Author Description

This book builds on authors’ perspective on food security gathered from their global experience of working with farmers in their fields. They are standing back and looking at the global food security situation as a whole through squinted eyes and are concerned about vulnerability and fragility of food value chains. Our species has developed incredible technology, but our heads are in the sand when it comes down to the fundamentals of our survival as a species. The destruction through over exploitation of natural environments, pollution of all kinds, the ensuing impacts of climate change are putting our ability to garner food and potable water from our environment. The issue of food security and the consequences of its absence are becoming more pressing. In many parts of the world, insufficient food is grown to provide adequate nutrition for everyone, every day. Food is lost to pests before harvest and after harvest. Too much is wasted between field and mouth.^ New paradigms are needed; old ones need to be discarded. The human population is set to number 10 billion by 2052, and to keep on increasing. Can that number of people be fed and if not – what are the constraints? The 10 chapters in this book discuss the current situations, explore options and consider solutions. In a rapidly urbanized and cyber-technology dependent modern world, the global food security challenge is to provide safe and nutritious food to all in the face of population growth and the preservation of natural ecosystems. The response to this challenge must include improving the efficiency of the food chain with technological and market innovation that enable billions of smallholder farmers access the value chain and scale up income generating activities. Long term vision has been missing from our food security planning and inter-generational perspective.^ Efficient agricultural production that takes advantage of innovative technologies underpinned by end-to-end value-chain development from promoting the right inputs to encouraging mass adoption of balanced and nutritive food intake will be the real progress towards food security for all.