Sustainably producing more food

Promoting Sustainable Agriculture

Yield increases alone are unlikely to meet the projected 60–100 percent food supply increase required to feed 9 billion-plus people by mid-century, meaning cropland area will need to increase.[i],[ii] Without a switch to sustainable farming, more cropland will be required, to the detriment of biodiversity and the environment.

Sustainable farming means increasing the intensity of food production, improving the resilience of food production systems, and doing both with less environmental impact. These things move the focus from a resource-intensive system (i.e., heavy use of water, fertilizer, pesticides, and energy) to a knowledge-intensive system, with a key focus on managing environmental impact and biodiversity.[iii],[iv]

The most practical and sustainable way to increase food production yields is for farmers to close the yield gap—in other words, the gap between the potential yield using best practice farming methods and currently realized farm yields. A wide variation in crop yields exists within and between different countries, for many reasons. By closing the yield gap, more food can be produced without increasing cropland area. Potential yields depend on seed genetics, the judicious use of irrigation water and fertilizers, optimal soil quality and management, pest management, farmer knowledge and production practices, and also on the local or regional climate.[v],[vi]

Up to one-third of global food production is wasted.[vii],[viii] Food waste is higher for fresh fruit and vegetables than for grains. More food is wasted between the farm and retail outlets in developing nations, whereas more waste occurs in the retail outlets and at home in developed nations.[ix],[x]

By reducing the net food waste from farm to plate, the effective food supply can be increased (i.e., not wasted). Optimizing food storage, processing, and times of transit, and educating consumers about food waste will all be important for reducing food waste and increasing the effective food supply.

Supporting Smallholder Farmers

More than 1.5 billion rural people worldwide live on more than 500 million small farms, each averaging less than two hectares in area. Three-quarters of these smallholder farms are in Asia and 10 percent are in Africa.[xi] These smallholder farmers account for more than half of food grown for domestic consumption in low- to middle-income countries. In Africa, smallholders are the mainstay of domestic food production.[xii],[xiii],[xiv]

The smallholder farmer is therefore critical to achieving food security in most nations,[xv] and particularly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In addition, smallholder farmers are responsible for feeding most of the world’s poor.

When smallholder farmers adopt sustainable agriculture, average crop yields increase significantly.[xvi],[xvii] Climate change, particularly drought, is one of the greatest risks to smallholder farmers and the poor whom they feed. Therefore, the interests of governments and crop development organizations[xviii]are best served by helping smallholder farmers move to sustainable farming systems—by ensuring that irrigation water is made available to them, and by helping them gain access to climate-adapted seeds.

Aquaculture Produces More Protein from Less Food than Livestock Production Systems

We cannot expect to sustainably harvest more fish from the oceans, because we have already pushed most fish populations to or beyond their sustainable limits.[xix] Therefore, in order to produce more fish for consumption, sustainable aquaculture will be required. Aquaculture already produces half of the world’s fish supply,[xx],[xxi] with Asia (principally China) producing 90 percent of global supply. Carp, tilapia, shrimp, marine molluscs, and catfish dominate aquaculture production.[xxii],[xxiii],[xxiv] Aquaculture utilizes lakes, ponds, canals, tanks and cages, and a wide range of feed types and production technologies.[xxv],[xxvi]

When we consider meeting the animal protein needs of 9 billion-plus people, farmed fish has three big advantages over grain-fed livestock. Less grain, less fishmeal, and less water basin depletion is required per kilogram of fish protein produced.

Fish are among the most efficient converters of food into high quality protein, and require only one-quarter and one-third of the grain required by cows and pigs, respectively, to produce one kilogram of fish protein.[xxvii] This is because fish do not rely on food to make body heat as mammals and birds do, or use muscles to stand upright, utilizing buoyancy instead. This in turn lowers their food requirements for producing body mass as compared with terrestrial livestock.

The impediment to market growth for aquaculture is the amount of fishmeal and oils required to produce farmed fish. On average, for every kilogram of fish produced in aquaculture systems, 0.7 kilogram of wild fish is required (i.e., non-edible fish, fish by-products). Much more fishmeal is needed to produce carnivorous fish (i.e., salmon, trout), and much less for herbivorous or omnivorous fish (i.e., carp, tilapia, milkfish, and catfish).[xxviii],[xxix]

Reducing aquaculture’s dependence on wild fish is therefore seen as a key priority by the fish feed industry. Soybeans, maize, meat by-products, yeast, and microalgae are being used as substitute nutrients in fish feeds, to make fish farming more sustainable now and in the future.[xxx],[xxxi],[xxxii]

Another big plus of fish protein production via aquaculture, as against grain-fed livestock protein production, is the fact that the poultry and swine meat industries are the world’s largest consumers of fishmeal for animal feeds (i.e., a source of protein and oils).[xxxiii] This makes fish production more sustainable than livestock production when it comes to maintaining ocean fish stocks.

Traditional aquaculture rearing systems use little or no fishmeal. In fact, most of carp and two-thirds of tilapia production worldwide do not use professionally manufactured fish feeds.[xxxiv] Tilapia and carp aquaculture is well suited to smallholder farmers and for urban fish supply, given that homemade diets composed of rice, beans, sweetcorn, supplements, etc. can be fed to fish instead of using commercial brands of fish food.[xxxv]

Outside of China and the rest of Asia, in regions such as Africa, aquaculture is not yet a dominant source of fish supply. Depletion of ocean fish stocks, reduced fish catch in coastal Africa, and Africa’s increasing urbanization justify the further development of aquaculture in Africa.[xxxvi],[xxxvii]

For aquaculture to become more sustainable, the industry and stakeholders need to expand the use of herbivorous-omnivorous fish aquaculture (i.e., tilapia, carp, shellish), reduce aquaculture’s dependency on fishmeal and oils, develop multi-species systems to increase productivity (i.e., salmon or trout plus shrimp or mussels) and provide environmental benefits (i.e., biological waste treatment with hydroponics), while minimizing aquaculture’s environmental impact.[xxxviii],[xxxix]

 

[i] M.E. Brown et al., 2015, “Climate Change, Global Food Security, and the U.S. Food System.” http://www.usda.gov/oce/climate_change/FoodSecurity2015Assessment/FullAssessment.pdf.

[ii] Tony Fischer et al., “Crop yields and global food security. Will yield increase continue to feed the world?” Australia Centre for International Agricultural Research. Grains Research and Development Corporation. https://www.aciar.gov.au/node/12101. [See page 17].

[iii] H. Charles et al., “Food security and sustainable intensification.” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2014 369 20120273; DOI:10.1098/rstb.2012.0273. Published 17 February 2014.

[iv] Christos Stefanis, “Global Food Security: An Agricultural Perspective.” Journal of Agriculture and Sustainability. ISSN 2201-4357. Volume 6, Number 1, 2014, 69-87.

[v] Tony Fischer et al., “Crop yields and global food security. Will yield increase continue to feed the world?” Australia Centre for International Agricultural Research. Grains Research and Development Corporation. https://www.aciar.gov.au/node/12101. [See page 17].

[vi] H.C.J. Godfray et al., “Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People.” Science12 Feb 2010 : 812-818. DOI: 10.1126/science.1185383.

[vii] M.E. Brown et al., 2015, “Climate Change, Global Food Security, and the U.S. Food System.” http://www.usda.gov/oce/climate_change/FoodSecurity2015Assessment/FullAssessment.pdf. [See page 10, third paragraph].

[viii] A.A. Kader, 2005, “Increasing Food Availability By Reducing post-Harvest Losses of Fresh Produce.” Acta Horticulturae 682, 2169-2176. DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2005.682.296.

[ix] Julian Parfitt et al., “Food waste within food supply chains: quantification and potential for change to 2050.” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2010 365 3065-3081; DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0126.

[x] A.A. Kader, 2005, “Increasing Food Availability By Reducing post-Harvest Losses of Fresh Produce.” Acta Hortic. 682, 2169-2176. DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2005.682.296.

[xi] Sarah K. Lowder et al., “The Number, Size, and Distribution of Farms, Smallholder Farms, and Family Farms Worldwide.” World Development, Volume 87, 2016, 16-29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.10.041.

[xii] M.A. Altieri et al., “Agroecologically efficient agricultural systems for smallholder farmers: contributions to food sovereignty.” Agronomy for Sustainable Development (2012) 32: 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-011-0065-6.

[xiii] John F. Morton, “The impact of climate change on smallholder and subsistence agriculture.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Dec 2007, 104 (50) 19680-19685; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0701855104.

[xiv] M.A. Altieri et al. “Agroecologically efficient agricultural systems for smallholder farmers: contributions to food sovereignty.” Agronomy for Sustainable Development (2012) 32: 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-011-0065-6.

[xv] Bancy M. Mati, “100 Ways to Manage Water for Smallholder Agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa.” A Compendium of Technologies and Practices March 2007. SWMnet Working Paper 13. IMAWESA.

[xvi] J.N. Pretty et al., “Resource-conserving agriculture increases yields in developing countries.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 40, 1114 (2006). doi:10.1021/es051670d pmid:16572763.

[xvii] Bancy M. Mati., “100 Ways to Manage Water for Smallholder Agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa.” A Compendium of Technologies and Practices March 2007. SWMnet Working Paper 13. IMAWESA.

[xviii]    Crop Stakeholder Organizations: 1) International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), https://www.cimmyt.org/, 2) International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), http://irri.org/. 3) The Pan-African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA), http://www.pabra-africa.org/seeds-systems. 4) International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), http://www.icrisat.org. 5) International Potato Centre, https://cipotato.org/.

[xix] S. Mark Howden et al., “Adapting agriculture to climate change.” PNAS December 11, 2007. 104 (50) 19691-19696; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0701890104.

[xx] Christopher D. Golden et al., “Nutrition: Fall in fish catch threatens human health.” Nature. Comment. 534, 317–320 (16 June 2016) doi:10.1038/534317a.

[xxi] Christophe Béné et al., “Feeding 9 billion by 2050 – Putting fish back on the menu.” Food Sec. (2015) 7: 261. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-015-0427-z.

[xxii] Ling Cao et al., “China’s aquaculture and the world’s wild fisheries.” Science 09 Jan 2015: Volume 347, Issue 6218, 133-135. DOI: 10.1126/science.1260149.

[xxiii] Max Troell et al., “Does aquaculture add resilience to the global food system?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2014, 111 (37) 13257-13263; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1404067111.

[xxiv] H. Charles et al., “Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People.” Science12 Feb 2010 : 812-818. DOI: 10.1126/science.1185383.

[xxv] Max Troell et al., “Does aquaculture add resilience to the global food system?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2014, 111 (37) 13257-13263; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1404067111.

[xxvi] Rosamond L. Naylor et al., “Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies.” Nature Volume 405, 1017–1024 (29 June 2000).

[xxvii] S.J. Hall et al., 2011, “Blue Frontiers: Managing the Environmental Costs of Aquaculture.” The WorldFish Center, Penang, Malaysia.

[xxviii] A.G.J. Tacon and M. Metian, 2008, “Global Overview on the Use of Fish Meal and Fish Oil in Industrially Compounded Aquafeeds.” Trends and Future Prospects. Aquaculture, 285, 146-158. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2008.08.015.

[xxix] Rosamond L. Naylor et al., “Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies.” Nature Volume 405, 1017–1024 (29 June 2000).

[xxx] Max Troell et al., “Does aquaculture add resilience to the global food system?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2014, 111 (37) 13257-13263; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1404067111.

[xxxi] Christophe Béné et al., “Feeding 9 billion by 2050 – Putting fish back on the menu.” Food Sec. (2015) 7: 261. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-015-0427-z.

[xxxii] Rosamond L. Naylor et al., “Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies.” Nature Volume 405, 1017–1024 (29 June 2000).

[xxxiii] Rosamond L. Naylor et al., “Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies.” Nature Volume 405, 1017–1024 (29 June 2000).

[xxxiv] Rosamond L. Naylor et al., “Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies.” Nature Volume 405, 1017–1024 (29 June 2000).

[xxxv] Max Troell et al., “Does aquaculture add resilience to the global food system?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2014, 111 (37) 13257-13263; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1404067111.

[xxxvi] Christopher D. Golden et al., “Nutrition: Fall in fish catch threatens human health.” Nature. Comment. 534, 317–320 (16 June 2016) doi:10.1038/534317a.

[xxxvii] Max Troell et al., “Does aquaculture add resilience to the global food system?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2014, 111 (37) 13257-13263; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1404067111.

[xxxviii] Rosamond L. Naylor et al., “Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies.” Nature Volume 405, 1017–1024 (29 June 2000).

[xxxix] Max Troell et al., “Does aquaculture add resilience to the global food system?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2014, 111 (37) 13257-13263; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1404067111.

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