{"id":3309,"date":"2018-11-07T11:15:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T11:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2018-11-07T11:15:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T11:15:51","slug":"professor-keith-somerville-on-the-wwf-report-that-current-food-production-is-unsustainable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2018\/11\/07\/professor-keith-somerville-on-the-wwf-report-that-current-food-production-is-unsustainable\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Keith Somerville on the WWF report that current food production is unsustainable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commenting on the report from the WWF that indicates a major decline in species and numbers of wildlife globally over the last five decades, DICE\u2019s Professor Keith Somerville<\/a> says: “Expansion of food production\u00a0\u200bon the current basis is not sustainable.<\/p>\n

“The report charts a 60% decline in wildlife population sizes between\u00a0between 1970 and 2014. The loss of species and the fall in numbers of free-roaming animals is especially bad in the tropical regions.\u00a0Freshwater species’ numbers have declined dramatically, as well as terrestrial species.\u00a0These falls in species and the resulting impoverishment of biodiversity result from\u00a0human over-exploitation of the environment and development of\u00a0agricultural systems feeding ever-mounting consumption\u00a0in the northern hemisphere, especially North America.<\/p>\n

“Massive demand\u00a0for meat, animal feed to produce that meat, cereals and even crops for bio-fuels are escalating land degradation and reducing\u00a0habitat for species globally. The WWF report says this has seriously affected\u00a075% of terrestrial ecosystems and has had a damaging effect on\u00a0the welfare of more than 3 billion people.<\/p>\n

“There is no getting away from the fact that first-world consumption, boosted in recent years by the\u00a0economic booms in mega-countries like China, India and even smaller ones like Vietnam, have boosted demand for food, raw materials and wildlife products. This has increased the pressure to grow more either by\u00a0expanding the\u00a0land area under the plough or cow,\u00a0thereby\u00a0worsening\u00a0deforestation in rainforest or canopy forest areas,\u00a0and hastening the loss of diversity in other ecosystems, such as savannah and mixed woodland, or by increasing the use of fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides to boost crop yields and prevent pest damage.<\/p>\n

“This in turn has affected bees, other pollinators and soil quality. In the long-term, the damage to pollinators and soil quality will have a negative effect on\u00a0global food security. Similarly,\u00a0overfishing and plastic pollution\u00a0threaten marine and freshwater-fish stocks.<\/p>\n

“In these circumstances,\u00a0expansion of food production\u00a0\u200bon the current basis is not going to be sustainable. The developed, industrial world may still be able to ensure its short-term food security but communities across large areas of central and South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia suffer perpetual food insecurity as cash crop and other agricultural output is geared to feeding the rich north not the hungry south. And those communities suffering constant food shortages – with the resulting malnutrition and the human and economic development problems that flow from that – are those with little\u00a0or no voice in the northern elite-dominated debates and international treaties on the environment, biodiversity and conservation.<\/p>\n

“Without those voices, you not only condemn a large part of the world’s population to silent hunger but also deprive the world of the knowledge, expertise and\u00a0environmental survival strategies that local communities living in fragile environments have developed over centuries. Sustainable, realistic, community-driven approaches to environmental protection, conservation and economic development could provide answers to the question of how we stop the rot not the current approaches that have lofty ideals and high-flown rhetoric\u00a0but depressingly little long-term, positive impact.”<\/p>\n

Professor Keith Somerville is a member of DICE at the University of Kent. His book on human-lion coexistence and conflict is being published by Routledge in 2019. His study of the media coverage of the Cecil the Lion affair is available as a Kindle book<\/a> on Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commenting on the report from the WWF that indicates a major decline in species and numbers of wildlife globally over the last five decades, DICE\u2019s … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40284,"featured_media":3311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159353,6599,124,6600],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3312,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions\/3312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}