Universal Food Security (and what it actually means)

Food insecurity is one of the most difficult problems that the human world has encountered in its existence. Food and the energy that it provides is something which is impossible to survive without. Despite this, in many corners of the world, food is simply unavailable or alternatively not nutritious. Due to the magnitude of the problem at hand, there have been thousands of efforts to mitigate the effects of such problems in practically every corner of the globe. While some have merit, the overall magnitude of the issue hasn’t necessarily changed. As Glenn Denning demonstrates in his book “Universal Food Security”, the issue of food insecurity is so incredibly nuanced that it could not possibly be solved by a mere one or two things. This is exemplified as when he was asked about how he would go about solving climate change, he began to criticize the concept of “all-we-got-to-do-is ism”.

The book itself is the product of over 4 decades of research and over 50 countries of various projects that accomplish various goals in various different ways. The problem is not isolated in the idea that one can only solve it by directly impacting food supply, as the economy, infrastructure, and social constructs of an area can all impede or aid the distribution of food. The other major implication of this book is the idea of climate change. Climate change is perhaps the greatest example of an ambiguous problem. Despite recent efforts in the energy and manufacturing industries to switch to cleaner energy and reduce our footprint on the atmosphere, we must also focus on taking existing carbon out of the atmosphere and disposing of it in a safe manner. This goes hand in hand with solving food insecurity because even if we manufacture more food or spend more energy distributing more evenly, the adverse impacts on the environment could be immense. A way to go about solving this is sustainable intensification of agriculture which could increase productivity with safer environmental practices, though there are numerous ways to implement this which all depend on the situation of each individual farmer.

As one might be able to tell, a lot of the significant global issues that we face (in this case food insecurity and climate change) are all interconnected in the sense that to begin to solve one such issue we must also look at its implications on another issue. It’s also important to stay aware of the fact that we all have an impact on the world around us. While one or two farms adopting more sustainable practices may not on the surface have any impact on either issue, the combined efforts of millions around the world certainly can. It’s extremely important to understand what the individual and community can do because it will certainly differ depending on where you live and what you do. As for the book itself, I highly recommend reading it because it gives you an extremely complex understanding of the lives of people who have dedicated themselves to solving this mammoth problem and it really drives home the whole idea that such problems are much more complex than they seem.