Doubling food production to feed the 9 billion: A critical perspective on a key
discourse of food security in the UK
Isobel Tomlinson*
Soil Association, Policy Department, South Plaza, Marlborough Street, Bristol BS1 3NX, UK
Keywords:
Food security
Food sovereignty
Agroecology
Discourse
Framing
a b s t r a c t
Within the emergent international policy arena of ‘food security’, the imperative to double global food
production by 2050 has become ubiquitous. This statistic, as well as a revised figure of a 70% increase by
2050, have been widely used by key individuals in the food policy arena and have come to play
a significant role in framing current UK and international policy debates about food security and the
future direction of global agriculture. This paper provides a critique of the specific claim that we need to
increase global food production by 70e100% in order to feed the world in 2050 and challenges the
dominant framing of the problem of food security in the UK, and its resolution. This critique is based on
two main observations: firstly, increasing production on such a scale was never intended as a normative
goal of policy and, secondly, to do so would exacerbate many of the existing problems with the current
global food system. This clearly raises questions about why these statistics have risen to such prominence.
Drawing on framing and discourse as conceptual tools, this paper shows how these statistics are
a key discursive device used by dominant institutions and individuals with prior ideological commitments
to a particular framing of the food security issue. This paper discusses the social movement
activities and institutional scientific and political challenges to this, that are beginning to coalesce and
articulate an alternative set of discourses around concepts of ecological food provision, food sovereignty,
and agroecology.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Within the emergent international policy arena of ‘food security’,
the imperative to double global food production by 2050 has
become ubiquitous. This statistic and an interim target to increase
production by 50% by 2030, have become, as Hilary Benn, former
Labour Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
declared, the accepted figures that everybody repeats (Benn, 2009).
Indeed, they have been used by prominent Government scientists
such as John Beddington (2009, 2009a, 2009b), Bob Watson (2009)
and David King (2010), Government ministers and members of the
opposition (for example Hilary Benn, 2008, 2009a and David
Cameron, 2008), the agricultural industry (Kendall, 2008, 2009)
and the agricultural biotech industry (see Barkhouse, 2010). They
are contained within several Government policy documents (for
example, Defra, 2008) and Conservative Party policy (2010). The
need to double food production has also been repeated in academic
contributions to the food security debate (for example Godfray
et al., 2010, p. 2; Lawrence et al., 2009, p. 1).
When doubt was subsequently thrown on the basis and accuracy
of the ‘doubling’ figure (HCEFRACS, 2009), some actors
including the UK Government (for example Dfid/Defra, 2010; Defra,
2010), following the lead of the FAO (2009) shifted to stating that
a 70% increase is needed with an assumed starting year of 2006.
Both statistics continue to be used in parallel, or combined to offer
a range of the scale of production increases needed: Pretty et al.
(2010, p. 220) declare ‘.it has been estimated that we need to
produce 70e100% more food’ (see also Conway, 2011).
The magnitude of these increases in production are, of course,
attention-grabbing. In particular, the need to ‘double’ production is
clearly a powerful statistic that has captured the imagination of
policy-makers, politicians, scientists and industry alike. Its use has
enabled an air of scientific precision and certainty to be given to
a specific line of a somewhat neo-Malthusian reasoning: the need
to vastly increase food production to feed the world of 9 billion by
2050. This imperative forms part of what has been described by
many authors as a ‘new productivism’ policy period (Winter and
Lobley, 2009; Marsden, 2010) triggered by rising global
commodity prices, estimated at an 83% increase between 2006 and
* Tel.: þ44 117 314 5178.
E-mail address: itomlinson@soilassociation.org.
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Journal of Rural Studies 29 (2013) 81e90
2008 (Lawrence et al., 2009). This ‘food crisis’, that left many of the
poorest people in the Global South unable to afford basic foodstuffs
was one of the contributory factors to the emergence of ‘food
security’ as an issue once again at the forefront of international and
national policy.
The main purpose of this paper is to provide a critique of the
specific claim that we need to increase global food production by
70e100% in order to feed the world in 2050, and thus challenge the
dominant framing of the problem of food security in the UK, and its
resolution. This critique is based on two main observations as will
be outlined in detail in the discussion that follows: firstly, that
increasing production by 70%e100% was never intended as
a normative goal of policy and, secondly, to do so would exacerbate
many of the existing problems with the current global food system.
This clearly raises questions about why these statistics have risen to
such prominence. Drawing on framing and discourse as conceptual
tools (Hajer and Laws, 2006), this paper aims to show how these
statistics are a key discursive device being used by institutions and
individuals with prior ideological commitment to a particular
framing of the food security issue. Drawing on Mooney and Hunt’s
(2009) work on ‘keying’, this paper discusses the challenge to this
‘flat’ keying of the food security frame, in the form of a ‘sharp’ key
that is coalescing through the articulation of an alternative set of
discourses around concepts of ecological food provision, food
sovereignty, and agroecology.
2. The imperative of doubling food production by 2050
In the UK, the ‘food crisis’ has been evocatively linked to the
other global challenges of climate change, population growth, and
increasing demand for energy and water, to create fear over what
John Beddington, the Government Chief Scientist, infamously
described as a ‘perfect storm’ of global events by 2030: ‘If we don’t
address this, we can expect major destabilisation, an increase in
rioting and potentially significant problems with international
migration, as people move out to avoid food and water shortages’
(Beddington, 2009c). The Foresight Report on the future of food and
farming (2011, p. 9) reproduces such concerns, seeing this convergence
of crises as a threat to food security: ‘together they constitute
a major threat that requires a strategic reappraisal of how the world
is fed’. The rehearsal of this ‘threatening global dystopia’ is as Nally
(2010, p. 45) articulates, ‘complemented by a suite of prescriptive
norms that invariably conclude that agricultural production must
be increased if we are to deliver more calories to the poor of today
and the hungry of tomorrow.’
Formally, food security is commonly defined with reference to
the 1996 World Food Summit definition, as existing when all
people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to
maintain a healthy and active life (see WHO, 2011). In everyday use,
however, it has been likened by Mooney and Hunt (2009, p. 470) to
‘sustainability’ for its multiple meanings, and its success as
a concept put down ‘to a resonance that does not immediately
engender oppositional claims, making it difficult to mobilise
opinion in favour of alternatives’. Yet it is clear that one particular
understanding of the food security ‘problem’ has come to dominate:
how ‘we’ will ‘feed the world’ of 9 billion, increasingly affluent
and urban, people by 2050 in a way, given recognition of environmental
problems such as climate change, water and land scarcity,
that is ‘environmentally sustainable’ (for example see
Marsden, 2010; The Royal Society, 2009; Beddington, 2010;
Godfrey, 2010; Brown, 2010; Foresight, 2011).
The key solution within the politics of ‘new productivism’ has
been the promotion of the ‘oxymoron’ (Marsden, 2010) of
sustainable intensification, first espoused by The Royal Society
(2009). It has become something of a truism that ’.the most
likely scenario is that more food will need to be produced from the
same or less land’ (Godfray et al., 2010, p. 2). This understanding of
the food security ‘problem’ can now be found in scientific advice to
Government (e.g. Committee on Climate Change, 2010), as well as
prominent scientific publications (e.g. Nature, 2010) and scientific
meetings (e.g. The Royal Society, 2011) and lends itself to seeking
technological solutions contributing to the further intensification of
agriculture. In parallel, this emerging discourse of food security has
a presumption that the problems of hunger, starvation and
malnutrition are a problem of ‘global food security’ and solving
them needs a better global food system (see for example Foresight,
2011). Thus, it is clear that the ‘doubling/70%’ statistic has played
a key role in the construction of a global food security challenge that
is to be resolved through increasing agricultural production of
a limited range of food commodities through further intensification,
a liberalising of the global food system and the use of the latest
(bio) technologies.
In its report ‘Securing food supplies up to 2050: the challenges
faced by the UK’, the UK House of Commons Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs Committee (HCEFRACS, 2009) looked into the sources
of the statistics. They found they were used at the UN’s High Level
Conference on World Food Security. Jacques Diouf, DirectorGeneral
of the FAO, stated that ‘global food production must be
doubled to feed a world population currently standing at 6 billion
and expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050’ (Diouf, 2008). At the same
meeting Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN, stated that
food production needed to rise by 50% by 2030 (Ban Ki-moon,
2008). Two reports were cited as the principal sources in e-mail
correspondence between the Committee and the UK Department
for International Development (DfID) (HCEFRACS, 2009). The 50%
by 2030 figure was taken from Rosegrant et al. (2006) whilst the
source of the doubling by 2050 figure was an FAO (2006) report
‘World Agriculture: Towards 2030/2050’. Whilst the latter appears
to be no longer publicly available, updates of the modelling work
are (Rosegrant et al., 2008, 2008a). The FAO (2006) report is an
updated version of two of the key chapters of the study ‘World
Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030’ published in 2003 (Brunisma,
2003).
FAO (2006) and Brunisma (2003) are based on computable
general equilibrium modelling (CGE) that uses actual economic
data to estimate the economy-wide impacts of a policy, project or
other external factor. (See Appendix 1, Brunisma, 2003 for a full
description of the methodology used). CGE models rest on the
theory of general equilibrium that draws on the key concepts of
market clearing and neoclassical micro-economic optimization
behaviour of rational economic agents. (For a critique, see Scriecru,
2007). The FAO (2006) report states that economic growth
assumptions together with the growth of population, are the major
determinants of projected food consumption, although by no
means are they the only ones used. The projected increases in
demand for food are driven by the ‘normal evolutionary path’ of
increased per capita food consumption in countries in the Global
South.
In HCEFRA (2009) the modelling work is re-examined and it is
calculated,that, according to ‘the most likely future’, demand for food
between 2005 and 7 and 2050 would increase by 70%, not double. In
their response to the HCEFRA (2009) report, the Government
acknowledged that ‘the difference between 100% and 70% is not
trivial: it is more than the food production of the whole American
continent. So claims around food production needing to increase 50/
100% need to be treated with care’ (HCEFRA, 2009a). This figure is
now being used in order to justify the need for a 70% increase in
production to meet this demand (Defra, 2009; FAO, 2009).
There are some easily apparent limitations with this work:
firstly, this 70% figure does not correspond to an increase in actual
I. Tomlinson / Journal of Rural Studies 29 (2013) 81e9082
tonnes of production, or yield, as might be assumed, but the
aggregate volume of demand and production of the crop and livestock
sectors. This is calculated by multiplying the physical quantities of
demand or production by the price for each commodity. This is an
important distinction because with the shift in commodity types
away from staple foods towards more meat and animal products
that are of a higher value, this price-based index of the volume of
production/consumption grows faster than the aggregate in physical
units (such as tonnes) (FAO, 2006, p. 2). If weight of the actual
production was used, it is estimated that the figure would be
reduced by 6% (Defra, 2010). Secondly, fruit and vegetables are
excluded from these projects, a significant omission given their
prominence in recommendations for healthy diets (e.g. FSA, 2010).
This is at least partly because fruit and vegetables are not treated as
commodity crops and do not feature significantly in the FAOSTATS
database (Wright, 2010). Thirdly, the measure used in the report
(standard for FAO) is based on per capita food consumption in
calories to calculate undernourishment and is based on the availability
criterion (supply-side) only.1
Crude food availability
measures (like the FAO’s) enable frequent and geographically broad
estimates, but at the expense of neglecting waste, and the inevitably
unequal distribution and uses of food within a population, that
should be taken into account (Barrett, 2010).
However, the most important point to note is that the FAO
report does not state, explicitly or implicitly that we need to double
global food (or increase it by 70%) production by 2050. In fact, what
becomes immediately clear is that this report, and the modelling
work on which it is based, does not have a normative agenda: in
fact expressedly not. Rather, what it does provide is an assessment
of the author’s views of what the ‘most likely’ future will be:
‘Another important feature of this report is that its approach is
“positive” rather than “normative”. This means that its
assumptions and projections reflect the most likely future but
not necessarily the most desirable one’
It continues:
‘For example, the report finds that the goal of the 1996 World
Food Summit e to halve the number of chronically undernourished
people by no later than 2015 e is unlikely to be accomplished,
even though this would be highly desirable. Similarly,
the report finds that agriculture will probably continue to
expand into wetlands and rainforests, even though this is
undoubtedly undesirable. Therefore, the prospective developments
presented here are not goals of an FAO strategy but
they can provide a basis for action, to cope both with existing
problems that are likely to persist and with new ones that
emerge’ (Brunisma, 2003, p. 2).
Thus, it is very interesting to note the slide from a positive to
normative interpretation of this work. In the original Foreword to
the report, Jacques Diouf stated ‘the findings of the study aim to
describe the future as it is likely to be, not as it ought to be’
(Brunisma, 2003, p. iii), a statement that is in direct contradiction to
more recent statements within the FAO (see FAO, 2009). Whilst the
report does not present an agenda for what we need to do to ‘feed
the world’, and is clearly not intended to be interpreted as doing so,
it continues to be used in this way. Whilst not intended as ‘goals of
an FAO strategy’ they have come to be the goal of international food
security policy.
3. Conceptual tools: framing, discourse and ideological
process
In seeking to understand why these statistics have risen to such
prominence given the problematic nature of their use, this paper
draws on conceptual tools around framing and discourse. Framing
is one of the ‘ordering devices’ identified by Hajer and Laws (2006,
p. 252) as a conceptual tool that can be used ‘to capture how policy
actors deal with ambiguity and allocate particular significance to
specific social or physical events’ that ‘explain how policy-makers
structure reality to gain a handle on practical questions.’ Snow and
Benford (1992, p. 137) define a frame as ‘an interpretative schema
that signifies and condenses the ‘world out there’ by selectively
punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events, experiences,
and sequences of actions within one’s present or past environment’.
Hajer and Laws, (2006. p. 256) argue that ‘frame analysis
highlights the communicative character of ordering devices that
connects particular utterances (a speech, a policy text) to individual
consciousness and social action’.
In a recent analysis of the frames surrounding the current food
security debates centred on the USA, Mooney and Hunt (2009)
define food security as a master frame with three ‘collective
action frames’ that are distinct claims to ownership of this social
problem. These are defined as; ‘food security as hunger’; as ‘a
component of a community’s development whole’; and as ‘minimising
risk’. They identify ‘flat’ and ‘sharp’ keys of each of these
frames; a ‘sharp keying’ is critical, suggestive of crisis and a challenge
to dominant institutionalised social and discursive contentions,
whilst the ‘flat keying’ of the frame tends to reinforce
dominant institutionalised practices. Food security framed as
a concern with ’hunger’ is derived from Malthusian assumptions. In
the flat key, it is in a form that focuses on less-developed nations
and is premised on a ‘global food supply’, facilitating ‘the articulation
of a ‘free trade’ prognostic framing with a role for biotechnology
to bring about the ‘second green revolution’ (Mooney and
Hunt, 2009, p. 475). By contrast, the sharp key challenges the
neo-Malthusian association of population growth and starvation
and emphasises the importance of access, as Sen (1981) infamously
articulated: ‘starvation is the characteristic of some people not
having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being
not enough food to eat. While the latter can be a cause of the
former, it is but one of many possible causes.’ Mooney and Hunt
(2009. p. 477) argue that the ‘sharp’ key ‘amplifies beliefs that the
productivist model of agriculture is unsustainable and violates
environmental values as well as norms of social justice. focused
not only on the transformation of social structures toward more
democratic and egalitarian forms but also on prioritising national
food self-sufficiency with low-cost, low-technology, labourintensive
forms of production’.
According to Hajer and Laws (2006) all frame analysis takes, to
different degrees, language and its use as the organising framework
for understanding society. However, Steinberg (1998) argues that
despite the fact that framing occurs through language there has
been surprisingly little examination of its discursive foundations.
Thus there emerges a question as to how framing should be
understood in relation to discourse, the second ordering device that
Hajer and Laws (2006) identify. They define discourse as ‘an
ensemble of concepts and categorisations through which meaning
is given to phenomena’. A policy analyst can get analytical leverage
1
These figures are adjusted so that it is not assumed that each person had access
to food exactly according to his/her respective requirements. An inequality measure
is used in these estimates e the co-efficient of variation e measures ‘the average
difference of the food intake of individuals from the national average’ (FAO, 2006, p.
15) but clearly this average value does not allow for any detailed analysis about
access for individuals within the population, nor does it consider utilisation. Data
obtained from individual and household surveys on a national scale provides disaggregated
data that allows more accurate prediction of who is most likely to be
affected adversely by potentially harmful shocks such as food price increases,
drought, or slumping demand for wage labour (Barrett, 2010).
I. Tomlinson / Journal of Rural Studies 29 (2013) 81e90 83
‘on how a particular discourse orders the way in which policy actors
perceive reality, define problems, and choose to pursue solutions in
a particular direction’ (Hajer and Laws, 2006, p. 261).
Steinberg (1998) is also concerned with the way in which the
discourse used in framing is taken to be a generally straightforward
bearer of meanings. He argues that this referential
perspective on discourse poses problems for both the analysis of
frames and ignores important semiotic dynamics of the framing
process. The framing perspective is deficient because it lacks
a critical perspective on the stuff of framing itself: advocating
a ‘discursive turn’, he argues that understanding the framing
process should involve investigation of the discursive fields within
which it should take place. He argues that these fields ’contain the
genres that collective actors can draw upon to construct discursively
diagnosis, prognosis, and motivation. They are historically
and contextually dependent, partially structured through hegemony,
and the vocabularies, symbols and meanings within them
are dialogic’ (Steinberg, 1998.p. 856). Framing is unanimously
considered an ideological process, but according to Steinberg
(1998) the rhetorical and discursive processes that tie frames to
these larger ideological structures remain largely unspecified.
Steinberg (1998, p. 853) argues that ’we should focus on discourse
as a process of joint ideological labour. discourse is therefore
a terrain of conflict and not simply the meaning the medium or
messenger through which it is expressed.’ Conceptually, then, this
paper seeks to understand the use of the ‘doubling’ (and latterly
70%) statistic as an important discursive device that is being used in
the creation in the UK context of what Mooney and Hunt (2009)
define as a ‘flat’ key of the ‘hunger’ frame described here as the
global food security challenge. This leads to questions as to what this
means for the identification and existence of a ‘sharp’ key of the
hunger frame.
4. The global food security challenge: problems and
limitations
Reflecting on Steinberg’s (1998) first observation that in order to
understand the framing process we should focus our analysis on
the discursive fields within which the framing process takes place,
it is clear that the rehearsal of the ‘doubling/70%’ statistic is a key
discursive device being used to frame the food security problem in
a particular way. As previously discussed this framing is problematic
because of its inappropriate use of a ‘positive’ statistic in
a normative way. Further, though, this framing is problematic
because of what it excludes from our understanding of the food
security problem, and its solution. These ‘missing’ issues are outlined
here, and given these limitations, a discussion as to why this
framing has come to dominate UK food policy is included.
4.1. The nutrition transition
The FAO model predicts a continuation of the ‘substitution
effect’ (Kearney, 2010) that is the structural change in the diets of
people in developing countries from carbohydrate-rich staples
(cereals, roots, tubers) to vegetable oils, animal products (meat and
dairy foods) and sugar. These three food groups now provide 29% of
total food consumption of the developing countries (in terms of
calories) and their share is projected to rise further to 35% in 2030
and 37% in 2050. The continuation of dietary transition in the
Global South, as predicted by FAO (2006), is likely to cause worsening
health problems. The report admits that: ‘.the diet transitions
experienced by many countries imply changes in diets
towards energy-dense ones high in fat, particularly saturated fat,
sugar and salt and low in unrefined carbohydrates. In combination
with lifestyle changes, largely associated with rapid urbanisation,
such transitions, while beneficent in many countries with still
inadequate diets, are often accompanied by a corresponding
increase in diet-related chronic non-communicable diseases
(NCDs)’ (FAO, 2006, p. 20). (For example cardiovascular disease,
some cancers and Type 2 diabetes). Diet-related heart disease and
stroke have already taken over as the two leading causes of death in
low and middle-income countries (Lopez et al., 2006).
There are widespread concerns about the health impacts that
the availability of calories and structural changes in diet have
already had in the Global North. In the UK, the issue of obesity has
been the subject of a Foresight project (Foresight, 2007). The UK
Cabinet Office (2008, p. 16) acknowledged that ‘existing patterns
of food consumption will result in our society being loaded with
a heavy burden of obesity and diet-related ill health.’ The FAO
(2006) trajectory does nothing to solve this problem in the Global
North with, not just increased calories available per capita, but
‘Industrial’ world consumption of meat is projected to increase
further from 90.2 in 1999/01 to 103 (kg/person/year) in 2050, and
consumption of milk and dairy from 214 to 227 (kg/person/year)
(FAO, 2006, p. 25). Questioning the level of meat consumption is
a direct challenge to the current food system given that, as FAO
(2006, p. 45) states, ‘the world food economy is being increasingly
driven by the shift of diets and food consumption patterns
towards livestock products.’
In understanding why the statistics have arisen to such prominence,
it is useful to reflect on Steinberg’s (1998) second observation
that we should see framing and the use of discourse as an
ideological process. It is possible to see three prior ideological
commitments by key UK institutions and individuals driving
forward this frame; that is actors committed to the future that the
FAO (2006) work models. The first is relevant here, in the context of
dietary change, and is a prior ideological commitment to progress
and wealth creation through economic growth. This is seen in the
UK food policy through the failure to challenge the expansion of
a Western diet, and focus instead on the benefits of global ‘dietary
convergence’. For example, Gordon Brown declared in the Food
Strategy 2030 (HM Government, 2010, p. 3) that ‘we need to feed
more people globally, many of whom want or need a better diet’
whilst the Foresight report (2011, p. 9) declared that over the next
40 years ‘many people are likely to be wealthier, creating demand
for a more varied, high-quality diet requiring additional resources
to produce.’ There is a tension here, though, between
a presumption not to interfere with the growing demand for high
meat/dairy/fat diets in the Global South, and an acknowledgement
of the need to ’re-balance’ diets in the Global North, most clearly
seen in the Foresight report with a priority for policy-makers to
‘work to change consumption patterns (Foresight, 2011, p. 34) and
‘contain demand for the most resource-intensive types of food’
(Foresight, 2011, p. 6).
Indeed, the enormity of the global food security challenge has
been discursively constructed on the basis that the imperative to
meet the projections of increasing demand, based on the dietary
choices of an increasing, wealthier, population in the Global South
is taken as a given. As Gordon Conway acknowledged in a recent
Royal Society meeting (The Royal Society, 2011), just feeding
a growing population wouldn’t be too bad a task but argued that it
becomes a much larger task with the increase in per capita income
and a shift towards a more Western diet. In fact the scale of the
increased demand is based not solely on increases in the Global
South, but also on the maintenance (and small increase) of very
high levels of consumption (of calories and meat and dairy) in the
Global North: The FAO (2006) projected figures for 2050 see meat
consumption in the ‘developing’ world as being still less than half of
that of ‘Industrial’ countries, whilst milk and dairy consumption is
still only a third.
I. Tomlinson / Journal of Rural Studies 29 (2013) 81e9084
4.2. Reducing the prevalence of hunger
Meeting the projected increases in demand for food as modelled
by FAO (2006) would not result in ‘food security’ for all. Whilst the
projections would reduce significantly the proportion of the population
in the Global South who are undernourished, because of
population growth the reduction in absolute numbers ‘is likely to
be a slow process’, with just over 290 million people still undernourished
in 2050 (FAO, 2006, p. 4).
FAO (2006, p. 36) acknowledges that ‘the interaction between
food security and food production potential is very much a local
problem in poor and agriculture-dependent societies’. It continues
that ‘unless local agriculture is developed and/or other income
earning opportunities open up, the food insecurity determined by
limited local production potential will persist, even in the middle of
potential plenty at the world level. The need to develop local
agriculture in such situations as the condition sine qua non
[essential condition] for improved food security cannot be overemphasised’.
In his forward to Brunisma (2003, p. iii), Jacques Diouf
also emphasises that ‘of the many issues reviewed, the report
concludes that the development of local food production in the
low-income countries with high dependence of agriculture for
employment and income is the one factor that dominates all others
in determining progress or failure in improving the food security of
these countries’. However, support for local agriculture is in
contradiction with the overall direction of agricultural trade in
countries in the Global South which has increasingly seen them
become importers of basic food stuffs, with the drop in the selfsufficiency
of Africa being particularly marked (Anderson, 2010).
The projections contained with the FAO report assume a continuing
pattern of countries in the Global South being net importers of
cereals and livestock products (as well as vegetable oils and sugar).
It is argued that ‘Not all countries will be able to increase cereals
production pari passu [in line] with their consumption. Therefore,
past trends of ever growing net cereal imports of the developing
countries should continue and grow to some 300 million tonnes by
2050, a 2.7-fold increase over the 112 million tonnes of 1999/01’
(FAO, 2006, p. 5).
This results from international economic policies promoting the
liberalisation of the agricultural sector in countries in the Global
South (Nally, 2010) with the WTO-endorsed system of world agricultural
trade re-orientating production to global rather than local
markets (Rosset, 2006). Similarly agricultural advice to countries in
the Global South has tended to focus on promoting opportunities
for increased exports to international markets and not improving
the competitiveness of import substitutes or market opportunities
in domestic and regional markets, as the recent International
Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology for
Development (IAASTD) report recognised (McIntyre et al., 2008).
With the opening up of markets, cash crops for exports have been
promoted, and the most productive land is then used to grow these
crops, squeezing out domestic food producers. Small-scale and
subsistence farming is being replaced by larger and more globally
focused farms. This process impacts on the type of farming system,
engendering a shift away from traditional crops suited to local
ecological conditions and the knowledge and resources of farmers,
towards cash crops that rely on purchased inputs (Ghosh, 2010). It
is argued that a more export-orientated agriculture could provide
an effective means to fight rural poverty and become a catalyst for
overall growth, but this is dependent on the ongoing negotiation of
favourable multilateral trade agreements (Brunisma, 2003). Whilst
the intention has been to raise the incomes of marginal producers,
Christian Aid (2008) amongst others reports how it has reduced
agricultural diversity with countries increasingly importing staples
from abroad. This focus on export-led agriculture makes these
countries vulnerable to price shocks on international markets as
well as to currency exchange volatility. Alongside the FAO (2006),
the IAASTD report (McIntyre et al., 2008) also argues that for many
countries in the Global South sustainable food security depends on
local food production, although, for some arid and semi-arid
countries with limited natural resources bases increased food
security will require increased trade. The IAASTD report identifies
trade policies designed to ensure sufficient levels of domestic
production of food (not just sufficient currency reserves to import
food) as an important component of food security and sovereignty
strategies for many countries, and thus a greater balance between
policies promoting export, and improving local and regional agricultural
production is needed.
In this context, a second prior ideological commitment to
a global food system and liberalised agricultural trade is readily
identifiable (following on from the first defined as progress and
wealth creation through economic growth) and is also useful in
explaining the dominance of this framing of the food security issue.
The previous Labour Government saw the UK as a ‘modern trading
economy’ whose food security was dependent on global food
security (Defra, 2009a) and both this and the Food Strategy 2030
(HM Government, 2010) set out a clear political commitment to
a liberalised global trade regime that is seen to spread risks,
encourage growth, keep prices competitive, increase the diversity
of supply and incentivise production where comparative advantage
exists. The new Coalition Government has indicated a similar
commitment: Caroline Spelman (2010), Secretary of State for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs declared ‘our food security and
variety of diet are dependent upon global supply and international
patterns of production and consumption’ and in her Oxford
Farming Conference speech (Spelman, 2011) made a clear
commitment to reducing protectionism and improving the functioning
of world agricultural markets.
Most strikingly, the dominant framing sees food security as
a problem of inadequate agricultural production (availability), sidelining
the other two pillars of access and utilisation and the
perspective that sees food security as a distributional issue and of
ensuring regular, appropriate, affordable access to food (Barrett,
2002). Certainly, this is not to say that the question of access, and
particularly affordability, has passed the UK Government by, who
indeed acknowledge that ’.simply increasing food production will
not end hunger.There are huge problems in terms of access to
food, distribution, and affordability’ (Defra, 2009a). It is also an
acknowledgement made by exponents of sustainable intensification
e for example an editorial in Nature (2010, p. 532) acknowledged
that ‘Nor are science and technology by themselves
a panacea for world hunger. Poverty, not lack of food production, is
the root cause.’ Perhaps, of most significance, is that this broader
understanding of solutions to hunger is to be found in recent FAO
statements (FAO, 2009, p. 14): ’for almost 400 million people even
the projected 70% growth in output of food and feed will not
guarantee that they have access to adequate food. Their access to
food will require a proper socio-economic framework to address
imbalances and inequalities.’ Yet such sentiments are excluded
from the dominant framing of food security.
4.3. Climate change
The other issue that makes such trajectories problematic is their
implications for mitigating climate change. FAO (2006) projects
large increases in world production of cereals and a good part of
this increase would be for animal feed, with most used to support
the expansion of livestock production in the developing world
(FAO, 2006, p. 9). There remains uncertainty and controversy over
the scale of emissions from the agricultural sector. The
I. Tomlinson / Journal of Rural Studies 29 (2013) 81e90 85
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates
agriculture contributes 14% of total global emissions with methane
from ruminants and nitrous oxide emissions from the application
of nitrogen fertilisers and manure to soils (Popp et al., 2010)
contributing the majority of emissions. However the IPPC figures do
not include emissions from agricultural soils due to land use
change. These further contribute significantly to the GHG emissions
burden from livestock, particularly through deforestation for
pasture for grazing and feed crops - a problem recognised by the
FAO in its report ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’ (FAO, 2006a). Therefore,
serious questions are being raised about a future further increase in
farmed animals because of the likely increase in GHG emissions
(Deckers, 2010; FAO, 2006a; McMichael et al., 2007; CarlssonKanyma
and Gonzalez, 2009; Garnett, 2009).
In terms of UK policy, Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACC)
produced by the Scottish Agricultural College (Moran et al., 2008)
are being used to prioritise the most economically efficient options
in the agricultural sector to reduce GHG emissions. The focus is on
efficiency gains, in feeding and nitrogen fertilisers use, for example,
and anaerobic digestion. GHG reductions in the UK agricultural
sector are currently being made through voluntary industry-led
initiatives, specifically the ‘Agriculture Industry (2011) GHG
Action Plan’ that focuses on such measures. The implication of
a commitment to the dominant framing of food security is that
solutions to mitigating climate change lies in technical developments
that do not challenge the overall trajectory of the food
system. Here the identification of a third prior ideological
commitment is useful: the ideological commitments of some key
actors in the food security debate may be more to do with a belief in
technological or ‘scientific’ solutions, rather than social or
economic policy solutions, and in particular, the role of specific
technological developments that proponents believe will help
overcome some of the ecological and resource-constraints that the
current food system is facing. (For example, see The Royal Society,
2009, 2011). The genetic-modification of crops is an important
example.
However, these measures are controversial. The further intensification
of livestock and crop production using such technological
solutions will have severe consequences for the environment and
animal welfare. Furthermore, it is now apparent that such measures
may not be enough on their own to meet the UK 80% reduction by
2050 target. Indeed, in their Fourth Budget report, the Committee
on Climate Change now acknowledge that ‘re-balancing’ diets
towards those that are low carbon intensity as one of the more
‘radical’ solutions that might be needed if the agricultural sector is
going to continue to reduce its GHG emissions after 2030 (Climate
Change Committee, 2010; see also Audsley et al., 2010, p.18). Whilst
there is some evidence that reducing meat consumption in order to
reduce GHG emissions is a message which has got some recognition
within public debate in the UK (for example, ‘meat-free Mondays’)
and whilst it is now within the radar of policy-makers and scientists,
it is seen as a very difficult strategy (Godfray et al., 2010).
Perhaps of most interest is that scientists are now linking the
potential health and climate benefits of reduced meat intake. A
series of papers in The Lancet (Volume 374, 2009) examined the
health implications of policies aimed at tackling climate change.
Here, Friel et al. (2009) argued that a 30% reduction in livestock
production, combined with technological improvement could meet
the UK’s 80% reduction target, and would reduce the incidence of
heart disease.
4.4. Waste
It is worth noting that Defra (2010) presented a more nuanced
analysis of the basis of the 70% statistic, and although it seems to
have had little wider impact, there is some evidence of a shift in
thinking around the use of the ‘doubling/70%’ statistic is with
regard to waste. It is estimated that the current global edible crop
harvest is about 4600 kcal per person per day, but harvest and
distribution losses and post-consumer waste cause the loss of
1400 kcal (Smil, 2000 and Lundqvist et al., 2008). Reducing post
harvest losses could be as important as increasing yields (Herren,
2011). The Foresight report considered that halving the total
amount of food waste by 2050 to be a realistic target and could
reduce the food required by 2050 by an amount approximately
equal to 25% of today’s production (Foresight, 2011, p. 19). In the
case of UK Government, there is some evidence of the acknowledgement
of the waste issue: for example, Spelman (2010, p. 4)
spoke of the UN estimates of 1400 kcal being lost through waste
and that ‘ironically that’s broadly equivalent to the 70% increase in
available food it’s estimated we will need by 2050’. However, this is
a confused position as this statement compares two sets of figures
that are not compatible: The FAO 70% increase in food is a measure
of the increase in the value of aggregate production, whilst the ‘70%’
in relation to food waste is calculated on the basis that 1400 kcal is
70% of the 2000 kcal currently available to households (Defra, 2010,
p. 15). Recognition of the waste issue has led to a slight change in
the interpretation of the 70% statistic: Defra (2010:21) notes that
‘such projections primarily relate to demand and nutritional goals,
and they do not account for any reductions in waste which are
currently very substantial’. Spelman (2010, p.3) says ‘the UN estimates
that by 2030 the world will need [.] a further 70% increase
in available food’ and also Bob Watson, Defra Chief Scientific
Adviser, has stated that ‘Food availability needs to double in the next
25e50 years to alleviate hunger and poverty’ (Watson, 2010).
Whilst this is no more an accurate interpretation of the FAO (2006)
modelling than the imperative to increase production by 70%, it is
perhaps at least possible to see this slight change as a recognition of
the waste issue and perhaps an acknowledgement of alternative
ways to ‘feed the world’, even if this does not question the basis of
the projections of future demand.
4.5. Discussion
It becomes clear from this analysis that there is an inherent
contradiction with the use of these statistics: whilst many scientists
and other commentators are correctly pointing out why a radical
change to the current food system is needed because of the need to
address obesity and diet-related ill health, reduce GHG emissions
and the use of non-renewable resources, and eliminate hunger and
malnutrition (for example Foresight, 2011), the same commentators
are using these statistics to drive future food policy that does
not address, and in some cases may even exacerbate, these issues. It
is impossible to know for certain the extent to which this reinterpretation
was a calculated manipulation, or whether it was
just the consequence of a prior existing set of ideological
commitments. However, there are strong reasons to support the
latter view. Nevertheless, this should be seen as being combined
with a failure of all those involved to identify the sources of the
statistics and check their accuracy and the basis on which they were
made. The statistics seem to have taken on a life of their own,
reproduced without regard for the assumptions on which they
were originally based.
This process can also be understood using the conceptual tools
previously discussed: the FAO (2006) model has been ‘flattened’, or
interpreted using a ‘flat keying’. However, given the problems with
the ‘future’ as modelled by the FAO work, it is also possible to show
how the FAO model could validly be interpreted in a ‘sharp keying’,
although this has not been done by the actors discussed here. This
reflects Mooney and Hunt’s (2009) observation that the ‘flat’ keying
I. Tomlinson / Journal of Rural Studies 29 (2013) 81e9086
reinforces extant dominant institutional interpretations and
discursive practices. The role of those challenging the framing
process from the outside is to be found in a ‘sharp’ key. In their
work on identifying the ‘sharp’ key of the hunger frame, Mooney
and Hunt (2009) focus on the role of social movements in the
USA. In this paper, the role that international, European and UK
institutional and social movements are playing in challenging the
‘flat’ key and building a ‘sharp’ key in the UK context, is discussed in
the following section.
5. A different imperative? : identifying the ‘sharp’ key
At a technical level, preliminary work modelling alternative
futures for the food system does now exist. The first, Agrimonde
(2009) is a platform designed for facilitating collective scenario
development and debate on the world’s food and agriculture, and
has produced two of its own scenarios. ‘Agrimonde GO’ reflects FAO
(2006) with economic growth largely explaining consumption
levels, whilst in ‘Agrimonde 1’ concerns for health, equity and
environment by consumers, producers and policy-makers will have
led to food availability for 2050 converging at 3000 kcal/capita/day
for all regions. Commissioned by Friends of the Earth and
Compassion in World Farming in the UK, Erb et al. (2009) modelled
72 different scenarios for 2050 that included four different diets,
but also three different livestock systems, three crop yields
(intensive, intermediate and organic) and two levels of land use and
indicated the level of feasibility of each. They found that for
a ‘western high meat diet’ to be ‘probably feasible’ ‘would require
a combination of massive land use change, intensive livestock
production systems and intensive use of the arable land’ (Erb et al.,
2009, p. 23). This would have negative impacts for animal welfare
and lead to further destruction of natural habitats. The report
provides evidence ‘that organic agriculture can probably feed the
world population of 9.2 billion in 2050, if relatively modest diets are
adopted, where a low level of inequality in food distribution is
required to avoid malnutrition’ (Erb et al., 2009, p. 29). Through
such modelling, the authors are able to offer a range of alternative
theoretical (quantitative) possibilities of different farming systems
operating within certain ecological limits that are able to meet
different dietary requirements. Whilst such modelling offers technical
possibilities for the future of the food system, and provides
useful ‘visions’ of what might be achieved, re-thinking our global
food system necessitates considering the changes in political, social
and economic processes needed to realise these alternatives for
2050.
Perhaps the most significant international scientific and political
challenge to the framing of the food security problem outlined here,
is the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science
and Technology for Development (IAASTD) (McIntyre et al., 2008),
initiated in 2002 by the World Bank and the FAO. As Hans Herren
co-chair of the IAASTD report states, it offers a different viewpoint:
‘the question we keep hearing today is how will the world
increase food production by 70 percent to meet rising food
demands and feed more that a billion hungry people. But
a growing consensus is asking whether this is the right question.
400 of the world’s top agricultural scientists asked a different
question: How do we rethink our global food system so that it
can feed people, create healthy communities and economies,
and sustain the planet.’ (Herren, 2010).
The IAASTD report was directed by the UK’s Chief Scientific
Adviser Professor Bob Watson. Its aims were to assess the impacts
of past, present and future agricultural knowledge, science and
technology (AKST) on the reduction of hunger and poverty,
improvement of rural livelihoods and human health, and equitable,
socially, environmentally and economically sustainable development.
It recommends the strengthening of AKST towards agroeoclogical
sciences, the greater and more effective involvement of
women and use of their knowledge and skills, and the targeting of
small-scale agricultural systems. Herren (2011) has described it as
a prescription for ecological intensification. However, it seems to
have had very little impact on UK food security policy, despite being
directed by Professor Bob Watson.
More recently in 2011, the EU Standing Committee on Agriculture
Research (SCAR) appointed an Expert Group to undertake
a foresight study to analyse expected environmental and resource
issues impacting on long-term food security and the implications
for future agricultural research in Europe (Freibauer et al., 2011).
Recognising that the average Western diet was a risk to individual
health, social and environmental systems, the third foresight report
concluded that ‘drastic change is needed in regard to both food
demand and supply.This transition cannot be met by following
the common narrative of increasing productivity. The narrative of
“sufficiency” opens opportunities for transition into sustainable
and equitable food systems by a systemic approach that deals with
the complex interactions of the challenges founded on a better
understanding of socio-ecological systems.’ (Freibauer et al., 2011,
p. 9). They observed that a radical change in food consumption and
production in Europe was ‘unavoidable’.
Within these documents, and more broadly, a political discourse
around ‘agroecology’ is emerging. It is a term that describes both
a science e ‘the science of applying ecological concepts and principles
to the design and management of sustainable food systems’
(Gliessman, 2007, p. 369), but also an approach ‘to meeting people’s
need for food which gives equal attention to the goals of sustainability,
resilience and equity and not only to production’ (UK Food
Group, 2010). At a global scale, high level political support for
agroecology has also been given by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on
the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, who identified agroecology as
‘a mode of agricultural development which not only shows strong
conceptual connections with the right to food, but has proven
results for fast progress in the concretization of this human right for
many vulnerable groups in various countries and environments’
(De Schutter, 2010, p. 1) Agroecology is beginning to gain some
political traction in the UK with the setting up of the All Party
Parliamentary Group on Agroecology in February 2011.
Agroecology represents ideas around a specific practical
approach to agriculture. The wider political and economic context
of an alternative framing lies in the idea of ‘food sovereignty’. In its
historical context, it is seen as a policy framework ‘directed at the
perceived negative impact of the unbridled globalisation of the
economy and particularly agriculture. It is a direct challenge to the
policies of the institutions of globalisation e the IMF/WB and the
WTO’ (Glipo and Pascual, 2005, p. 1). The international farmers’
movement, La Via Campesina, has become a strong voice of radical
opposition to the globalisation of an industrial and neoliberal
model of agriculture (Desmaris, 2008). It officially launched the
idea of ‘food sovereignty’ at the 1996 World Food summit as an
opposing concept, and discursive challenge to food security in this
context. It is defined as:
‘Right of peoples, communities, and countries to define their
own agricultural, labour, fishing, food and land policies, which are
ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to
their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to
produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe,
nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food producing
resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies’
(Glipo and Pascual, 2005, p. 1).
As a concept perceived as having its roots in the peasant
movements of the Global South, questions have been asked about
I. Tomlinson / Journal of Rural Studies 29 (2013) 81e90 87
its relevance in the Global North. Mulvaney (2007, p. 19) articulates
agreement over the position that the principles of food sovereignty
apply in all regions, although the contexts are different, and
summarises it as ‘a common struggle against corporate, industrialized
food systems and a common determination to achieve
socially, ecologically and economically benign models of production,
processing and distribution in all societies.’ The creation of
a European Platform for Food Sovereignty, an alliance of European
civil society organizations, is calling principally for reform of the
Common Agricultural Policy. The UK Platform for Food Sovereignty,
the UK chapter of the European Platform for Food Sovereignty, was
set up to promote understanding of food sovereignty among UK
NGOs and build support with European campaigners (UKFG, 2010).
There are attempts being made in the UK to get relevant NGOs and
other organization to unite behind the idea of food sovereignty.
The UK Food Group (2010, p. 2) also introduces the idea of
ecological food provision defining the term as ‘a system that
provides a healthy food and their products, whilst ensuring food
sovereignty, securing livelihoods and sustaining the biosphere’. It
involves small-scale food producers that conserve natural assests,
and is to be achieved by valuing and rehabilitating local and
traditional knowledge, using socially just and appropriate technologies,
with equitable trade at all levels. These three concepts
have been brought together to create an alternative discourse, as
articulated by the UK Food Group (2010, p. 3) ‘the systems that
currently feed most people in the world e smaller-scale, locallysourced
e can be enhanced through support for ecological food
provision, based on the principles and practices of agroecology in the
context of the food sovereignty framework’. It is here we can identify
the discursive basis of the ‘sharp’ frame of the food security
problem and its policy solution as it exists in the UK.
6. Conclusions
This paper tells the story of how a ‘wrong’ statistic has played
such an important role in the dominant discursive framing of the
food security debate in the UK as one of a global food security
challenge, as projections for the most-likely future morphed into
a normative goal for policy. The longevity of the ‘doubling/70%’
figure can perhaps partially be explained by its convenience, the
scientific precision it conveys, and the prior ideological commitments
by key UK institutions and individuals driving forward this
‘flat’ keying of the hunger frame. It remains problematic given that
it does not address problems of climate change, diet-related ill
health and does not substantially reduce absolute levels of hunger.
This discussion raises particular issues about the legitimacy of the
new politics of productivism and food security, within the UK and
internationally, which in itself legitimises particular economic and
political food system structures, and technological solutions. Its
impact is to marginalise alternative, framings in a ‘sharp’ key.
Nevertheless, social movement activities and significant institutional
scientific and political challenges to the ‘flat’ keying are
beginning to coalesce, and articulate an alternative set of discourses
around concepts of ecological food provision, food sovereignty, and
agroecology.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the comments of two anonymous referees on
a previous draft of this paper. Thanks are due to Stephan Price for
comments and proof-reading, and to Peter Melchett for first
wondering about the basis of these statistics. The arguments
developed in this paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the Soil Association.
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