With the world’s population set to reach 9 billion by 2050, agricultural production will need to increase by 70% in order to meet demand. Climate change adds a new dimension of this challenge as it is one of the key drivers of change affecting the food system and contributing to rising food prices. It leads to changes in growing seasons and rainfall patterns and the increased frequency of extreme events such as droughts and floods. It has been estimated by the United Nations Environment Programme that up to 25 per cent of world food production could be lost by 2050 as a result of climate change, water scarcity and land degradation.
Many organisations around the world are working to find ways to produce the food needed in a sustainable way, within the limits of what our ecosystems can support for current and future generations, and to safeguard this production from the impacts of climate change.
The impacts of climate change on food and nutrition security is exacerbating existing inequalities in access to resources (especially for women who are primarily responsible for food production) and contributing to injustice – those who have done least to cause the climate change problem are already suffering its impacts on one of their most fundamental human rights – the right to food.
Under-nutrition undermines the coping mechanisms and resilience of vulnerable populations, lessening their capacities to resist and adapt to the consequences of climate change. Conversely, targeting of interventions at key points of vulnerability, such as meeting the food nutritional needs of mothers and young children during the first 100 days will have disproportionately positive payoffs in future productivity and development.
COP17 brought agriculture and food security issues on to the world agenda of the UNFCCC for the first time and led to a call for submissions on elements of work under this theme. COP18 in December represents an opportunity to tackle the adaptation and mitigation challenges of agriculture and food and nutrition security in an integrated way.
Food security is identified as a priority area in the Rio+20 Zero draft document, however the connection between sustainable climate-sensitive agricultural practices, enhanced food and nutrition security and gender equality is not made. Food security will be central to discussions on the proposal for Sustainable Development Goals at Rio+20 and to the ongoing discussions on a post 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) framework.
