Date

2009-12-04

Author

Alpas, Hami

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Food security requires appropriate agricultural management and utilization of natural resources and eco-systems, as well as good governance and sustainable political systems. Food security is directly affected by climate change effects that lead to concerns in rural livelihoods. Bio-energy developments present both opportunities and challenges for socioeconomic development and the environment. In that sense, bio-energy solutions should strive to be environmentally sensitive and have a positive social impact. On the other side, trade policy enforced via World Trade Organisation (WTO) is expected to play a role in mitigating and adapting to global climate change by increasing incentives to use the most energy efficient environmental goods and services. The recent food and financial crises developed from different underlying causes but intertwined in complex ways through their implications for financial and economic stability, food security, and political security. As the majority of the poor in the world are considered to be depended on agriculture, the severeness of the climate change effects may lead to food system risks and more of the societal and political risks can be incurred in the future. The potential of food price volatility and climate change leading a rise in food insecurity among the poor groups is significant, and thus, can be expected to bring social disturbances and terrorism in the short to long term. Food security is a hot topic. Therefore, its disruption via environmental breakdown is an obvious cause for terrorism. Although the biotechnology revolution is very relevant to the problems of food security, poverty reduction, and environmental conservation in the developing world, it raises many questions relating to ethics, intellectual property rights, and bio-safety. Some policy alternatives for environment friendly support of food security consist in increasing productivity on the non-forest fertile soils and in animal production systems or to reduce postharvest losses, providing greater incentives for agriculture to use water more efficiently, promoting larger investments in agricultural research to raise production with environment friendly techniques. Global environmental change (GEC) will have serious consequences for food security, particularly for more vulnerable groups. Adapting to the additional threats to food security arising from major environmental changes requires an integrated food system approach, not just a focus on agricultural practices. In this respect, vulnerability assessment could help to address food supply-chain security by determining the selection of countermeasures and emergency responses.

Subject Keywords

Food security, Ecoterrorism, Environmental security, Climate change

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/42801

Collections

Department of Food Engineering, Conference / Seminar