Food Security and Climate Change


Muhammad Owais, Educationist and Geologist

Food Security is the new concept of 21st century. Many countries included food security in their foreign policy. On the other hand, Climate Change is the major factor behind food Security both are inextricable to each other. The report” The Food Gap, The Impacts of Climate Change on Food Production: A 2020 Perspective” revealed that global food production would not meet the food requirement of the world, food prices are expected to jump by 20% in the next ten years such as during drought, flood period and global wheat production will experience a 14 % deficit between production and demand as well as 11 % in rice and 9 % in maize. This report helights the future challenges of food Security as well as climate change. The question is how to save the world from the worst situation by implementing effective measures and strategy.

Thanks to UN Food and Agriculture Organization which reveals the basic strategy to make sure the food availability, food access, food stability and utilization. The policy of sate should adopt such measures that there is a reliable and consistent source of quality of food, people have sufficient resources of produce and /or purchase food, people have the knowledge and basic sanitary conditions to choose, prepare and distribute food in a way that results in good nutrition. Moreover, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has launched a Zero Hunger Challenge, inviting all nations to be boldly ambitious  as they work for a future where no one goes hungry.

Population growth is another factor which equally affects the food security at an unprecedented level. Let’s think about present situation of COVID-19  that million babies are to be born in Pakistan by 2020., according to UNICEF report. Zafar Mirza also alarmed that million of women face the unintended pregnancies due to limited access to contraceptive measures. All these facts leads to a conclusion if the same trends goes on, the world will face a huge catastrophe in the form of food security.

Former Prime Minister of UK  Tony Blair, at UN Summit, says “ the world is facing a worst situation of climate change but there is only a solution which is Sustainable Development. All the countries should formulate their policies according Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and try to meet the targets of SDGs which will improve the condition of countries in particular and the world in general.

To conclude by the words of Bill Gates “ The key thing you can do to reduce population growth is actually improve health”. In developed world, according to Transition theory, Sweden is fall under the category where population growth is controlled. This is only solution which limits the population, reduce the demand, less strain on natural resources, deforestation, saline water, emissions of Greenhouse Gasses all these lead to slowdown the climate change process. It’s high time to understand the whole cycle and concept of food security and climate change, SDGs is only Solution.

About the Author: He has done BS (Geology) from Sindh University Jamshoro in 2014. Afterwards, he joined Education Department, Government of Sindh and has been teaching since 2015. In addition, he is a part of  CBN since last year as District coordinator and as a regular writer of CBN ClimAct Magazine. 


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