When Environmental Sciences Prof. Paolo D’Odorico concluded his investigation on global food trade, he was surprised by the results of his research. He found global food trade now accounts for 23 percent of global food production — a proportion which has more than doubled in the last 30 years.
Allowing for a minimum individual need of 2700 calories per day, as well as a wastage of up to 40 percent of all globally traded food, D’Odorico predicts the current situation will not be sustainable.
“Demand is increasing a lot, so in the future there may be a situation in which production cannot meet demand,” D’Odorico said.
The key, he said, lies in redistributing resources.
“There are issues related to inequality of natural resources and when this inequality leads to injustice," he said. "There is a problem in the institution as to who is in charge of distribution. Distribution already happens through trade but there are some countries that don’t have access to global trade because of prices.”
The force of globalization could also have repercussions in times of crisis, D'Odorico said.
“Countries which have food deficits have access to foods produced somewhere else,” he said. “However, when there is a crisis, resources are already committed. Food crises become global in this way because we are all interconnected.”
