The Role of Food Science in Global Food Security
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food security as ensuring that all people have enough food to live a healthy and active lifestyle. Reaching global food security goals is challenging considering a growing population and reduced resources. Also, climate change, distribution infrastructure, and food waste influence food insecurity.
Food companies, along with their food scientist colleagues, are an integral part of establishing a secure food supply. In food science, we promote goals of global food security through technologies such as food preservation or nutrition-enhancing treatments.
Why Is Global Food Security an Issue?
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has established food security as a global issue that affects people from every walk of life, urban and rural, in the developed and developing world. Access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food is a basic human need. Short and long-term negative health and economic effects, especially for children, are linked to food insecurity. Notably, research has uncovered a connection between food insecurity and chronic and acute health conditions in children aged two to 17, along with significantly higher rates of forgone care and heightened emergency department use (Thomas et. al., 2019).
In 2020, the FAO reported that between 720 and 811 million people faced hunger. Further, FAO noted the prevalence of undernourishment climbed from 8.4% in 2019 to approximately 9.9% in 2020. With the global population growing at a rapid rate, these challenges can escalate in the coming decades. According to the United Nations (UN), our planet’s population is likely to increase, by as much as 2 billion people, over the next 30 years. The potential need to feed 9.7 billion people by 2050 presents substantial challenges for achieving global food security goals, with the UN estimating that food production needs to double by that time.
Additionally, trends in global diets are changing. Some regions of the world that traditionally had plant-based diets, now include increased amounts of meat, eggs, and dairy (Henchion et. al., 2021). This shift adds strain to agriculture, food processing, and distribution. Another complicating factor is climate change, which can create warmer and drier conditions in key agriculture regions and negatively affect crop yields (Hasegawa et. al., 2020).
Meeting consumer demand is, of course, a primary focus for food processors and producers, but those of us engaged in the food industry must consider issues affecting the global food supply.
How Food Science Can Help Address Global Food Security Issues
Estimations from the USDA say that over one-third of edible food goes to waste in the United States. In developed countries, food waste primarily occurs at the retail and consumer end of the supply chain. By contrast, food loss and waste on the agriculture end is a pressing issue in developing countries, which is compounded by a lack of distribution infrastructure and challenges in food storage such as refrigeration and processing (Cole et. al., 2018).
We can all work together to make food accessible and safe. One way forward is through the continued development of preservation and stabilization technologies such as high-pressure processing, drying, or fermentation which extend the shelf life of certain foods. Further, food processors develop new extraction methods for biomass recovery or separation technologies to limit food loss. These technologies may create new value-added food ingredients to further reduce food waste.
While strategies to increase food preservation are vital, another approach may be supporting reduced consumption in regions where overconsumption is common. At present, more than two billion people are currently obese or overweight, and reducing consumption in this population can improve food security. Increasing the nutritional yield and availability of higher quality packaged, frozen, and shelf-stable foods can support these goals. By addressing the issue of overconsumption, food producers, processors, and scientists can help make more food available in an environmentally-sound way while lessening the negative impacts of poor diets on global health (Ibid).
Also, we can address food security by supporting the consumer drive towards sustainable diets, which include local foods that require less transport and foods that require fewer resources to grow. A diet designed to protect biodiversity in the environment, while optimizing natural resources will enhance global food security (Vermeir et. al., 2020). In addition, according to the UN, a sustainable diet may not only minimize food insecurity but may offset health costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions.
Moving Towards a Food Secure Future
Food science plays an integral role in global food security while we face challenges caused by a growing population and reduced resources. To address these complex issues, food science offers solutions to enhance the stability of the food supply while aiding to reduce food waste. At Eurofins, we offer, our innovation, agility, individualized service, and commitment to the highest standards of scientific evidence are here to help propel our planet toward global food security.