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)