Your columnist Anjana Ahuja recently wrote about a letter, co-ordinated by the World Food Prize Foundation, that argued that without a moonshot in agricultural research we are heading for a global food crisis in 2050 (Opinion, January 22).
The letter highlighted the low purchasing power of poor people.
The green revolution has not helped reduce food prices, which directly impacts accessibility. This raises a key question about whether future increases in food production, through scientific advancements, will make food more, or less, accessible to the poor in 2050.
A study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the University of Potsdam found the problem was the distribution of food, with richer countries having food surpluses and developing and least developed countries food deficits.
The Potsdam study points out that the food surplus in 2010 in OECD and transition countries — those shifting from a centrally planned to a market-based economy — was sufficient to feed 1.4bn people with a diet of 2,370 kilocalories per capita. It also reports that at the global level the food surplus would continue to increase.
The problems are illustrated by India, the most populous country. There, about 75 per cent of the rural population and half the urban population receive subsidised foodgrains, indicating that it is not the problem of food availability but food affordability.
Scientific advancements have contributed to increased food production and the reduction of hunger. But it’s worth recalling that Africa was a net food exporter from 1961 to the early 1970s.
What seems indisputable is that zero hunger is more likely to be achieved if redistributive public policies at the global level support these scientific advancements.
Raj Mann
Teaching Fellow, National Heart & Lung Institute, Faculty of Medicine
Imperial College, London SW3, UK