majority of lands are privately owned by landowners, tribal leaders, large agro-industrial companies, officers, and officials of military regimes, who are often not interested in introducing these lands into agricultural circulation, and sometimes deliberately do not cultivate part of the lands.
Already in the early 80s, the area of ​​cultivated land (including fallow land) in developing countries amounted to about 750 million hectares, which is 1.8 times more than in developed capitalist countries (about 400 million hectares), and food production in developed countries capitalist countries are approximately 1/4 more than in developing countries. On a per capita basis, the first group accounted for 0.7 hectares, and the second - 0.5 hectares. It is not surprising that in 54 developing countries with a total population of over 1.3 billion people, an absolute decline in food supply began already in the 1980s.
Of course, it is not only the archaic nature of agrarian relations that is the cause of the food crisis. Various factors are closely intertwined here: political, economic, social, demographic, agro-technological, climatic, resource, environmental, cultural and ethnic. And only solving the entire set of problems will help solve the food problem.
The world community is increasingly involved in solving the global production crisis: the volume of assistance provided free of charge or on preferential loans to the “third world” has sharply increased, the forms of this assistance are diversifying, the process of demonopolization of food supplies is underway and its reorientation towards the poorest developing countries - now more than 80% volume of preferential supplies is sent precisely to such countries.
An international emergency fund within the world food program is beginning to play an increasingly significant role. The size of this fund increased from 19 thousand tons of grain in 1976 to 500-700 thousand tons at the end of the 80s.
Thus, the global food problem is not limited to the problem of hunger and malnutrition. It is becoming more complex and multifaceted. And therefore, coordination of international action is required not only to eliminate hunger, but also to stabilize agricultural markets in connection with the increasing trend of food overproduction in leading exporting countries.

The task of providing the planet's population with food has long historical roots. Food shortages have accompanied humanity throughout its history, which has always been a history of the struggle for daily bread.

For example, even in the myths of the Indians of Central America, the deity of hunger is mentioned. In the legends and myths of ancient Greece, Pandora, having opened the vessel given to her by the gods, unleashed the human vices and misfortunes contained in it, including the famine that spread across the Earth.

In the Middle Ages, famine decimated millions of people, followed by all kinds of epidemics (famine typhus and others). In England alone, 36 famine epidemics were recorded between 1005 and 1322.

Later, due to the development of trade, transport, and so on, this problem weakened somewhat, but never disappeared.

The current world food situation is tragic because of its inconsistency. On the one hand, hunger causes the death of millions of people: in the second half of the 1970s alone, more people died from starvation than in the last 150 years as a result of wars and social upheavals. Several times the world's population of people die each year from hunger and diseases associated with it. more people than died during the atomic bomb explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. On the other hand, the scale of global food production generally corresponds to the food needs of the world population. According to various estimates, between 0.8 and 1.2 billion people are hungry and undernourished in the world, the vast majority of whom live in developing countries.

The food problem is global in nature both because of its humanistic significance and because of its close interconnectedness with the difficult task of overcoming the socio-economic backwardness of former colonial and dependent states.

Unsatisfactory food supply for a significant part of the population of developing countries is not only a brake on progress, but also a source of social and political instability in these countries.

The global nature of the problem is also manifested from another side. There is no state in the world in which the production, distribution and foreign trade of food would not be the concern of the government. While some countries suffer from hunger and malnutrition, others strive to achieve harmonious diets; and some are even forced to “fight” either with excess food products or with their excess consumption.

One thing is clear: a genuine solution to the world food problem cannot be achieved through the isolated efforts of individual states.

Finally, it cannot be approached in isolation from the analysis of other global problems of humanity - war and peace, demographic, energy and environmental.

Thus, the food problem is an urgent, multidimensional problem, the solution of which goes beyond the scope of agriculture itself. It has its own characteristics in states with different social systems and is particularly acute in the group of developing countries, where it is determined, first of all, by the legacy of the colonial past. All this is aggravated by the rapid growth of population in the liberated countries, the deterioration of the terms of trade with industrialized capitalist powers and a number of other reasons. As a result, the agricultural countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, where ½ of the total labor force is concentrated in agriculture, were unable to achieve food self-sufficiency. Although in economically developed countries a similar problem is solved with 10% or less of the population employed in agriculture. The above does not mean that the food issue has been resolved in developed countries. But there we are talking, first of all, about its social side, about distribution, about the deep stratification of society, where part of the population is doomed to malnutrition despite the general abundance of food resources.

Solving the food problem is associated not only with increasing food production, but also with the development of strategies for the rational use of food resources, which should be based on an understanding of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of human nutritional needs.

Food in the human body provides energy for the processes occurring there. There are 6 main groups of substances in food products: water, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. The unit of measurement for the amount of these elements in products is usually grams of weight, and for elements that provide energy requirements, calorific value units (calories, kilocalories) are used.

In countries with insufficient food supplies, the first priority is to meet the body's energy needs. And only in the long term, when the problem of food minimum in nutrition is solved, will the question of improving quality arise.

The most pressing issues at present are those related to protein-calorie malnutrition. In developing countries, it is the cause of various diseases characterized by retarded physical and mental development, decreased body resistance infectious diseases and others. Insufficient and unbalanced nutrition is also the cause of high mortality, especially among children.

Currently, many interstate official and public organizations and UN agencies have taken up the food problem, including FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), created already in 1945 within the UN.

Influential banks have also joined this cause: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), regional development banks, a special OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) fund, which finance numerous projects to boost agriculture in developing countries.

Food aid plays a certain role in mitigating the food crisis in developing countries. In 1987, donor countries provided approximately 12 million tons of cereals as food aid. The United States accounts for over 60% of such assistance, EU countries (European Union) - 20%, Canada - 10%, Australia - 5%. Food aid to African countries accounts for up to 2/5 of their total food imports.

Factors influencing the food situation

To this day, no real ways have been found to solve the global food problem, which only proves its complexity and multifaceted nature. Moreover, as we have already noted, an important feature of the current situation is that famine and excess food production coexist in parallel, and the most important trends include the following:

Shifting the center of gravity of the food problem to Africa;

A sharp increase in food exports from highly developed Western countries (it was different before);

Expansion of the absolute scale of poverty in developing countries.

In general, the world's food resources are sufficient to provide satisfactory nutrition for humanity. The global economy has the agricultural resources and technology to feed twice the number of people living on Earth.

However, food production does not provide food where it is needed. Starvation and malnutrition of almost 1/5 of the planet's population is the main social content of the food crisis.

The food situation in the world is influenced by: physical and geographical conditions and population distribution; development of world transport and world trade, including grain trade and others. In addition: among the factors it is necessary to note the economic backwardness of most countries of the “third world”, expressed in the low level of development of the productive forces of agriculture, in its narrow agricultural and raw material specialization, poverty and low purchasing power of the bulk of the population. In addition, priority attention in the agriculture of developing countries is still given to export industrial crops, while food production remains at the level of traditional semi-subsistence peasant farms, and the best lands have always been taken specifically for plantations (a legacy of the colonial past).

The weak material and technical base of agriculture, dependence on weather, insufficient use of organic and mineral fertilizers, lack of chemical plant protection products, difficulties in irrigation and land reclamation - all this gives rise to low labor productivity in most developing countries.

1 agricultural worker feeds less than 2 people in third world countries, while in Western countries it feeds more than 20 people; including in the USA – 80, in Belgium, the Netherlands – 100 people.

The output per person employed in agricultural production in South and Southeast Asia averaged only $404 in 1985 (including $278 and $382 in India and Bangladesh, which have a large population and population density, respectively); while, for example, in Japan this figure is $9,783.

Our country in last years is experiencing great difficulties with food and is forced to purchase many food products abroad. In the former USSR, 1 agricultural worker (according to the calculations of B. M. Bolotin) was supposed to provide food for 13 people, but according to official data in 1987, the USSR produced less agricultural products than the USA, but 21.3 was spent on this labor million workers, compared to 2.3 million permanent workers in the United States. According to Bolotin’s calculations, labor productivity in agriculture in our country is approximately 10 times lower than in the USA, Canada and the Benelux countries.

Note that archaic agricultural technology, the use of mainly female labor, low labor productivity in traditional agriculture determine its low productivity, and this in turn determines the low income of the rural population (more than 80% of the rural population of Africa has an income below the subsistence level). Grain yields in monsoon Asia (South and Southeast Asia) are 2 times lower than in developed countries overall (and 3 times lower than in Japan). There are also large losses during harvesting, delivery from the fields and storage.

Rapid demographic growth limits the ability to alleviate the tense food situation in the world. So in Africa alone, in the countries of the arid zone, over the past 30 years, the production of grain crops has increased by 20%, and the population has doubled. That is, throughout the “third world” the problem of providing food to an additional huge mass of people has arisen. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the problem of agricultural overpopulation and the increase in the number of people employed outside the agricultural sector: in industry, transport, construction and energy. These areas of activity require more intensive labor inputs than traditional industries and stimulate increased demands on the quantity and quality of food.

The rapidly developing process of urbanization in the Third World countries has a big impact on the food situation. It is expressed as follows:

Rapid growth of the population not involved in agricultural production (increasing load per 1 person employed in agriculture)

The outflow of the most productive residents from villages to cities;

Increasing numbers of urban poor;

Changes in food needs due to a certain “internationalization” of the diet (changes in diet, for example, increased consumption of wheat due to the displacement of less valuable grains, etc.).

The food situation in developing countries is closely intertwined with other problems, many of which are also becoming global. They appear with varying degrees of severity in different regions. These include:

Military spending, which diverts huge funds from agriculture (for example, in Bangladesh, military spending is 16%, which exceeds government spending on agriculture);

The growing external financial debt of developing countries (exceeding $1 trillion at the beginning of the 1990s);

An energy factor that affects the food situation in several ways: on the one hand, spontaneous deforestation worsens the state of the environment and the ecological conditions for food production; on the other hand, most developing countries are deprived of their own reserves of coal and oil and are forced to purchase them (except for oil exporting countries), which means this limits the possibilities of importing both food and agricultural machinery.

Let's add military conflicts to all of the above.

Let's take a closer look at the most important factors that have an impact on the global food problem.

Demographic factor and food problem

It is widely believed that the food problem is caused primarily by the “population explosion” in developing countries and the lack of food resources. There was even a revival of interest in discussing the ideas of the English priest Malthus, who drew attention to the importance of the direct relationship between food production and population size.

But modern scientific literature notes that rapid population growth, which occurred with a simultaneous expansion of food production, did not reduce the level of per capita food supply, at least in the world as a whole. According to some estimates: on average, the world's per capita food supply (in terms of energy indicators) is 2,700 kilocalories per day. Experts from FAO and WHO (World Health Organization) propose to estimate the energy needs of the “average inhabitant of the Earth” at 2400 kilocalories per day, which is the required physiological norm necessary to maintain effective life.

Moreover, undoubtedly, when calculating the physiological norm, it would be necessary to take into account regional specifics, depending on the natural and climatic conditions of residence, the type of activity of the population and a number of other factors. Malnutrition (not enough calories or protein in food) is one of the most common food crises. In the mid-1980s, caloric intake per capita in developing countries was only 2,460 kilocalories per day (in low-income countries of tropical Africa about 2,000 per day) versus 3,380 in developed capitalist countries. Such a gap cannot be considered normal either from a humanitarian or economic perspective. There are also differences within individual countries, for example, seasonal variations in caloric intake. In Nigeria, in the Zarna province, during the dry season, residents receive only 1949 kilocalories from food, or 77% of the amount they have in the wet months - 2458 kilocalories. In the Sahel, this gap is even more noticeable among nomadic pastoralists, so during the “hungry” seasons they are forced to collect wild fruits.

Three main groups of countries in terms of food supply can be distinguished:

1) countries where the population consumes food below the world average;

2) close to the world average consumption level;

3) above the world average.

The quality of food is of great importance. The limited consumption of animal protein in food in the countries of tropical Africa and Asia can be explained not only by economic or natural factors, but also by religious restrictions, traditions and the general level of development. In developing countries, 70% of the grain fund is used for food consumption and only 21% (and in Asian countries - 8%) - for feed, that is, for the production of more complete animal protein. At the same time, in developed countries the opposite picture is observed – 19 and 61%.

The population of developing countries is characterized by a predominantly plant-based diet. Dependence on one or two types of food (cereals or tubers) often persists. The basis of the diet of residents of South and Southeast Asia is rice. The population of tropical Africa, South and Southeast Asia almost does not consume meat and dairy products, so the human body experiences acute calorie and protein deficiency.

Among the regions of the tropical world, Africa has the greatest diversity of diets, because... Here the role of natural-zonal factors is great.

Vector quantities are used as units for measuring the quantity and quality of food, the components of which are the main elements: proteins, fats, carbohydrates. This is quite unusual, but very interesting way images of characteristics, and, most importantly, it makes it possible to compare the indicators of different countries (in this case, using the example of the African continent). In addition, zonal features of the types of food of residents are highlighted: subtropics, dry and humid tropical regions, the predominance of certain products (plant or animal origin) in the diet.

Global population figures in comparison with the dynamics of grain production, from which humanity receives approximately ½ of all necessary calories, are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

	Population
	Number	Growth over 10 years		Production million tons	Growth over 10 years
					million tons

Modest but positive changes are reflected in the decline in the number of people suffering from undernourishment in different regions of the world from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. So in South and Southeast Asia this figure decreased in percentage terms from 29 to 22% (however, the absolute figures increased from 281 million to 291 million), in Latin America - from 18 to 14%, in the Middle East - from 22 to 11% (from 35 million to 26 million). The exception is Africa, where the figure is 32%, and the absolute number of chronically undernourished people has increased from 92 million to 140 million people.

Excessive concentration of the population in cities also leads to an aggravation of the food situation. The accelerated growth of cities in the countries of the “third world” is associated with the “pushing out” of peasants from the villages due to the increasing scarcity of land. Such accelerated, forced urbanization has led to the fact that more than 1/3 of all migrants do not have sustainable sources of livelihood and are partially unemployed.

The urban poor, concentrated in slum areas, favelas and squatter settlements, suffer no less than the rural ones. And in general, due to low incomes, the population in cities spends the bulk of the family budget on purchasing food (for example, in Côte d’Ivoire and Chad more than 60%; in Egypt - 50-60%).

In cities, the nutritional structure of the population is also changing, and the inability to provide the majority of the urban population in developing countries with the basic conditions of a normal life with a constant increase in the number of poor people causes an increase in morbidity and mortality associated with both insufficient and poor nutrition and the lack of basic sanitation.

Regions and zones of critical food situation

Mass famine is an important and sad aspect of the underdevelopment of developing countries; a crisis that threatens to develop into a catastrophe. Hunger is not only an extreme manifestation of the food problem, but also a signal of the dysfunction of all human life support systems: resource-ecological, socio-political and economic. Every fifth earthling (about 1 billion people) today lives from hand to mouth; 12-18 million people die from hunger every year, of which 75% are children.

Famines usually occur not because the world as a whole had no grain reserves, but because, with low incomes in most developing countries, food becomes unaffordable for a large part of the population. Residents do not have the opportunity to increase the share of food costs in family expenses: it already often exceeds 60% (for comparison: in France - 16%, in the USA - 13%, in Japan 11%).

In our country, this figure has also been quite high in recent years (about 40% in the mid-1980s in the former USSR), but many families even then spent up to 70% of their income on food, especially for residents Central Asia. After the price reform in April 1991, the share of food expenditures increased sharply, confirming that in many respects the CIS is already approaching typically backward countries.

In 1992, the share of food expenses in consumer spending of families in the CIS countries ranged from 40 to 57% (46% in Russia), having increased in just one year by 3–4 percentage points in Belarus and Uzbekistan and by 8–11 points in Russia and Kyrgyzstan , Moldova and Tajikistan. At the same time, the structure of food consumption itself is deteriorating. In it, relatively cheap products (bread and potatoes) occupy an increasingly important place, the absolute level of consumption of which has increased. Consumption of more expensive meat and dairy products is declining.

On the modern world map, the famine zone covers a vast area on both sides of the equator, including almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia, South and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and most of South America.

Due to the extreme uneven distribution of food and the lack of statistics on this issue, it is difficult to obtain reliable data on the number of hungry people in the world. According to FAO estimates, the number of people with less than the “critical norm” of food (1400-1600 calories per day) in developing countries amounted to more than 1/5 of the total population.

According to the FAO Land, Food and People report, in 2000, 64 developing countries (compared to 54 in the early 1980s) will be classified as critical, i.e. their population will not be provided with food according to FAO-WHO standards, and more than 500 million people will experience hunger.

A particularly acute situation has arisen in Africa; According to experts, its current food situation is assessed as critical. The food crisis on this continent is becoming protracted and chronic due to the extremely low incomes of the majority of the population (more than 70% of the 598 million people in 1988 lived “below the poverty line”); very high population growth rates, natural disasters and many other reasons mentioned above.

There are even “famine zones” identified - in the Sahel countries since the 1970s and in northeastern and southern Africa in the 1980s. According to official UN data, the most critical situation has developed in 20 countries (Cape Verde, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho , Angola). And although over 70% of the continent's population is employed in agriculture, more than 150 million people are hungry and fed up. And in 20 countries in the “hunger zone,” per capita food production has decreased by 2% per year over the past 15 years.

It is possible to identify areas with a tense food situation in other regions of the world. The northeast of Brazil became notorious, until the second half of the nineteenth century its most developed region. The origins of deep poverty and starvation of the population are often attributed only to difficult natural conditions (droughts, floods). The dry season in this area lasts from 6 to 11 months. Nowadays, this describes one of the poorest areas not only of Brazil, but of all of Latin America (average life expectancy 44 years). Large landownership is widespread in Brazil. Small and tiny farms (up to 10 hectares in area) cover only 12% of agricultural land (almost 2/3 of them are concentrated in the northeast). More than half of the inhabitants of northeastern Brazil still live in rural areas, and of these, at least 15 million people live in absolute poverty. 2 million families in rural areas have a per capita income of less than $50 per year. The majority of the population in this poorest region of the continent is undernourished. Due to increasing demographic pressure on land resources, migration flows of peasants to cities are increasing (the growth rate of the urban population is 4.5% per year). However most of migrants from rural areas and cities live in conditions of poverty (annual per capita income is less than $365, which according to official statistics is considered the poverty line). Economic changes in Brazil cannot affect the situation in the Northeast. Attention is paid to the development of virgin lands, irrigation, and so on.

According to FAO, the annual increase in agricultural production is estimated at only 3.1%, while 4-5% is needed to change the food situation in the region. This means that the food problem will not lose its severity in Latin American countries in the coming decades. It is also necessary to take into account that average statistical indicators often hide the real state of affairs in individual countries, and within each country. These are, firstly, differences in the level of food consumption of different social groups of the population. For example: in Brazil, the poorest 20% of the population own 2.4 % The country's GNP, and the richest 20% account for 62.6% of the GNP. In India, these figures are 8.1% and 41.4%, respectively; in Côte d'Ivoire (Africa) - 5.0% and 52.7% and so on. Secondly, there is a significant gap in the nature of nutrition between urban and rural residents, different professional groups, within individual families, etc. Thirdly, there are differences in quantitative and quality composition food. Fourth, food distribution imbalances are deepening, both nationally and internationally.

Many developing countries are forced to turn to international organizations and individual economically developed Western countries for help, which leads to competition in the global food market, aggravation of interstate relations, as well as dependence on foreign capital.

Fifthly, the situation is complicated by interethnic military-political, religious and ethnic armed conflicts. Sixthly, the food situation is aggravated by frequent natural disasters (droughts, floods, floods, locust attacks and the like), as well as due to the general degradation of the natural environment.

Natural resource aspects of solving the food problem

According to the famous American scientist Lester Brown, director of the US World Watch Institute, environmental degradation has a much stronger impact on the food situation in the world than economic and social trends.

Let us consider this aspect of the food problem using the example of Africa. According to experts, this region is already experiencing an environmental crisis, which is expressed in the following:

There is a clear lack of cultivated areas;

There is a shortage of fertile soils;

Droughts become chronic, both under the influence of climatic and anthropogenic factors;

The process of aridization and desertification of lands continues;

The process of deforestation of territories is intensively underway;

Almost everywhere there is a shortage of water not only for irrigation, but also for domestic needs.

We have examined aspects of the environmental crisis only using the example of the African continent. Things are no better in other regions.

How much of the population can our planet actually feed? In order to answer this question, researchers study the agro-natural potential of the planet and identify land resources suitable for development. The situation in developing countries is most alarming.

Under the auspices of FAO, a project on agroecological zoning of the world was carried out. It was intended as "a first approach to estimating the productive potential of the world's land resources." Maps of agroclimatic suitability of lands were made, highlighting zones of special favorability. According to experts, the territories of the 117 studied Third World countries will be able to feed a population 1.6 times higher than in 2000; but the cultivated land should be tripled and used exclusively for food and fodder crops. However, is such an increase in agricultural land realistic? Due to what? By clearing tropical rainforests?

For example, the climatic conditions of the Amazon forests are unsuitable for the production of basic agricultural products, and the soil conditions here are not the best. And simply deforestation is fraught with many other troubles and problems for the entire planet.

A group of Dutch scientists also conducted research on this issue, but when determining the agro-natural potential of the planet, they were based on assessments not of climate, but of soils.

Scientists have conducted a comprehensive assessment of land resources (both climatic and soil), but they note that many factors were not taken into account: increasing food potential through land irrigation; as well as a decrease in their fertility due to desertification, erosion, salinization, waterlogging of soils and others. Assessing the global environmental situation, we can note:

Degradation of natural human life support systems is one of the important factors influencing the solution of the food problem.

A connection has been established between the level of air pollution and the magnitude of the reduction in agricultural yields.

The intensification of agriculture sometimes manifests itself in an ambiguous manner. So in some regions it is environmentally destructive and often does not take into account local conditions.

For example, agroecosystems of the temperate climate zone are quite resistant to external influences: in Europe and North America, arable land remains highly productive for a long time. And in the tropical rainforest zone, it is necessary to take into account the fragility of ecosystems and pay attention to traditional agriculture.

It must also be remembered that developing countries must pay attention to preventing environmental degradation, since they do not have the means to overcome this problem in the future.

Economic backwardness and the general unequal position of the Third World countries in the world economic system also adversely affect the situation.

Until now, many developing countries remain focused on the production of plantation (export) crops, in which economically developed countries are interested.

Added to this is the lack of scientific knowledge of the nature of developing countries and its agro-resource potential.

Ways to solve the food problem

There is no consensus on the planet's agricultural potential. FAO experts note that 78% of the earth's surface experiences serious natural limitations for the development of agriculture, 13% of the area is characterized by low productivity, 6% - average and only 3% - high.

Currently, about 11% of the total land area is occupied by arable land. About 24% of the planet's land is used for livestock production (and although pastures are often plowed for grain production, their losses are compensated for by deforestation). The characteristics and severity of agro-resource situations often differ sharply not only in individual countries, but also within their geographical areas. Therefore, there cannot be universal ways to solve the food problem, and it should be studied and overcome, first of all, at the national and local levels.

What are the possibilities for increasing food production under the current conditions? They are connected:

With the expansion of cultivated areas, including the implementation of projects for reserve areas for agricultural development;

With the intensification of agriculture on already developed lands (including irrigation, fertilization and others);

Using advanced farming methods along with traditional ones;

With the implementation of environmental measures;

With the process of diversifying the structure of the entire economy of developing countries; to some extent, with the abandonment of the idea of ​​food self-sufficiency and meeting growing food needs through export earnings as a result of the development of other sectors of the economy (the need to import food products);

With the need for social transformations of agrarian reforms;

With the introduction of developing countries to scientific and technological achievements, including in the field of agriculture.

Modern science has great potential for increasing food production in the world by: increasing land fertility; use of biological resources of sea and ocean waters; the widespread use of solar energy and the achievement of genetics and selection to improve crops and breed more productive breeds of animals.

The solution to the food problem will depend on each country, region and the efforts of the entire world community.

• Pilyugina Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, student
• Far Eastern Federal University

• FOOD PROBLEM
• HUNGER
• MALNUTRITION
• DEFICIT
• DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The problem of hunger and malnutrition has worried the world community throughout human history. Even despite the very rapid development of science, technology and the constant improvement of technology, the food problem not only has not disappeared, but has manifested itself with even greater force. This problem is the subject of special attention of every state seeking to ensure the well-being of its population. The presence of sufficient food supplies guarantees the satisfaction of the most important human needs, in particular the guarantee of the human right to life. Due to the relevance of this problem, the task of the ongoing research is to eliminate any misunderstanding of its fundamental importance.

Recently, there has been a sharp aggravation of the food problem all over the world, but to a greater extent the problem of food shortages has affected developing countries, namely a number of post-socialist states. In particular, attention should be paid to such needy countries as Togo and Mongolia, where the average per capita food consumption by energy value is less than 2000 kcal per day and continues to decline. However, in a number of developing countries, consumption levels are quite acceptable and currently exceed 3000 kcal per day per capita. Such countries include Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Morocco, Mexico, Syria and Turkey.

As is known, in developed countries the volume of consumed products is much higher than in developing countries. That is, today there are 2 opposing problems, while in some countries the majority of the population suffers from overeating and excess weight, in others the problem, on the contrary, is malnutrition. Interestingly, the number of overweight people in the world currently exceeds the number of hungry people. The total number of overeating people is approximately 600 million people, in particular, in the United States, 100 million people fall into this category, or more than half of all residents of the country aged 20 years and older. However, the problem of obesity is not limited to developed countries; it also exists among residents of “chronically malnourished” regions. This occurs due to poor diet, lack of certain nutrients, or metabolic problems. However, the cause of obesity in the population of European countries and North America lies elsewhere. Advertising is what creates the cult of food. The abundance of products and delicacies forces people to make thoughtless purchases, turning food not into a necessity, but into a way of obtaining pleasure. Accordingly, demands and consumption levels increase.

IN general view, from the point of view of food security, the following types of countries are distinguished:

1. the largest developed countries, mainly exporting food in the world (USA, Canada, Australia, some European countries);
2. small countries that actively export food products (Finland, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands and others);
3. countries experiencing food shortages but capable of purchasing it (South Korea, Japan) are the main importers;
4. countries that barely meet their food needs through their own production (India, China, South American countries);
5. countries experiencing food shortages and developing water, land, scientific and technical resources to ensure self-sufficiency (Middle East, countries of Southeast Asia);
6. countries where food supply is at an acceptable level according to medical standards (countries of the former USSR);
7. countries with constantly deteriorating food supply and an emerging food crisis (African and Asian countries).

The true scale and severity of the food problem can be assessed based on research data provided by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Based on FAO statistics, the number of hungry people on the planet is approximately 500 million, while about 240 million people are doomed to illness and death as a result of hunger. According to FAO, in addition to hunger in 2010-2012, almost 870 million people are chronically undernourished, representing 12.5% ​​of the world's population, that is, one in eight people, with the vast majority - 852 million people - living in developing countries, where currently, An estimated 14.9% of the population is undernourished (Table 1).

Table 1 - Dynamics of the number of undernourished people in the world, 1999-2012.

Index	Number (millions) of undernourished people
Developed regions
Developing countries
Latin America and the Caribbean

Source: FAO

From the presented table we see that, in general, the growth rate of the undernourished population in the world is decreasing, mainly due to the improvement in the food situation in the developing countries of Asia, but nevertheless, the positive growth of the analyzed indicator is explained by the constant increase in the number of undernourished people in the African countries where they live. 22.9% of all hungry people.

To date various shapes Malnutrition in many developing countries is very common among the general population. This is because while traditional diets may provide adequate calories, they do not contain the required minimum proteins, fats and microelements.

According to FAO estimates, the approximate nutritional requirement for one person should be 2400-2500 kcal per day. However, some authors believe that "average" An inhabitant of the Earth needs a larger amount of kcal for normal life, namely 2700-2800 kcal per day. Clearly, this indicator may vary depending on gender, age, type of work, and the natural and climatic conditions in which a person lives. But nevertheless, there is a “starvation diet” equal to less than 1000 kcal per day, which causes physical degradation of the body; According to available estimates, up to 800 million people receive it. .

Another equally common form of hunger is chronic malnutrition; it affects about 1.5 billion people in the world, receiving only 1000-1800 kcal per day. Unlike famine, which can be caused by crop failures and affects localized, albeit large, densely populated areas, chronic malnutrition is a more serious problem.

According to the standard developed by the FAO, the diet must include at least 100 g of protein per day, so a diet that lacks not only calories, but also proteins (mainly of animal origin), fats, vitamins, and various microelements is considered incomplete. According to FAO, about 40% of the world's inhabitants receive adequate nutrition.

The lack of vital components often observed in the diet of many people in developing countries, the consequence of this is whole line serious diseases that disproportionately affect children and young people (for example, nutritional dystrophy).

Hunger and malnutrition have existed for a long time, but if previously the main factor causing them was poorly developed agricultural production, now modern stage characterized by scientific and technological progress, the productive forces have reached a level of development at which they are able to provide food larger number people than currently live on our planet.

According to the calculations of British experts, even with current methods of cultivating the land, it is possible to provide food for over 10 billion people, but humanity uses the cultivated land extremely unproductively and out of 45 million square meters. km of land suitable for agricultural cultivation, less than 1/3 of the land is used.

Another problem today is the fact that the products for which up to 1/4 of all arable land is used are exported to the industrialized countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, that is, developing countries specializing in the production of tropical and industrial crops become dependent from their export earnings. Also, developed countries are trying to control product prices by arbitrarily establishing quotas, various tariffs, strict standards and sanitary norms for imported raw materials.

When considering areas on the periphery of the world economy, one can still observe a lack of funds allocated for the development of agriculture in these states, the predominance of outdated production methods, which ultimately makes it impossible to give impetus to the development of agriculture and effective development available resources.

The superiority of developed countries over developing countries in food production continues to be maintained largely due to government subsidies, a prime example of which is US policy. Considering more high level development of productive forces in agriculture in comparison with developing countries, the policy of developed countries in the field of subsidizing the agro-industrial sector slows down all the activities of developing countries to increase the intensity and productivity of their agriculture. Thus, it can be said that the refusal of active subsidies of agriculture by countries such as the United States can help rid the broad masses of the population of the developing world from hunger and malnutrition.

In the modern world, the food problem has acquired global proportions; its solution is associated with the prospects for the rational distribution of production resources between all participants in world economic relations. Today, quite powerful agricultural productive forces have been created, the agro-industrial complex continues to develop, high-yielding, hybrid seeds are actively used (the result of the “green revolution”), and the biotechnological revolution has also had a great influence on the development of agro-industrial integration. Taking into account all the achievements of modern science, technology and constantly improving technologies, we can conclude that with the proper use of all the achievements of civilization, this global problem can be solved in the near future.

Bibliography

1. Bulatov, A. S. World economy: textbook / Ed. A.S. Bulatova - M.: Yurist, 2009. -734 p.
2. Galyuzhin, S. D. The problem of hunger is the most important environmental problem / S. D. Galyuzhin, A. S. Galyuzhin, O. M. Lobikova. Mogilev: Bulletin of the Belarusian-Russian University, 2008. pp. 157-167.
3. Official website of FAO [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.fao.org/index_en.htm
4. Global problems of world economic development: energy, raw materials, food, demographic and environmental [Electronic resource]. URL: http://rusmors.ru/podborka_otvetov_po_medjunarodnym_otnosheniyam-globalnye_problemy_mirovogo_ekonomicheskogo_razvitiya_energeticheskaya_syrevaya_prodovolstvennaya_demograficheskaya_i_ekologicheskaya.html
5. Food problem // Russian Geographical Society [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.rgo.ru/2010/09/prodovolstvennaya-problema/

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“New technologies in agriculture may be a dead end”

Review of trends and some ways to solve problems of providing food to the world's population

How to feed ten billion people in the 21st century? A review of trends and some ways to solve the problems of providing the growing population of the Earth with food is presented by Gazeta.Ru together with.

The number of people in the world is growing by about 70-80 million people per year. Never before have so many people lived on the planet at the same time. If we look at agriculture and food supply, each person strives to increase consumption, respectively, along with absolute consumption due to population growth, relative consumption also increases.

The question arises: “Will there be enough food to satisfy the growing appetites of a growing population, given that about 1 billion people are already hungry?”

Therefore, from a food perspective, the world faces a triple challenge in the 21st century: a) to feed the growing demand for food from a growing and richer population; b) do it in an environmentally sustainable way; c) cope with the problem of hunger.

Global agriculture will face the following global constraints over the next 50 years:
1. There are no new lands available.
2. Changes in climatic conditions in traditional crop growing areas. Change temperature regime and precipitation regime.
3. Soil degradation.
4. Increasing regional freshwater deficit.
5. Decrease in the rate of yield growth even with an increase in the volume of fertilizers.
6. Increased dependence on fossil fuels (logistics, raw materials).
7. There are no new fish resources.
8. Population growth.
9. Dietary transition due to increased prosperity.

In the past, the main ways to combat food shortages were through agricultural development of new land and the use of new fish stocks.

However, over the past five decades, while grain production has more than doubled, the amount of land devoted to arable farming worldwide has increased by only a few percent.

Of course, some new land could be brought into cultivation, but competition for land from other human activities makes this an increasingly unlikely and costly solution, especially with greater emphasis on biodiversity conservation. In recent decades, certain agricultural areas that were previously productive have been lost due to urbanization and other human activities, as well as due to desertification, salinization, soil erosion and other consequences of unsustainable land use. Further losses are likely, which could be exacerbated by climate change. Producing first-generation biofuels on good, quality agricultural land also adds competitive pressure to food production. Freshwater scarcity is already causing significant problems in China and India. Human influence on the nitrogen and phosphate cycles has been disrupted natural systems utilization of these elements and this influence will not weaken, since fertilizers are responsible for half of the harvest, and the use of fertilizers will only increase.

However, in more detail about the limits of agriculture in the 21st century, with an emphasis on fresh water, nutrients and hydrocarbons, “Gazeta.Ru” talked about it in the article “Traps of fresh water and acid rain.”

Accordingly, at the global level in the 21st century, more food will need to be produced on the same amount of land (or even less area). Recent studies of future demand show that the world will need 70-100% more food by 2050.

It is obvious that humanity will actively solve these problems in the coming decades. Different countries will have different challenges, for example in China the main agricultural challenges will be rapid dietary transition due to rising incomes. Dietary transition from a predominantly vegetarian diet to a diet containing a large proportion of meat products requires a several-fold increase in the use of nutrients, fresh water, soils and other things, which will significantly increase the burden on agriculture and have a negative impact on the environment. African countries are characterized by other problems - low yields and such negative impacts of expanding agricultural areas on the environment as deforestation and desertification.

In Russia, the problems are of a completely different nature: we depend on food imports, the country does not provide itself with meat products. Accordingly, Russia is dependent on international markets for meat products, which is an unsustainable long-term strategy.

Each region can have its own problems, but if we consider agriculture as a single global industry over a long period of time, then the limits and trends listed at the beginning of this article will play a crucial role, although global agricultural problems will be solved locally.

Below is an overview of trends and some ways to solve the emerging problems of providing food to a growing population. These solutions are the scientific and practical mainstream. It is far from certain that these solutions, even if implemented, will be able to improve the situation and not drive it into an even greater dead end.

Method 1: Increasing yields using traditional practices

There are significant differences in crop and livestock productivity even in regions with similar climates. The difference between actual productivity and the best productivity that can be achieved using current genetic material, available technology and management is called the "yield gap". Achieving the best local yields depends on farmers' ability to access and use seeds, water, nutrients, soil, soil pest control, biodiversity benefits, and access to advanced knowledge and management systems.

Closing yield gaps could dramatically increase food supplies, but also increase negative environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions (especially methane and nitrous oxide, which have a larger greenhouse effect than CO2 and are largely produced by agriculture). , soil erosion, depletion of fresh water horizons, increased eutrophication, destruction of biodiversity due to conversion of agricultural land.

Method 2: Increasing food production using genetic modification

Today, the speed and cost of sequencing and resequencing genomes is such that improved methods of breeding and genetic modification can be easily applied to the development of crop varieties that produce high yields even in difficult conditions. This primarily applies to crops such as sorghum, millet, cassava, and banana, which are staple foods for many of the world's poorest communities.

Today, genetic modification is used mainly in the production of soybeans (70% of the total area under the crop), cotton (49%), corn (26%), rapeseed/canola (21%). The area under GM crops accounts for 9% of the world's crop area, mainly in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, India, Canada and China. According to Sygenta, about 90% of farmers growing GM seeds are farmers in developing countries and mostly cotton farmers.

Currently, the main commercial genetically modified crops are created by relatively simple manipulations, such as introducing a herbicide resistance gene or a gene to produce a toxin against insect pests. The next decade is likely to see the development of combinations of desirable traits and the introduction of new traits, such as drought tolerance. By mid-century, much more radical options may be possible.

EXAMPLES OF EXISTING AND POTENTIAL FUTURE APPLICATIONS OF GM TECHNOLOGIES FOR GENETIC IMPROVEMENT OF CROPS. SOURCE: SCIENCE

Period of time	Target crop trait	Target crops
Currently	Tolerance to broad spectrum herbicides	Corn, soybeans, cabbage oilseeds
	Resistance to chewing insect pests	Corn, cotton, cabbage oilseeds
Short term (5-10 years)	Nutritional Strengthening	Main grains, sweet potatoes
	Resistance to fungus and viral pathogens	Potatoes, wheat, rice, bananas, fruits, vegetables
	Resistance to sucking insect pests	Rice, fruits, vegetables
	Improved processing and storage	Wheat, potatoes, fruits, vegetables
	Drought resistance
Medium term (10-20 years)	Tolerance to excess salt	Common grains and roots
	Increasing nitrogen use efficiency	Common grains and roots
	High temperature resistance	Common grains and roots
Long-term period (more than 20 years)	Apomixis	Common grains and roots
	Nitrogen fixation	Common grains and roots
	Production and denitrophification	Common grains and roots
	Transition to perennialism	Common grains and roots
	Increased photosynthetic efficiency	Common grains and roots

Most likely, with the goal of increasing crop yields in a limited area while being resilient to climate change, the world will move aggressively toward genetic conversion of plants.

For example, Bill Gates is already investing in Monsanto (this company, founded in 1901 as a purely chemical company, has now evolved into a concern specializing in high technology in the field of agriculture, and its main products currently are genetically modified seeds of corn, soybeans, cotton and the world's most common herbicide, Roundup). Gates believes that genetically modified plants will save the world from hunger.

Although there are many arguments against the widespread use of GM products. Since genetic modifications involve changes to the germ line of an organism and its introduction into the environment and food chain, the problem with GM technology is that the long-term effects of genetically modified crops on the human body, the environment, and biodiversity are unknown. That is why there is significant and completely understandable resistance to genetically modified products in the world, especially in countries like India, where the huge population and growing demand from the growing middle class force us to look for such radical ways as GM technologies to provide for the population. food. Suman Sahai, professor of genetics and recipient of the Norman Borlaug Award for Excellence in Agriculture and the Environment, notes in the article “Why is there distrust of GM foods” that the production of GM seeds is controlled by only six companies in the world, What

causes a significant lack of open information and a corresponding lack of trust on the part of consumers, regulators and non-profit organizations.

Method 3: Reduce waste

To the question “What needs to be done to provide 10 billion people with food?” Ida Kubiszewski, a professor at the University of Portland and managing editor of The Solutions magazine, argues that the world today produces absolutely enough food, but approximately 30 to 50% of food is lost in both developed and developing countries wasted, although for very different reasons.

In developing countries, losses are mainly due to the lack of infrastructure in the production chain, such as technologies for storing produced food on farms, during transportation, during storage before sale. Huge losses during storage are typical in developing countries, such as India, where 35-40% of fresh produce is lost because neither wholesale nor retail outlets are equipped with refrigeration equipment.

In Southeast Asia, there is significant loss even of rice, which can be stored without special equipment. As a result, after harvesting, up to a third of the crop is lost due to pests and spoilage.

In developed countries, losses up to the retail stage are much lower, but losses occurring at the retail, food service and individual consumption stages are significant. For example, consumers are accustomed to buying products that look cosmetically good, hence retailers throw away a lot of edible but slightly damaged products. Also, for consumers in developed countries, food is relatively cheap, reducing incentives to reduce waste.

Accordingly, one of the main strategies for sufficient food supply for humanity will be to reduce losses throughout the entire production and consumer chain. At the same time, food waste will be more widely used in agriculture for livestock feed, since it is necessary to reduce the load of livestock farming on arable land, as well as fertilizers, since such use does not require the direct use of inexhaustible resources and additional significant energy costs (except for transportation).

Method 4. Changing diets

The efficiency of converting plant energy into animal energy is about 10%, so more people can feed on the same amount of land if they become vegetarians. Currently, about one-third of global grain production is used as livestock feed, and one of the main drivers of increasing pressure on the food system is the rapidly growing demand for meat and dairy products. Demand is growing as a result of general development, which is accompanied by rising incomes.

The next one is amazing Feedback - world population will continue to grow down to a likely plateau of 9-10 billion people to be reached by 2050.

The main factor in slowing the rate of population growth, and accordingly the means of combating hunger, is the elimination of illiteracy. This leads to increased wealth and income, and with higher purchasing power comes higher levels of consumption, as well as increased demand for processed food, meat, dairy and fish. As a result, such hunger trends only add pressure to food supply systems in the long term. Growing demand has led over the past 50 years to a 1.5-fold increase in the world's cattle, sheep and goat populations, and a 2.5- and 4.5-fold increase in the world's pig and chicken populations, respectively. A new round of this growth in the coming decades will be triggered by an increase in the prosperity and size of the middle class in countries such as China and India.

Reducing meat consumption has other benefits besides feeding more people.

Well-balanced diets rich in grains and other foods plant origin, are considered healthier than those containing a high proportion of meat and dairy products. But breaking current trends and switching to plant-based diets in the medium term is impossible. The command-driven and centralized approaches that can be used to change diets, even if they work in individual countries, cannot be implemented on a global scale. Only with the help of long-term cultural transformations is it possible to achieve a “reverse dietary transition” from higher-calorie, predominantly animal-based diets to plant-based diets. It is absolutely clear that the process of such a transition will take more than one generation, of course, if we do not take into account unpredictable events today that can significantly accelerate the transition, for example, the possible emergence of an epidemic and pandemic of livestock diseases, such as rabies.

Method 5. Expansion of aquaculture

Fish, aquatic molluscs and crustaceans play an important role in the food system, providing approximately 15% of the animal protein consumed by humans. Peter Drucker, one of the founders of management, in his book The Age of Disruption, suggested that industries related to the world's oceans, in particular fisheries, will be the basis of human activity in the 21st century.

Today we can already say that, at least with fishing, Drucker was wrong.

Since 1990, approximately a quarter of wild fisheries have been seriously overfished. Some of the fish were completely exhausted. A typical example is that last year a bluefin tuna carcass was sold at auction in Japan for $730,000, and the cost of one roll of this fish was more than $100. Of course, some people may say that it is “very high status” to eat such expensive products. We can say the cost of one fish has become this way because there are no more bluefin tuna left in the ocean.

It is due to overfishing and depletion of wild fish resources that the world will switch to aquaculture in the future. Aquaculture is now growing rapidly in Southeast Asia, where cheap labor and a favorable climate contribute to such growth rates. Replicating this growth in regions such as Africa would likely make a big difference in tackling hunger.

In the future, aquaculture could achieve even greater productivity through improved selection of products grown, larger production scales, open water and large inland aquaculture, and the cultivation of a wider range of species.

A wider range of production conditions (tolerance of temperature and salinity fluctuations, disease resistance) and cheaper feeds (for example, plant materials with increased nutritional value) may become available using GM technologies, but problems associated with the long-term impact of GM technologies will need to be addressed on the body of fish, humans and the environment in general. Aquaculture can cause harm to the environment, firstly, due to the release of organic waste or medicinal chemicals into water bodies, and secondly, as a source of disease or genetic contamination of wild species.

New technologies may be a dead end

Despite the wide range of technological horizons, new technologies from the point of view of energy costs most likely turn out to be a dead-end branch of agricultural development. If we systematically consider the process of creation, development, implementation and use of new technologies from a cost point of view, then today much more energy is spent on food production than we receive in return. This was not always the case, and it is obvious that “traditional” agriculture is much more advantageous from this point of view.

It is easier to explain this statement using the example of oil production. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was necessary to spend 1 barrel of oil to produce 100 barrels of oil. The EROI (Energy Return on Investments) ratio was 1:100. Today it is about 1:15, and shale gas production technologies will reduce it to 1:2-3. Similar trends are developing in agriculture. If traditional agriculture used 1 kilocalorie of energy to produce 5 to 10 kilocalories of energy contained in a food product, today it takes 10 or more (up to 500) kilocalories of energy to produce 1 kilocalorie of food (see diagram).

Regarding non-renewable resources, it is clear that when an easily accessible resource is depleted, the costs of extracting a less accessible resource increase, and the EROI coefficient, in turn, decreases. In the case of agriculture, with a growing population and growing demand, any departure from natural, and therefore “free” resources (natural supply of fresh water, soil productivity, biodiversity), significantly reduces EROI and similar coefficients.

Let's take aquaculture for example. In the case of natural marine fishing for wild species, the main costs are directed towards catching fish, and there are no costs for feeding the fish, since the fish feed in the open ocean. Today, aquaculture needs to be grown, fed, and treated. This requires labor, territory, equipment and much, much more. This accordingly increases resource costs, and the grown fish, in principle, has less energy value.

Now let's take the latest projects to build super-efficient vertical farms in megacities. It is obvious that these projects have exorbitant resource and energy efficiency coefficients; approximately more than 500 kilocalories are spent in these projects to obtain one kilocalorie.

Separately, it is worth noting the important economic consequences of the development of such trends. In traditional economics, the cost of a product never included the “cost of a resource.” There is no such thing as “resource cost” at all. For example, the cost of a barrel of oil is determined only by the costs of production, labor, transportation, rental of offices, tanks and other similar costs. The very volume of oil contained in the rock has always been and is considered free. But today, when we no longer have enough traditional resources, a “resource replacement cost” appears. The emergence of a replacement cost makes new technologies, when compared with traditional technologies based on a free resource, economically unprofitable.

Accordingly, humanity is switching to more costly and less efficient methods of obtaining energy and food.

The reason is clear: to develop and replicate new technologies, it is necessary to expend a huge amount of effort, time and energy. Personnel costs, new construction and other activities significantly increase energy costs. Accordingly, the risks of declining and negative ratios similar to EROI must be financed by someone. In the case of agriculture, they are funded by governments that subsidize the industry and international organizations that provide financial assistance to those in need. This leads to a situation where humanity spends and will continue to spend money on maintaining an absolutely inefficient production system and agriculture in particular.

That is why, with the depletion of non-renewable resources and the use of renewable resources beyond natural balances, the world is entering “dangerous territory”, which at the beginning, at a minimum, will be characterized by an increase in the price of all types of resources, and ultimately can lead to catastrophic situations.

For sustainable food production, from a strategic perspective, agriculture, as an industry that operates on natural renewable resources and geochemical cycles (soil, nitrogen, fresh water, carbon, phosphorus) will have to return to resource use at levels no greater than is possible in natural cycle. Otherwise, we will have, and in fact we already have, production that is absolutely ineffective in terms of resource and energy consumption, since we spend more than we receive. In the long term, this strategy does not work.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, it doesn't exist simple solutions on the issue sustainable provision food for 9 billion people, especially with the general increase in prosperity and the transition of a large part of the population to the mode of consumption characteristic of rich countries. Growing food production will be really important, but it will be more limited than ever by the finite resources of the land, oceans and atmosphere, and will also need to take into account climate change, increasing pollution, growing populations and changing diets and the impact of food on human health.

It is obvious that changes in agriculture in the 21st century will be no less, but rather more radical, than the changes that occurred during the Green Revolution in the 20th century.

Setting goals and developing these changes will be one of the main tasks of science in the 21st century. But hopes for future scientific and technological innovations in food supply cannot be an excuse for postponing difficult decisions that are needed today, and any optimism must be tempered by the enormity of the challenges.

With a billion hungry people in the world, it is necessary to think outside the box.

In preparing the article, materials from Science, The Solutions, books and articles by Vaclav Smil, “Limits to Growth” were used. 30 years later”, reports FAO, The International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), Water Resource Group, UN Water.