Global food crisis: Is technology the answer?

By 2050, the world’s population will skyrocket to 10 billion people. The ability of Planet Earth to sustainably feed all these people becomes questionable. Can technology save the world from starvation when 2050 comes?

The current statistics on global food hunger are depressing.

• 828 million people go hungry every day.

• 9 million people die every year from hunger. Lack of food kills more people than Aids, Malaria, and Tuberculosis combined.

• One child dies from starvation every 10 seconds. That’s 3.1 million child casualties each year.

• 2.3 billion people do not have adequate access to food

(Sources: FAO, DeliveryRank, concernusa.org)

Besides these dire figures, we are witnessing political unrest, economic shocks, global warming, and environmental destruction on an unprecedented scale. The world is struggling to feed every person on this planet, and its growing population is pushing food security off the cliff. By 2050, there will be 2 billion more people to feed. Our food resources will be under far greater stress to meet the increasing demand without causing further harm to the environment and intensifying carbon emissions. Can we still feed the world?

What runs through the veins of food security?

According to the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food for an active and healthy life. The definition, however, is sounding increasingly like an elusive goal as we brace ourselves for world conflicts, worsening climate change, and food waste - all of which converge in a perfect storm with devastating effects on global food security.

The abysmal costs of conflict

Conflict is a major cause of chronic hunger as it threatens food security for millions of people. For a world already grappling with the effects of a pandemic, the costs of conflict are far-reaching and devastating, such as that of the Ukraine war.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has left Ukraine’s agricultural sector and economy in shambles and continues to inflict carnage on world agricultural markets, endangering international food security. The war has drastically disrupted the global supply of grains and oilseeds and caused staple food prices to skyrocket. Sanctions against Russian exports of oil and gas have further hiked up global prices of fertilizers, resulting in costlier agricultural production. As the conflict persists, food price inflation will make nutritious food inaccessible for millions, especially the vulnerable in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

Climate change

Climate change is another growing cause of the hunger crisis. Our food systems are almost powerless against the harsh impacts of global warming. Rising temperatures, wildfires, floods, droughts, pest infestations, and diseases are pelting down hard on food security. These catastrophes destroy agricultural land and disrupt food production and distribution. For example, a 1°C rise in average temperatures in the South Asian region can easily wipe out 4–5 million tonnes of wheat. In countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam, floods can destroy rice crops and greatly incapacitate rice production.

Food waste

While the world’s current food production is more than enough to feed everyone on Earth, producing enough food to feed everyone does not guarantee food security. Tons of what we produce is wasted every day. According to the United Nations, roughly 13 percent of food produced globally is lost between the harvest and the market, while 17 percent of total global food production is estimated to be wasted in households, food service, and retail. Food waste, not food shortages, is responsible for our current and possibly future hunger crisis.

Transforming food systems through data and technology

Data is crucial in facilitating decision-making in a future that is facing food uncertainties. In war-torn countries, manual data collection can be difficult and slow, hindering humanitarian efforts. AI, machine learning, and drones can quickly provide real-time data points in tracking and predicting areas of urgent need for food distribution.

As climate change worsens over the coming decades, climate-smart agriculture systems can mitigate the negative consequences of global warming. Big data analytics, predictive analytics, AI, machine learning, and cloud computing can help interpret data, forecast impending disasters, and send alerts to populations promptly. In 2021, Google’s flood forecasting initiative sent out 115 million flood alerts to 23 million people.

What about food waste? According to a new study, greenhouse gases resulting from rotten and otherwise wasted food account for approximately half of all global food system emissions. Wasted food also means edible food is unavailable for those who need it.

Food waste is avoidable. End-to-end traceability minimizes food waste through efficient supply chain management and product recalls to avoid throwing out uncontaminated food. Digital twin technology analyzes live data from supply chains to anticipate shelf-life and expiry dates so suppliers and retailers can utilize the information to make informed decisions, e.g. to determine marked-down retail pricing for food approaching their sell-by dates.

3D printing also holds the potential to prevent food spoilage from transportation delays. Food with high risks of decomposition can be processed into a powdered form immediately after harvest to retain their nutritional properties, making them easier to store and transport. The technology can then reassemble the components into their original, edible form for future consumption. In the future, 3D food printing could also solve food insecurity by extracting nutrients from parts of food that are usually discarded and then printing new, palatable food.

Can technology save world hunger?

Innovative use of technology can reduce the consequences of conflict, climate change, and food waste and help reshape the global agricultural landscape. It can also improve the efficiency and output of agricultural processes.

Data-driven agriculture can provide valuable insights and empower farmers to make better decisions that help increase yields and efficiency, reduce the use of unnecessary pesticides, accurately forecast, and contribute to a sustainable food supply. Additionally, AI, machine learning, IoT, and blockchain technology can interpret data with predictive analytics to remotely control and manage agricultural processes, monitor crop growth and livestock, gather consumption behaviors, enhance traceability, and bring much-needed predictability to farming.

The key is to accelerate these technologies affordably for agricultural communities.

And hopefully (with fingers crossed), we do this way before 2050.

Article written by Jillian Wong - RYNAN Technologies

References:

Hunger & food insecurity, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

World Hunger: Key Facts and Statistics in 2023, DeliveryRank

World hunger facts: What you need to know in 2023, Concern Worldwide US

Chase Sova and Kate Milliken, Climate & food security in 2035, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, (4 Mar 2022)

How climate change increases hunger - and why we are all at risk, Concern Worldwide, (23 Jun 2022)

International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction, United Nations (29 Sep 2023)

Yossi Matias, How we're using AI to help address the climate crisis, Google (2 Nov 2022)

Orla Dwyer, Food waste makes up ‘half’ of global food system emissions, Carbon Brief (13 Mar 2023)