How Not to Feed 8 Billion People

Imagine, if you will, the plate of food you might have for lunch.

If you and your plate are somewhere in the western world and belonging to a middle to upper socio-economic class, there will be some pressure to make sure that the plate of food is absent of meat products, is vegan, seasonal, locally sourced, and purchased from a farm where you are personally familiar with the owner and their farming practices.

While meant as an exaggeration, the proliferation of food and climate-related consumer recommendations and national strategies are nothing to shake one’s fork at. The last couple of years have seen an increasing interest in how our food is produced (consider the United Nations Food Systems Summit in 2021) and the continuing ravages of climate change (the climate and biodiversity COP meetings in 2022). Individuals are under pressure to make responsible choices about consumption, with a strong emphasis on food. What to eat, what not to eat, where to eat from, and how to make sense of the very crowded and complex real-estate of the food label.

A significant (sounding) demographic threshold has been crossed. Online coverage of the 8 billion population mark would suggest the beginning of another era of scarcity and gloom. It is easy to look at that number and think that there are too many people on the planet. It was easy to arrive at the same conclusion at 7 billion and at 6 billion. What will we conclude at 10 billion? Of course, these 8 billion people are not equal in circumstance or in consequence. They cannot be reduced to their climate impact, contribution to national economies, or pressures on global supply systems. But, a creeping worry is on how to feed the 8 billion in a way that is sustainable, equitable, and healthy.

To consider the scale of the problem and reduce it to a few easily approachable factors is all too convenient. One is to view it as a demand and supply situation. We need to produce more food and manage how this food is produced. This view results in solutions that appear fairly straightforward to implement: methods for producing more food over smaller areas of land, with smaller and smaller quantities of inputs in terms of human effort and material, and managing personal diets. Enter vertical farming, automated production systems, cultured meats, precision fermentation, insect farming, vegan diets, local and seasonal consumption, and personalised nutrition.

Reliance on silver-bullet and so-called one-shot solutions have a number of problems. The first is that they take attention away from the complexity and nuance of the deeply interconnected systems they are meant to influence. The second is that the long-term and systemic impacts of these solutions are often not considered. The third, is that such solutions are often very context-specific and assume a degree of function from other inter-related systems such as energy, water, and infrastructure.

Keeping these problems in mind, let us now explore how we cannot feed 8 billion people using certain solutions and what might be needed instead. Let us begin with vertical farming. The last few years have seen the launch of multiple large-scale vertical farms across the world. In brief, the idea behind vertical farming is to produce food indoors, ideally in disused spaces, lit by LEDs, and fed with nutrient-rich solutions. The spaces are climate controlled, can be automated, protected from pests, and free of the uncertainty that comes from soil. However, vertical farms can currently only produce leafy greens and herbs and have fairly high operating costs. While growing nutrients instead of calories in urban areas is laudable, this produce can be often too pricey for cash-strapped consumers. In the past few months, some vertical farms have begun employee layoffs and shifting practices to focus on profitability, partly as a result of sky-rocketing energy prices. While still an important consideration for water-stressed countries lacking arable land and for agricultural research, it is unlikely that vertical farming will be a contributor for securing the food future of 8 billion people.

A rather different type of high-tech solution can be found in cultured meat – the idea that meat can be produced in large vessels in order to bypass the harms of intensive livestock production. Despite a recent declaration from the United States Food and Drug Administration on the safety of cultured meat for human consumption, the technology needs to advance a great deal before products are easily available for human consumption. While much is made of the benefits of its efficient production, avoidance of antibiotics, and the potential shift away from agriculture and livestock related deforestation and biodiversity loss, concerns remain around challenges on the intellectual property rights of the process, the materials used in producing the cultured meat itself and democratisation and accessibility of the technology across the world. Considering cultured meat as a replacement instead of an additive brings its own concerns particularly around the multiple co-benefits of livestock rearing and consumption, especially at smaller scales in most of the world. How does one scale up a technology like cultured meat without leaving behind those dependent on livestock for their livelihoods and health?

Animal products are a significant contributor to diets across the world. While undernutrition, hunger, and malnutrition tend to take the focus when it comes to ensuring food security, a fair bit of the population is suffering from overnutrition. Manifesting as obesity, overweight, and in the form of diseases such as diabetes, overnutrition is a critical concern for developed and transitioning economies. Coupled with the understanding on the impacts of intensive livestock production and the idea of food miles, vegan diets and local and seasonal consumption are attracting attention. Again, a context-specific solution is needed for addressing the issues that surround food and climate: people and nature in certain parts of the world will benefit from a reduction in animal product consumption while others need to increase theirs.

The problem with how veganism and local food is often spoken about and communicated is that the nuance in spatial context is often lost. A realistic and globally relevant version would necessitate a great reduction in meat and dairy consumption in the global north and an increase in developing nations. However, given the value and identity-laden nature of diets, mandating diets is a politically sensitive proposition and people tend to be restrained by the food environments they are tied to.

This is not to say that specific solutions have no space in our collective food future. The global food and climate experience are a patchwork of connected experience and that is how its solution space must be considered. What works in one part of the world will not in another. Nearly all solutions assume a degree of function from critical infrastructure such as transportation, communication, and energy networks. But recent experiences with geopolitical unrest, natural disasters, and extreme climate events have demonstrated their deep vulnerability to disruption. An intensive rethink of our practices is needed. The foundations on which our food depends are crumbling. Silver bullets are not the answer.