Welcome back. Let's talk about Food Security. Agriculture is the foundation of civilization. Without the food security that agriculture provides, we would not be able to have a civil society. What is food security? According to the World Food Summit in 1996, food security exists when all people at all times have access to safe, sufficient, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs to have an active and healthy life. So food security then is built on three pillars, and that includes food availability, food access also known as affordability, and food use. Food security in other words means no hungry people. Food security is extremely important, in fact, it's the second goal for the UN sustainable development goals that were developed in 2015. The goal is to develop all of these goals, including no hungry people by 2030, and that's a pretty ambitious agenda. In 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and that declaration included the right to food in Article 25. Here's some food for thought. Everyone has a right to food according to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, but they don't specify what type of food, should the right to food include the right to meat? For the purposes of our discussion in this session, the right to meat doesn't necessarily mean the right to meat in every single meal, but the right to meat in about 2 to 3 times per week. It's important to acknowledge that through most of human history, particularly during the feudal societies, only the very wealthy could afford to eat meat on a regular basis. But livestock production advances in the 20th century has provided meat for both rich and poor, and that's very good for human nutrition and well-being. However, it comes with high environmental and ecological costs. But high food prices can risk leading to political strife. High food prices can correlate with civil unrest, and we see this correlation during the Arab Spring, with civil unrest peaking as food prices spike. Climate change threatens food security, a hotter drier world, or worse droughts and storms, or fires, all adversely affect agriculture and food security. To understand the effect of climate change on agriculture, we need to look at the geologic timeline of the temperature of planet Earth since the beginning of complex life on the planet. In short, during the Paleozoic Era, the planet was very hot, but humanity didn't exist and nor did agriculture. Early hominids developed in around the Pliocene Era, and during this period the temperature of the planet began to cool. During the Pleistocene Era is the Ice Age, agriculture did not exist for the simple reason that the planet was too cold, it was buried under miles of ice or glaciers. But then the planet began to warm. Agriculture began around here, about 10,000 years ago, this is the entire duration of civilization. So in other words, we've had agriculture, we've had civilization because the climate has allowed it. The climate has been relatively stable and mild on this Holocene baseline for the entirety of the past 10,000 years. Now, there have been slight deviations in the past, and was a deviation in the Middle Ages called the Little Ice Age. The Little Ice Age was documented for us by the artists at the time, the Thames in Great Britain used to freeze over and they had frost fairs over many years. You see a winter landscape and Amsterdam and 1608, and you can see ice skating in Rotterdam. The Little Ice Age was noted for crop failures, famines, and wars. And you can read about the Little Ice Age in great detail and Jeffrey Parker's book, "Global Crisis", or "Nature's Mutiny" by Philipp Blom. "Nature's Mutiny" was particularly interesting because the author found a correlation between witch burning and severe weather events. Somebody had to be blamed for the crop failures that were due to severe storms, and that somebody was generally poor elderly women. So you would have women being accused of cavorting with the devil and causing the famine. The World Bank estimated agricultural yields by 2050 assuming that agricultural practices and crop varieties remain the same. And as you can see much of the world is going to become too hot and too dry to grow food. This will have a huge impact on the people living in these regions because they're going to leave looking for more habitable climates to grow their food. Very little regions are actually going to be habitable, and that's going to include Northern Canada and Northern Europe and Asia. That's assuming, of course, that the soil in those places are fertile enough to become the new bread baskets of the world. According to this graph, agricultural production contributes about 12%, and if you include land use and burning, that's another 12%. About 24% or about a quarter of the greenhouse gases, are due to agricultural production, and land use, and biomass burning. And unfortunately, most of the gases being produced by these this sector include methane and nitrous oxide. Methane and nitrous oxide are highly potent greenhouse gases much more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane is about 30 times more potent, nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Crop improvement technologies will be increasingly important as we address climate change to develop crops that are more resistant to drought or to flooding. In 1944, Norman Borlaug, who is a plant pathologist, developed new crop varieties to improve wheat harvest. He developed new wheat varieties that were resistant to disease and adapted to different growing conditions, increasing yields. And for his work, which was called the Green Revolution, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970. Unfortunately, there were problems with the Green Revolution. It required intensive farming practices, and these practices led to soil erosion, water shortages, dependency on chemicals including pesticides, and an increased vulnerability to pests because of the vast monocultures, and a loss of control over seeds because they were patented. The public was opposed to these new seeds because they were also known as genetically modified organisms or GMOs. But the question we must ask is, how do we sustainably feed ourselves in a warming climate without further destroying our planet's biosphere? Per capita meat consumption has been growing over the years particularly in developing countries such as China. To fully understand food security, we need to talk about the feed conversion ratio also known as feed conversion efficiency. In other words, the feed conversion efficiency is the ability of an animal to produce feed into the desired output, meaning food. So for example, the feed conversion efficiency of a dairy cow is its ability to convert feed into milk. So the feed conversion efficiency is the ratio of the output per input and you can think of it as miles per gallon for a car the more miles you get per gallon the more fuel efficient the car is. So you want a high number for your feed efficiency, also known as the feed conversion ratio or rate. So the feed conversion efficiencies are going to vary according to animal. But in other words you want to have a high amount of grams of food proteins, four people per grams of feed protein for the animals. So the ideal food animals are going to be highly feed efficient, disease resistant, tolerant to heat and drought, and produce as little waste as possible. As I mentioned in the previous slide, different animals have different feed conversion efficiencies. Cattle for example, have a very low feed conversion efficiency, meaning that they're in efficient in converting feed into food. Unfortunately they are also potent greenhouse gas emitters. Poultry and eggs are highly efficient, eggs and poultry. Fish are highly efficient at converting feed into food as well. Milk production can be highly efficient. In the United States the amount of milk produced per cow has increased over time. And in fact, the number of cows has diminished, but the output per cow has increased. Unfortunately most cows cannot tolerate heat and here's a poor heat stressed cow. They tolerate a very narrow window of temperature. There are other animals, however, that are more tolerant of heat, camels and goats are well suited to hot environments. Aquaculture has its pluses and minuses. As the oceans become depleted of fish, aquaculture allows the intensive production of fish. Fish farms, for aquaculture, are typically large anchored pens or cages pictured there. Unfortunately, they produce a large amount of waste that can diffuse into coastal waters. Fish did not evolve to live in tightly packed areas such as these and they are increased risk of getting sick. You can have genetically engineered fish. For example, you can take genes from the Chinook salmon genes from the ocean pout and genes from the Atlantic salmon and combined them into getting this genetically modified salmon that's much larger than the regular salmon and is able to tolerate cold waters. What are genetically modified organisms such as the salmon that I showed you on the previous slide? Genetically modified organisms are crops or animals that have been genetically modified by inserting desired genetic material into the organism's DNA. Let me give you some examples. We have been genetically modifying crops and animals since the dawn of civilization. Ancient Mexican farmers selectively bred the teosinte from this into the corn that we are familiar with today. We have been genetically modifying dogs since the beginning of domestication. Here is the wolf and that has been evolved through selective breeding into a Shih Tzu, which looks very different from its ancestor. We can also genetically modify rice. For example, this is regular rice and this is golden rice that has been genetically modified to include vitamin A to prevent blindness in children. As I said previously, farmers have been genetically modifying crops and animals since the dawn of agriculture and with science we've gotten better at it. There has been political opposition to genetically modified organisms, but unfortunately public opposition or distrust of genetically modified crops or animals might hinder our ability to feed people as the planet gets hotter and drier. Now the affluent have the luxury to refuse food that they deem unacceptable. The initial opposition to GMOs started with Roundup Ready crops, which were developed by Monsanto and was designed to be resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, which is a probable carcinogen. The experience with Roundup Ready crops, unfortunately tainted the public to the rest of GMOs. Most of them are safe and GMOs such as golden rice, which were genetically altered to have vitamin A to prevent blindness in children, have been held up because people have not wanted to use it out of concerns. Market research, public outreach and communication might be important strategies to counter a distrustful public. We're going to need these GMOs to be able to feed people in the future. There are positives to consuming bush meat or wild animals. For example, the animals raised themselves. They are free source of income for the poor. They're an important source of protein for the poor and many domestic livestock do poorly in the tropics. This is an example of some bush meat including the cane rat, the giant pouched rat, and that duiker in Ghana. There are cons or disadvantages to consuming bush meat. You can disrupt ecosystems, and if law enforcement is weak poaching can lead to the extinction of species and you can also have zoonotic disease risks. There are however sustainable bushmeat strategies that you can apply including the enforcement of code of conduct on hunting rules and quotas, developing an alternative protein source that's similar to bushmeat. Tax the sales of unauthorized bushmeat and institute heavy fines on the transport of bushmeat to international consumers. There's a treaty called the International Trade in Endangered Species or CITES that's administered through the UN Environmental Program that is aimed to protect endangered species. There are alternatives to traditional meats including plant-based products such as this beast burger that's presented here, and it includes a mixture of vegetable proteins and other ingredients. However, some might contain genetically modified organisms to give it a meatier taste and that might lead to some political opposition. There's also laboratory-grown or clean meat, meaning you grow the muscle without the animal. So the meat then is grown from cell cultures in laboratories. High prices, however, might limit widespread use of this product. However, it would likely have a lower environmental impact than large-scale animal production. You can also have insects as food. Insects can be an important source of proteins. And the Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about two billion people around the world eat insects as a part of their standard diet. And here's a picture of some deep-fried crickets. People in poor countries, in Africa Asia and South America, will eat grubs, hornets, termites, and other insects as an important source of protein. Some are eaten alive, and some are charred over an open flame. Only in the west are insects considered vermin or repulsive, but not all insects, however. Lobsters are the insects of the sea, and they were once considered repulsive and fed to prisoners. But somebody in the mid-twentieth century came up with a brilliant marketing scheme, and now you pay top dollar for them in gourmet restaurants. There are benefits to insects. They have a very high feed conversion efficiency. Crickets need six times less feed than cattle. They produce little waste or greenhouse gases, and they require much less space for production. And they have almost as much protein as a hamburger. We have to recognize the importance of pollinators for food security. Insects play a very important role in food security. Not only do 2 billion people eat them, but they are also important pollinators for many of our foods. Pollinators include bees, butterflies, flies, and wasps. These insects pollinate some of our most important fruits, including almonds, apples, avocados, berries and different types of nuts. They pollinate some of our important vegetables that are listed here. And they pollinate important field crops as well, including alfalfa, peanuts, soybean, and sugar beets. Insects play an important role in some of our most cherished foods, including honey, chocolate, coffee, and tea. The questions for this section, then, are what is food security? Why is food security so important? In 1948 the UN declared that food is a human right, but it didn't specify what type of food. What type of food do you think should be a human right? Why is climate change a threat to food security? What were some of the problems associated with the Green Revolution? What is the ideal food animal? What are genetically modified organisms, also known as GMOs, and why are some people opposed to them? Why are insects important for food security? And with that, I'd like to thank you for watching this session.
