Future Foods: Global Trends, Opportunities, and Sustainability Challenges highlights trends and sustainability challenges along the entire agri-food supply chain. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses innovations, technological developments, state-of-the-art based research, value chain analysis, and a summary of future sustainability challenges. The book is written for food scientists, researchers, engineers, producers, and policy makers and will be a welcomed reference. Provides practical solutions for overcoming recurring sustainability challenges along the entire agri-food supply chain Highlights potential industrial opportunities and supports circular economy concepts Proposes novel concepts to address various sustainability challenges that can affect and have an impact on the future generations
By 2050 the world will be faced with the enormous challenge of feeding 9 billion people despite being affected by climate change, rising energy costs and pressure on food growing land and other major resources. How will the world produce 70% more food by 2050 to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people? What will be the impact of food shortages and high prices on areas in crisis such as sub-Sahara Africa? Where will future production growth come from? And how do we balance the need for environmental protection with sustainable agricultural production methods? This is the first text to present a scholarly, balanced approach to the contentious area of food production and supply up to 2050 - offering a readable and well-informed account which tackles the global food situation in all its totality, from agricultural production, technological advance, dietary concerns, population changes, income trends, environmental issues, government food and agriculture policy, trade, financial markets, macroeconomics and food security. Highly accessible and written by a specialist author with experience as an agricultural analyst, policy advisor and researcher, Global Food Futures synthesises the key issues in one volume.
It's not easy to eat well. To choose food wisely, you need to know where it comes from and how it's produced. As consumers, most of us don't know what we're getting and eating in our supermarkets and restaurants. When rumours and food scares circulate in the media, we panic. Since most of us know very little about the real state of agriculture today and the ways in which the global agricultural industry produces the foods that end up on our plates, we have no basis on which to make informed judgements. In this important new book, José Bové and François Dufour – two men from modest farming backgrounds who have become international icons of the resistance to global capitalism – unveil the workings of the agricultural industry today and lay down the principles for the creation of a new agriculture for the twenty-first century. Following on from their international bestseller The World is not For Sale, Bové and Dufour have joined forces again to build a constructive programme for the food of the future. They seek to make available to every citizen the facts they need in order to understand the crisis of agriculture today and to see how we can move beyond it. Presenting a positive agenda for a new kind of agriculture, they lay the foundations for a renewal of trust between farmers and citizen-consumers in a way that would bring food – and the production of food – back into the heart of modern society.
This book seeks to resolve the disconnections in research and governance by breaking down interdisciplinary barriers to develop innovatory food security solutions.
Nourished Planet illustrates what our global food system can be - a collection of the smartest ideas to nourish us all. From urban farmers in Kenya to American doctors to government officials in Egypt, its voices demonstrate how diverse perspectives are coming together to feed the world sustainably.--back cover.
The Global Food Economy examines the human and ecological cost of what we eat. The current food economy is characterized by immense contradictions. Surplus 'food mountains', bountiful supermarkets, and rising levels of obesity stand in stark contrast to widespread hunger and malnutrition. Transnational companies dominate the market in food and benefit from subsidies, whilst farmers in developing countries remain impoverished. Food miles, mounting toxicity and the 'ecological hoofprint' of livestock mean that the global food economy rests on increasingly shaky environmental foundations. This book looks at how such a system came about, and how it is being enforced by the WTO. Ultimately, Weis considers how we can find a way of building socially just, ecologically rational and humane food economies.
Ensuring optimal diets and nutrition for the global population is a grand challenge fraught with many contentious issues. To achieve food security for all and protect health, we need functional, equitable, and sustainable food systems. Food systems are highly complex networks of individuals and institutions that depend on governance and policy leadership. This book explains how interconnected food systems and policies affect diets and nutrition in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. In tandem with food policy, food systems determine the availability, affordability, and nutritional quality of the food supply, which influences the diets that people are willing and able to consume. Readers will become familiar with both domestic and international food policy processes and actors, and they will be able to critically analyze and debate how policy and science affect diet and nutrition outcomes.
With the global population projected to reach 9 billion by the year 2050, the need for nations to secure food supplies for their populations has never been more pressing. Finding better supply chain solutions is an essential part of achieving a secure and sustainable diet for a rapidly increasing population. We are now in a position, through methods including life cycle assessment (LCA), carbon footprinting and other tools, to accurately measure and assess our use – or misuse – of natural resources, including food. The impact of new technologies and management systems can therefore improve efficiencies and find new ways to reduce waste. Global Food Security and Supply provides robust, succinct information for people who want to understand how the global food system works. The book demonstrates the specific tools available for understanding how food supply works, addresses the challenges facing a secure and safe global food supply, and helps readers to appreciate how these challenges might be overcome. This book is a concise and accessible text that focuses on recent data and findings from a range of international collaborations and studies. The author provides both a snapshot of global food supply and security today, and a projection of where these issues may lead us in the future. This book will therefore be of particular interest to food policy leaders, commercial managers in the food industry, and researchers and students seeking a better understanding of a rapidly evolving topic.
Globalization of the food supply has created conditions favorable for the emergence, reemergence, and spread of food-borne pathogens-compounding the challenge of anticipating, detecting, and effectively responding to food-borne threats to health. In the United States, food-borne agents affect 1 out of 6 individuals and cause approximately 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths each year. This figure likely represents just the tip of the iceberg, because it fails to account for the broad array of food-borne illnesses or for their wide-ranging repercussions for consumers, government, and the food industry-both domestically and internationally. A One Health approach to food safety may hold the promise of harnessing and integrating the expertise and resources from across the spectrum of multiple health domains including the human and veterinary medical and plant pathology communities with those of the wildlife and aquatic health and ecology communities. The IOM's Forum on Microbial Threats hosted a public workshop on December 13 and 14, 2011 that examined issues critical to the protection of the nation's food supply. The workshop explored existing knowledge and unanswered questions on the nature and extent of food-borne threats to health. Participants discussed the globalization of the U.S. food supply and the burden of illness associated with foodborne threats to health; considered the spectrum of food-borne threats as well as illustrative case studies; reviewed existing research, policies, and practices to prevent and mitigate foodborne threats; and, identified opportunities to reduce future threats to the nation's food supply through the use of a "One Health" approach to food safety. Improving Food Safety Through a One Health Approach: Workshop Summary covers the events of the workshop and explains the recommendations for future related workshops.
