UNCCD Calls For A Shift From The Current "Age of Plunder" Toward An "Age of Respect" of Biophysical Limits

HAPPY WORLD SOIL DAY!

Roughly half of the world's surface area has been converted to land grazed by domesticated animals, cultivated crops, or production forests resulting in the loss of more than half of the world’s forests. 

Soil health can be defined as “the continued capacity of the soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans.” At present, land degradation and desertification are rampant threats to the sustainability of livelihoods, a phenomenon mostly experienced in drylands, which support over 44% of world food production.

Degraded dryland ecosystems increase vulnerabilities. Photo: Binh Thuan, Thien Anh Huynh/Vietnam/UNEP

Drylands are fragile ecosystems characterized by infertile soils and sparse vegetation cover and where average rainfall is counterbalanced by evapotranspiration. In 2000, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) estimated drylands to cover 40% of the global land surface. Recent studies (Huang et al., 2015) have shown that this figure will increase to 48% by 2025 and 56% by the end of the century. Such an expansion will further undermine soil's carbon sequestration potential and enhance regional warming. Land degradation and desertification will be exacerbated in drylands located in developing countries ''where 78% of dryland expansion and 50% of the population growth will occur under'' (Huang et al., 2015).

The UNCCD Global Land Outlook report published this year qualifies our current food system as inefficient, highlighting the current patterns of food production, distribution, and consumption as highly unsustainable. It criticizes the current agribusiness model which ''benefits the few at the expense of the many: small-scale farmers, the backbone of food production for millennia, are under immense stress from land degradation, insecure tenure, and a globalized food system that favors concentrated, large-scale, and highly mechanized farms'' (GLO, p.11).

What the world eats

Hey everyone! I came across an interesting series of photographs taken by photo-journalist Peter Menzel for his book called ''Hungry Planet: what the world eats''. Here are a few:

The Melander family from Bargteheide, Germany, with a week's worth of food. Food expenditure for one week: $500.07 USD

The Caven family. American Canyon, California, with a week's worth of food. Food expenditure for one week: $159.18 USD

The Mendoza family in Todos Santos Cuchumatán, Guatemala, with a week's worth of food. Food expenditure for one week: $75.70 USD

The Ayme family in their kitchen house in Tingo, Ecuador, a village in the central Andes, with one week's worth of food. Food expenditure for one week: $31.55 USD

Powerful images, right? 

Recent studies (Behrens et al., 2017) show that there is an increasing demand for foods with high environmental and health impacts. Meat consumption has grown unprecedently over the past decades, putting pressure on forests and resources. Animal products are considered a ''luxury'' food for rural populations, whereas they have become widely available and accessible in urban areas.

The first family, from Germany, spends three times as much as the American family, including many beverages, and what appears to be higher quality meats. The American family seems to eat a lot of ''brands''. Compared to the rural, the urban families eat little "natural" foods and mostly processed foods. It is also interesting to notice the food expenditures. For urban families, the ability to spend more on food reflects socioeconomic status, whereas rural families reflect wealth from the amount of food available. How much would it cost for the German family to consume as much (organic) produce as the Guatemalan's?

Equilibrium?

The supply of animal products depends on reproductive capacity, and natural resources, in general, have an equilibrium harvest. Can we say our current agro-industrial practices are unsustainable? What are the interactions between the social and the biological system when we think of our food? 

Should we think of our global food production systems as major drivers of change in terms of the linear consumption patterns of societies? 

Many questions with perhaps a variety of complex answers...