Water and Food Security as an International Issue

Introduction

Food and water are essential elements for everyday living, the use of water for many different reasons, drinking, washing, sanitation, food production, energy production and industry. But what is food security? According to the UN it is the capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality of water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being and socio economic development for ensuring protection against water borne pollution and water related disasters and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political activity, (UN – water, 2013), however the global risk forum in 2014 states that there is still a growing awareness of the water crisis, which has resulted from mismanagement and a rise in competition for already scarce water resources, as a result of economic activity and population growth, ‘ There is a continued and growing awareness of the global water crisis as a result of mismanagement and increased competition for already scarce water resource from economic activity and population growth’ (world economic forum, 2014). On the 10th of July 2010 the United Nations general assembly declared as a human right that everyone should have access to clean drinking water’ The UN General Assembly declared access to clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right on 28 July 2010’ (Un.org, 2018). The United nations defined water security as, “the capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human wellbeing, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against waterborne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability.” (Global Water Partnership, 2018). However while this is what water security is there are many challenges which it faces, water is used daily by everyone in the world, but developing countries do not have to same access to clean and safe water, unlike developed countries. There are many factors which affect water and also many factors which can’t be controlled. Water is used for many different activities, the planet is made up of seventy percent salt water, and only three percent of this freshwater, but from this only about one percent of the water is actually accessible, agriculture does use up of the water resources which means that because the population is always growing the production of food has to increase as well, which mean that the reliant on water is becoming more stressed to keep up the increasing demands. ‘The planet is 70% salt water. Only 3% of the world's water is freshwater, and of this, only about 1.5% is accessible. In other words, the rest is locked up in glaciers or in deep aquifers. Agriculture already uses some 70% of the world’s water. So if food production has to increase to feed today’s population, the stress on water resources will only get worse’ (Global Water Partnership, 2018). Throughout this essay I will firstly look at food and water security as an international issue, the threats and the challenges, secondly I will look at the evolution of food and water security and finally I will look at food security today possible course of action.

Water and food security: threats and challenges

There are many factors which can influence water and food security, population growth, changing tastes, climate change water scarcity, these are only a few factors which can affect water and food security. Climate change can impact the growth of food and the certain type of food which can be produced at certain times of the year, however season independent foods can happen more due to the vertical and horizontal integration of food chains, this is because the world globally is becoming more integrated financially and economically, but because of this the price of food will impact everyone, which can have consequences on certain regions, but mainly affecting poorer nations. 2008 saw this massively. During 2008 there were several food riots within developing countries, this was due to the rising price of food, but from the food riots it did bring awareness to the local unrest but not only this it brought awareness to global political leaders that if something doesn’t change that food insecurity could become a bigger threat to political security, meaning that it could destabilizing established political systems, ‘The 2008 food riots in several developing countries, due to rising food prices, not only created local unrest, but also created the awareness among global political leaders that food insecurity could become a threat to political security in terms of destabilizing established political systems’ (Cic.nyu.edu, 2018). Due to the riots it brought global actors together like the G8, G26, the United Nations secretary general and all the United Nations system agencies which are involved with food security into negotiations to stabilise food markets and prices, food and nutrition security, because of the negotiations it enabled substantial resources and global funding from sources like the world bank and the European Union, the resources even came from non-governmental actors. This has also helped to make it a more prominent issue, which has made it now part of the global agenda and has also made it to be included in the resource programmes of action, ‘This directed substantial resources from several global funding sources (e.g. World Bank, European Union) to the issue of food and nutrition security and by engaging powerful nongovernmental actors (private sector, NGOs and CSOs) in a collaborative effort by enabling them to cooperate in the restructured and revitalized Committee of Food Security (CFS). In particular the issue of individual nutrition security (right for food) therefore became more prominent on the global agenda and is now included in the resourced programmes of action.’ (Cic.nyu.edu, 2018). Water security plays a major role in the development of food, it is needed to produce crops and not only is it important for the production of food but it is also hugely important in everyone’s daily life, it is need for drinking and for sanitary reasons as well. As I mentioned earlier it was declared in 2010 a human right to have access to clean water, however this is not always the case even to date there are still developing countries which do not have access to clean water and they also have to travel distance to even have access to a water pump, which means they must travel back to their villages carrying the buckets of water which they need, it is understandable as to why back in 2008 that several developing countries began rioting to try and get attention to the issue that they are facing. These countries don’t have the health system which a developing country would have and drinking or washing in dirty water can lead to becoming ill and also contracting certain diseases, which because they don’t have a good health system can ultimately lead to death, the world health organization has estimated that there are more than 3.7 million deaths which are related to water, ‘The World Health Organization estimates that 3.575 million people die from water-related diseases a year.’ (The World Counts, 2018). There are other factors which can affect the availability of food and water, for example natural disasters which are physically out of the control of officials, when hurricane Harvey which hit the Texas Gulf coast in 2017, it impact thousands of people, it destroyed home and people were left without access to food and water, because of the floods which were as a result of the hurricane, the city’s water system became disabled due to the damage which it had incurred.

Food and security today: possible course of action

Food and water security have faced many challenges in the past but even to date they are still facing challenges, due to the constantly changing environment which we live in. There are many organizations which do try to focus on the water and food security issues, while it is at the top of the priority list for some, it is not always considered a priority for others, the world economic forum has food and security at the top of their priority list to try and to tackle the issue which are constantly becoming evident. The civil society organisation and non –governmental organizations are again more organizations which are trying to focus on the security of food and water, they are involved in intergovernmental consultations, for example the world food summit. There is an emergence of focus coming on tackling the major problems with food and water, this is not just by non-governmental organizations but it is also emerging from governmental actors and also policy supporters, ‘Food security will enter increasingly into the focus of the global governance debate, largely due to the interdependency of economies and the agri-food chains that require cooperation in order to deal with the challenges of the 21st century.’ (Cic.nyu.edu, 2018). People have become better able and equipped to deal with unforeseen circumstances which have left them in short supply of food and water, countries also come together to help one another out when there has been a natural disaster, by supplying aid to the country which has been affected, they send food over to help and feed people who have been left out with-out a home or who don’t have access to food. People who don’t have access to the correct type of food or who have little to no access to food can ultimately result in starvation, however this is not the only big issue which they face, they can face multiple other issues for example obesity and malnutrition. Obesity and malnutrition can have a large impact, while there is a large number in developed countries who are considered obese, the numbers in developing countries is much higher, in 2012 there were over 5.4 percent of the population who were obese, this increase in 2017 to 5.6 percent, however out of these numbers the results show that over twenty five percent were in Africa and forty six percent were in Asia these figures look at children, ‘Since 2012, the global proportion of overweight children remains relatively stagnant, with 5.4 percent in 2012 and 5.6 percent (or 38.3 million) in 2017. Of these 38.3 million overweight children, 25 percent live in Africa and 46 percent live in Asia’ (www.fao.org, 2018). These results show that there needs to be a massive look at policies, and when policies are being created they need to pay close attention to the nutrition of food as well as access to food, they need to ensure that while there is access to food, that the food they have access to is of quality and also nutrition, which will help to promote healthy food. If there are going to be improvements towards water and food security they need to focus on reducing waste, for instance finding a way to reuse drainage water, if they could find a way to reuse this water it would cut down on the amount of water they are using to grow crops, they also need to evaluate the value chain, they need to find ways to use innovate technologies to cut down on costs and to be able to be smarter when it comes to producing foods, because water and food coincide with each other if one or the other is affect it will automatically affect the other.

Evolution of food and water security

Firstly I am going to look back between 1930- 1945, this time period was the beginning of the awareness about food and water security, in 1930 the global issues were dealt with through the League of nations, a survey which they conducted in 1935 showed that there was a shortage of food and water in developing countries, the report which they submitted was the beginning of discussions aimed at improving the water and food problems which were widely happening. In 1993 saw the establishment of the agricultural adjustment act, which there main aim was to control production, from the establishment of the agricultural adjustment act other institutions were created to also help tackle the issues, for example the commodity credit corporation was created and there main aim was to control the buying and selling of agricultural products. 1943 saw the creation of food and agricultural organization of the United Nations, ‘A survey was conducted by the Health Division of the League of Nations and a report on “Nutrition and Public Health” was submitted in 1935. The report showed that there was an acute food shortage in the poor countries, the first account of the extent of hunger and malnutrition in the world. Reviewing the report, the Assembly of the League of Nations held discussions on nutrition and nutrition policies and the need for co-ordinated nutrition policies in a number of countries.’ (Fao.org, 2018). Then moving forward to 1952 saw the establishment of the committee on commodity problems which recommends a set of principles or a code of practice which sets guidelines for the disposal of Agricultural surplus which must be agreed upon. The general assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution on the 27th of October 1960, this resolution was on the provision of food surplus to food deficit, when this resolution was put forward it ultimately was the starting/ creation point of the world food programme. During 1969 the FAO and the commodity problems board approved the CSSD catalogue of transactions which was defining the food aid. The creation of the food security assistance scheme was set up to help developing countries to reach food security and it primarily focused on short term food supply and also improving the way food is produced and also to try and cut down or eliminate food losses, ‘In 1976, FAO established a Food Security Assistance Scheme (FAO, 1984) to assist developing countries reaching food security. This Scheme dealt mainly with short term food supply and with improving food production as well as with a special action programme for the prevention of food losses’ (Fao.org, 2018). In more recent years there has been similar creation of schemes and organisations which are set up to try and help countries to reach food security, many of the schemes main goals are to try and help to reduce the waste of food and water and to try and come up with better ways to eliminate unnecessary waste. As to date they have seen a reduction of food insecurity however many developing countries are still struggling, this is also due to the factors of climate and unforeseen natural disasters and lack of funding which they have, unfortunately they don’t have the resources like many developed countries have to make infrastructure which can help them.

Conclusion

To conclude it is clearly evident that food security and water security has improved over the years and there has been evidence which shows that global systems have come together to try and improve on it even more. Developing countries are still suffering as they don’t have the access or the availability to water and food and because of this there are more consequences for them as I previously mentioned they suffer with more water related diseases as they don’t have the access to clean drinking water and they have higher percentages of people who suffer from obesity and also malnutrition. The goal of the United Nations is to end world hunger and achieve food security and improve the nutrition content of food by 2030, this there second main goal of seventeen goals which they have set out in sustainable development agenda, it is going to be quite difficult to meet this goal as by the year 2050 they must feed over nine billion people globally, each year the population is growing constantly and the demand for food and water increase as the population does, ‘global food security challenge is straightforward: by 2050, the world must feed 9 billion people. The demand for food will be 60% greater than it is today. The United Nations has set ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture as the second of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the year 2030’ (World Economic Forum, 2018). Food and water go hand in hand, in order to produce crops and livestock you need water, when one of these are affected it means that the other one will ultimately end up being affect which as a result will affect everyone, not only does it affect everyone but it is a major global challenge because it is not just about feeding and watering people but these two issues affect all aspects of the economy and society, ‘this is a global challenge because it’s not just about food and feeding people but also about practically all aspects of an economy and society’ (World Economic Forum, 2018). Because water and food don’t just affect one country but it affects everyone globally, I don’t believe it will be the driving force in global governance, while it will bring nations together to work along each other to improve the issues, I think that people see much different issues as bigger and more challenging, while it will bring nations closer and will prove they can work together I don’t believe food and water insecurity will be enough to have a complete global governance but it will encourage it as these two issues do affect everyone, and both water and food affects everyone globally including economically and also society.

Bibliography

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