1. Measuring food and health:

Ways of measuring disparities in food and health between places:

• Global Food Security Index (GFSI)

  1. Takes into account four core issues of affordability, availability and quality of food across 113 countries

  2. uses 28 indicators as a benchmark and goes beyond hunger in measuring food security

  3. measures a country’s exposure to the impacts of a changing climate, susceptibility to natural resource risks and how countries are adapting to these risks

• The Global Hunger Index(GHI)

  1. Based on four indicators:

     1. Undernourishment: the share of the population that is under-nourished

     2. Child wasting: the share of children under the age of five who are wasted

     3. Child stunting: the share of children under the age of five who are stunted

     4. Child mortality: the mortality rate of children under the age of five

• Calories per person/capita

  1. measures the amount of energy contained in a given amount of food

  2. measured in kilocalories per person per day (kcal/person/day)

  3. High-calorie intake is associated with developed countries, and vice versa

• Indicators of malnutrition

  1. Stunted growth

  2. Wasting

  3. Undernourishment

2. Food systems and spread of diseases:

Sustainable Agriculture

• The ability of a farm to produce indefinitely without causing harm to the ecosystem/environment

  • ensures that resources are used in such a way that future generations can still benefit from them

  • conserves natural resources

  • prevents environmental degradation

  • increases the profitability of the farm

The Environmental Costs of Increasing Food Production

• The practice of monoculture by large TNCs causes significant damage to the natural environment.

• The use of aggro-chemicals is harmful to the environment.

• The cost of cleaning up chemical pollution is expensive.

• It also leads to air pollution and greenhouse gas pollution from the farm.

  • Example: Methane.

• It leads to the removal of hedgerows leading to deforestation.

Energy Efficiency Ratio:

• measures the amount of energy input compared with the amount of output produced by the farm

• two types of inputs: direct inputs and indirect inputs

  • Examples of direct inputs are planting, cultivation, labor, machinery, vehicle fuel, farm tools etc.

  • Examples of indirect inputs are fertilizers, electricity, irrigation, transport, pesticides etc.

• The output-input ratio is calculated by dividing the total output by the total input

• An efficient farm should have an EER≥1

• Energy Efficiency Ratio=total outputs/total inputs

Factors affecting energy subsidies or energy efficiency ratio in different environments

• Climate: Farms located in warm climates will need less energy than those in cold climates because colder ones need artificial light for crop growth.

• Type of soil:

  • Loamy soil requires less fertilizer.

  • Sandy soil requires more fertilizer.

• Type of crop cultivated: beans do not use a lot of nutrients. They fix nitrogen into the soil. Crops that produce protein require a lot of energy.

• Relief/topography: When the land is relatively flat, it needs less energy, because it retains water and minerals easier.

• Irrigation

• The type of farming system: labor intensive or capital intensive

Two main improvements in physical processes that have led to an increase in food production:

• Increased amount of farmland through converting brownfield sites and waterlogged areas to farmlands and cultivating forested areas. This has led to an increase in the amount of farmlands in Africa, Asia and other parts of the developing world.

• The second reason is an increase in productivity, due to increased land size. The increase in agricultural productivity is the result of:

  • high-yielding variety of crops such as IR-8 rice and wheat. These crops have been genetically modified to increase the amount of output per hectare.

  • Mechanization of agriculture has made it possible for a large amount of land to be cultivated for farming

  • Use of chemical fertilizers. Despite its environmental impact, the use of agrochemicals has led to an increase in the amount of crop yield per land.

  • Irrigation has not only resulted in an increase in the amount of land needed to cultivate food, but it has also enabled experiencing seasonal rainfall to undertake dry season farming.

  • Rising incomes, leading to an increase in the demand for food and meat in MICs

  • Improved transportation, leading to an improvement in the distribution of food to areas experiencing food shortages

  • Better education, resulting in better food choices in favor of high-quality food

  • Mass media also plays a crucial role in determining the amount of food consumed by people in developed countries and urban areas

Disease/agriculture innovation diffusion can be classified into a number of types:

• Expansion diffusion

  • occurs when a disease or agricultural innovation spreads from one place to another

  • the disease/innovation often intensifies in the originating region

  • as the disease/innovation expands into new areas, it is likely to weaken

  • recognized in the recent H1N1 flu that had its source in Mexico

• Relocation diffusion

  • a spatial/geographic spread process

  • the disease/innovation leaves the areas in which it originated as it moves into new areas

    • Example: The migration of people with HIV or Measles

• Network diffusion

  • occurs when the disease/innovation spreads through transportation and social networks

  • example is the diffusion of HIV which spread along important transport routes in Southern African countries with developed road networks, as well as social (sexual) networks

• Contagious diffusion

  • spread depends on direct contact

  • mostly applicable to disease diffusion

  • the process is strongly influenced by distance because nearby individuals or regions tend to have a much higher probability of contact or infection (incidence of the disease) than remote individuals or regions

• Hierarchical diffusion

  • involves the spread of disease through an ordered sequence of classes or places,

    • Example: from large cities to remote villages

  • assumed to be downwards from larger cities to smaller centres.

3. Stakeholders in food and health:

The following organizations have made significant contributions towards achieving the SDGs related to food security and diseases:

• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):

  • Help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition

  • Make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable

  • Reduce rural poverty

  • Enable inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems

  • Increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises

• World Food Programme

  • providing emergency assistance, relief and rehabilitation, development aid, and special operations

  • committed to ‘end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition by 2030‘

  • contributes to achieving this goal by providing food and food-related assistance to people in conflict-affected countries where people are likely to be undernourished

• World Health Organization (WHO)

  • providing leadership on matters critical to health and engaging in partnerships where joint action is needed

  • shaping the research agenda and stimulating the generation, translation and dissemination of valuable knowledge

  • setting norms and standards and promoting and monitoring their implementation

  • articulating ethical and evidence-based policy options

  • providing technical support, catalyzing change, and building sustainable institutional capacity

  • monitoring the health situation and assessing health trends

How can TNCs or Agribusiness influence food consumption habits?

• The production of food on a large scale by TNCs makes food available to areas that do not have sufficient food supply because the TNCs can export food to such hunger-stricken countries.

• TNCs may sell food at a cheaper price to local consumers since they can reduce costs due to the large-scale nature of their operations.

  • By so doing, they are capable of producing more at a lower cost.

• Since most foods produced by TNCs have preservatives, it increases the lifespan of food on the shelves.

  • This means that the consumer will not suffer from food shortages resulting from poor storage facilities or the perishable nature of the food.

• TNCs also give consumers the opportunity of making food choices according to their preferences.

  • The wide range of options available means the consumer buy food that meets their dietary needs and food preference – key ingredients in the definition of food security

Criticisms of TNC/Agribusiness

• At the input stage, the natural environment and natural breeding selection are losing out to genetically modified seeds.

• Large land grabs by TNCs deny the people power to cultivate food for domestic consumption, possibly leading to food shortages

• Food is preserved, processed package-branded and marketed such that food is becoming increasingly unrecognizable.

  • Example: it is becoming increasingly difficult to link processed meat products to the actual type of animal.

• They may encourage or emphasise the growing of non-food cash crops rather than food crops which would limit the consumer’s choice of food.

• TNCs often sell processed food, which has less fibre, thereby increasing the consumer’s risk of contracting diseases of affluence.

• The Media and advertising companies can also present food adverts which present unhealthy food as suitable for consumers.

  • This could compel them to switch from eating healthy food to unhealthy one.

• They may gain control of the supply of seed for one or more basic crops; this seed may then be priced beyond the means of the average farmer or the seed may require higher than affordable investments in infrastructure or equipment for high yields to be obtained.

4. Future health and food security and sustainability:

Possible solutions to food insecurity

Economic solution

• Investment in agriculture:

  • financial investment such as agriculture subsidies given by the government could be given to farmers to increase food production.

• Loans:

  • these could be micro-loans given to rural farmers at low-interest rates to invest in farming.

• Food crop cultivation:

  • this will make food available for consumption, rather than investing in feed industries producing biofuels.

• Commercial agriculture:

  • this will encourage large-scale farming of food crops that could potentially make food available at cheap prices or for export to increase the farmer’s revenue

Political solution

• Food aid:

  • helps to alleviate food shortages because they serve as an emergency source of food during war or natural disasters like famine or drought

• Fairtrade:

  • adopt policies that meet the livelihood of the people, respect/preserve their local culture and protect/use environmental resources wisely

• Free trade:

  • an agreement between two countries to trade between themselves without any restrictions or barriers

Technological Solution

• Irrigation:

  • to invest in dry-season farming/irrigation to provide water for crop farming and livestock production

• Mechanization of agriculture:

  • investment in road infrastructure by extending feeder roads to farming areas, and providing tractors and other forms of farm machinery to farmers to cultivate crops on a large scale

• Food waste reduction:

  • efforts must be made to reduce the amount of food waste generated in hotels, restaurants and supermarkets

Contemporary approaches to food production:

• Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

  • plants or animals whose genetic makeup(DNA) has been transformed by scientific engineering

  • leads to the development of a new organism whose DNA is different from the natural one

• Vertical farming

  • the growing of crops vertically, in layers, especially in urban areas

  • beginning to gain popularity in the developed world, where food production is taking place in tall buildings in urban centres

• In vitro, meat

  • also known as cell-cultured meat, clean meat or synthetic meat

  • the production of meat using tissue engineering technology

  • a cell is taken from a living animal and placed into a protein-rich liquid, causing the cell to grow without the need for the animal body

  • the cells multiply to produce artificial meat

  • not all forms of meat can be produced this way

Prevention and treatment in managing disease:

Two main systems of healthcare delivery:

• Preventive Health Care:

  • Measures taken to prevent a disease from occurring as opposed to the treatment of a disease.

  • In other words, preventive health care emphasizes the need to prevent the incidence of the disease before it occurs.

    1. Example: Polio vaccination takes place in Ghana every year to prevent the spread of polio among children.

• Curative Health Care:

  • Involves treating the symptoms of the disease after the person has been infected.

  • Curative health care involves massive investment in medical infrastructure by the government in the form of hospitals, nurses’ training colleges and medical schools to train doctors as well as providing enough resources to make them functional.

  • Most countries in the world focus on curative health care rather than preventive health care.