Problematic Quantifications: a Critical Appraisal of Scenario Making for a Global ‘Sustainable’ Food Production

Food Ethics, Aug 2017

Over the course of human history food security has represented a primary challenge for civilizations and societies. In the light of the projected trends of population expansion in the forthcoming decades, its primary importance in the global agenda has never decreased. Our contribution to this debate comes in the form of a critique of a paper recently published in the literature, Badur et al. (2016). In their work, the authors suggest that continuous improvements in agricultural techniques and dietary re-adaptation and change will lead in the near future (2050) to a reduced use of land to meet human nutritional needs, even when factoring in a projected human population of 10 billion people. We show that the quantification rests on dubious hypotheses, at odds with present understanding from the field of system ecology, and neglects the core issue that resides in fundamental asymmetries in the food distribution between rich and poor countries. Thus, a political problem is reframed as a technical one, by mobilizing crisp numbers and analytic prowess to convey an impression of prediction and control. We warn that this might veil important underlying ethical issues.

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Problematic Quantifications: a Critical Appraisal of Scenario Making for a Global ‘Sustainable’ Food Production

Problematic Quantifications: a Critical Appraisal of Scenario Making for a Global 'Sustainable' Food Production Andrea Saltelli 0 1 2 Samuele Lo Piano 0 1 2 Andrea Saltelli 0 1 2 0 Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) , Barcelona , Spain 1 Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT), University of Bergen (UIB) , Bergen , Norway 2 European Centre for Governance in Complexity (ECGC) , Barcelona , Spain Over the course of human history food security has represented a primary challenge for civilizations and societies. In the light of the projected trends of population expansion in the forthcoming decades, its primary importance in the global agenda has never decreased. Our contribution to this debate comes in the form of a critique of a paper recently published in the literature, Badur et al. (2016). In their work, the authors suggest that continuous improvements in agricultural techniques and dietary re-adaptation and change will lead in the near future (2050) to a reduced use of land to meet human nutritional needs, even when factoring in a projected human population of 10 billion people. We show that the quantification rests on dubious hypotheses, at odds with present understanding from the field of system ecology, and neglects the core issue that resides in fundamental asymmetries in the food distribution between rich and poor countries. Thus, a political problem is reframed as a technical one, by mobilizing crisp numbers and analytic prowess to convey an impression of prediction and control. We warn that this might veil important underlying ethical issues. Food security; Sustainability; Sensitivity auditing; Quantitative storytelling; Food distribution; Ecosystem alteration Introduction A recent paper entitled ‘Pathways Leading to a More Sustainable and Healthy Global Food System’ (Badur et al. 2016) presents an analysis of a possible scenario for the interplay between agriculture and world nutritional needs. The analysis takes the form of a hypothetical executive summary from an imagined report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The subject of the report is the state of the world’s food systems, written from the perspective of the 2050s. The study assumes that the world population will have attained 10 billion people, and that agriculture will require B438 million hectares less land than it did in 2015^. According to the report this improvement owes much to technological developments, including the application of big data analytics to farming systems in the 2010s and 2020s. Even larger, according to the authors, is the effect of a change of consumption pattern. The authors imagine a marked shift from the 2015 situation (we recall that the piece is written from the 2050 viewpoint), characterized as systematically overproducing cereals and starches, oils and fats, and sugars, coupled with a lack of 2/3 of amounts of the fruits and vegetables needed for everyone to enjoy a nutritious diet. The authors also refer to a previous (e.g. present day) UN estimate that concludes that there were possibly no lack calories: 3000 dietary calories per person per day were (are hence today) available on the planet. The consequences of overproduction of cereals, oils and sugars were type II diabetes, obesity, and an overuse of agricultural land. The authors imagine hence that in the intervening period between present day and 2050 a set of virtuous policies have managed to improve the situation. The policy package includes: 1. 2. Consumer Education, in the form e.g. of better food literacy and cooking skills Policies Aimed at Increasing the Cost of Unhealthy Food, including e.g. a Bjunk food tax^ Policies Geared at Capturing the Hidden Environmental Costs Associated with Farming. This foresees a comprehensive market for carbon in order to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture as well as restrictions on the use of antibiotic use to limit livestock production. A Reduction in the American Corn Subsidy. This policy also aims to raise the price for livestock feed, and for products which contribute to the processed food industry such as high-fructose corn syrup and corn-starch. Enhanced Storage and Processing Facilities in the Developing World. Unlike the previous measures, this specifically targets the ‘Global South’. In this contribution we intend to present a critique of this work. The theoretical framework underpinning our appraisal borrows from the tradition of system ecology (Odum 1968) , as well as from the more recent methods of sensitivity auditing (Saltelli and Funtowicz 2014) and quantitative storytelling (Saltelli and Giampietro 2016) . Discussion The Authors’ bottom line is that Bagriculture requires 438 million hectares less land than it did in 2015^. This 438 Mha figure was arrived at by assuming that: 1. Agriculture shifts away from over production of cereals, oils, and sugars, but incre (...truncated)


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Andrea Saltelli, Samuele Lo Piano. Problematic Quantifications: a Critical Appraisal of Scenario Making for a Global ‘Sustainable’ Food Production, Food Ethics, 2017, pp. 1-7, DOI: 10.1007/s41055-017-0020-6