AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY OF TECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING (ATSE) NUMBER 175 DECEMBER 2012 THE SCRAMBLE FOR NATURAL RESOURCES MORE FOOD FROM LESS LAND Contributors discuss how research, development and policy change can help ensure the competitors for the globe’s natural resources all get a fair go. Thoughts Resources / Watching what we Contributor / Jody Harris eat: key to food security? 1 December 2012 / 1 / Jody Harris My role as a member of Arup’s Environment and Sustainability team covers everything from sustainability appraisals to ©iStock environmental assessments The recent droughts in the US and the protests by farmers over milk prices in the UK have to delivering carbon brought the issue of urban food security into the spotlight. My research leads me to think that management projects for existing approaches to food security are flawed because they fail to get to grips with a funda- clients in both the public mental issue: what do people eat and why, and how might that be changed? and private sectors. Food security is about the availability, accessibility and utilisation of food. So, for example, I’m currently undertaking if a city can’t physically get enough supplies of a particular food, then its food security is doctoral research on how threatened. Similarly, if people can’t afford to buy that food or can’t use it to create nourish- cities engage with the ing meals, then the supply isn’t secure. food security agenda.I’m specifically interested in It used to be assumed that availability was the main barrier to food security, grow more food the role that cities might and you improve security. However, work in the 1980s by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen (and do) play in affecting brought accessibility into focus as the key barrier; people were still going hungry despite an change in our food system abundance of food in the world. This still holds and a rise in the number of people accessing in the face of drivers such charity run food banks in the UK and North America shows this is not just a problem for the as population growth, developing world. urbanisation, climate change, and changing It’s estimated that a combination of increasing populations and increasing appetites could dietary preferences. result in a 70% increase in demand for food by 2050. This demand will have to be met despite global drivers of change like depleted resources and climate change, which make it harder to produce enough food. Thoughts / In response, some governments and cities are developing food security strategies. Cities in The best solutions can only particular have a vital role to play because they will soon be home to 70% of the world’s come about by continually population. Cities are focusing on agricultural yields, supply chain resilience, distribution listening, learning and chal- within a city, promoting healthy foods and affordability. lenging. That’s why we’ve created Thoughts - In the US and Canada, food policy councils have been created to promote sustainable food a place for experts, systems at a city scale. US cities are assessing their food systems, while London and a few practitioners and other UK cities now have a food strategy. A lot of the strategies involve things like promoting enthusiasts to talk about the urban agriculture, supporting farmers’ markets and helping people to access healthy foods. issues affecting the built environment now and in But although these initiatives address the availability and accessibility of food, they don’t ad- the future. dress the fundamental issue – what foods we eat and why. Why secure a supply of a product Please join us. people won’t eat; why encourage consumption of a product that cannot be secured long term? www.arup.com/ Havana is often held up as an example of good practice in urban food security... Read the rest thoughts of the article @ http://thoughts.arup.com/post/details/238/watching-what-we-eat-key-to-food- security We shape a better world | www.arup.com FOCUS DECEMBER 12 www.atse.org.au CONTENTS 1 3 A global land rush? Look at the facts By Derek Byerlee 7 The scramble for natural resources: how science can help By Frank Rijsberman The scramble for natural resources: how science can help (Page 7) 5 Crawford Fund tackles the issues 12 Australia should lead action on soil crisis 10 13 Helping farmers innovate to harvest more The slumbering giant: land and water degradation from less By Andrew Noble 15 More than one way to view urban impact on agriculture 18 ACOLA projects a real opportunity for ATSE AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY OF TECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING (ATSE) NUMBER 175 DECEMBER 2012 19 Australia needs a healthcare “assistive technology” network 19 ATSE backs science teacher training Front cover: Taking 20 Fresh Science brings out another 12 technology to the small farms. 28 Ageing means “unprecedented change” THE SCRAMBLE FOR P hoto: CGIAR NATURAL RESOURCES 34 ATSE in Focus MORE FOOD FROM LESS LAND Contributors discuss how research, development and policy change can help ensure the competitors for the globe’s natural resources all get a fair go. 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Please address comments, TechnoloGIcal SCIENCES AND Design and production: suggested topics and article for publication to ENGINEERING (ATSE) Coretext 03 9670 1168 www.coretext.com.au [email protected]. Address: Level 1, 1 Bowen Crescent, Melbourne Deadline for the receipt of copy for next edition Postal Address: GPO Box 4055, Melbourne, Victoria 3001 of Focus is 18 January 2013. Telephone: 03 9864 0900 Facsimile: 03 9864 0930 Email: [email protected] FOCUS DECEMBER 12 www.atse.org.au THE SCRAMBLE FOR natURAL RESOURCES 3 A global land rush? Look at the facts Australia is the only high-income country among the top 10 countries with apparent potential to increase cultivated area. By Derek Byerlee [email protected] rowing food demand from a rising While there are major uncertainties in Agribusiness operations seek farmland and more affluent global population the above projections, they hint at growing 1to either expand the scale of operations and increasing use of land for land scarcity, with remaining land suited or to integrate forward or backward non-food purposes such as biofuels to bring into cultivation concentrated in a to production of raw materials. Ghave translated into higher commodity few countries. Further, expansion of farm Financial entities such as pension prices and increased competition for land. area could have significant environmental 2funds and equity funds find it This has led to a surge of investments in costs, even in the non-forested areas attractive to invest in farmland for farmland in recent years, many transcending considered here, as well as social costs its potential appreciation over the national borders. Such investments are – uncultivated land almost everywhere long term and to diversify their badly needed to overcome the legacy of provides some form of livelihood, especially portfolios, especially given recent poor underinvestment in agriculture. However, to pastoralists or to farmers using extensive performance in other financial assets. where local institutions are not well agricultural systems with long fallows. Governments through sovereign wealth developed, especially land rights, they 3funds or state-owned companies from need to be carefully managed to secure Rising investment countries facing growing food shortages positive development outcomes. Improved returns in farming and relatively due to land and water scarcity seek to Globally, cultivated area – at around cheap land in some countries have translated augment food supplies by investing abroad. 1550 million hectares (M ha) – is increasing into a sharp rise in domestic and foreign Although hyped in the media, this very slowly and is actually declining in investment into farmland, largely focused on last category accounts for less than 10 per developed and transitional economies, the same countries with uncultivated land. cent of investments in farmland. reflecting success in increasing crop yields. Three broad groups of investors Surges in private investment in However, since 1990, developing countries can be distinguished: farmland, often across national borders, have brought an additional 54 M ha into P hoto: IStocK production, mainly in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. A California celery crop. By 2030, the demand for additional cropland is estimated to be 160 M ha to 340 M ha, depending on productivity growth, expansion of biofuels, and losses of cropland to urbanisation and degradation. On the supply side, global analysis indicates that about 450 M ha of non- forested land suited to cropping is available to bring into cultivation. At first glance it would thus seem that land demand (even the higher estimates) can be accommodated by available uncultivated land. However, most of this uncultivated land is concentrated in 10 countries: Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique, Chad and Zambia in sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil and Argentina in Latin America; Russia; and Australia.