Which country can rely on local food supply?

Globalisation has revolutionised food production and consumption, and made cultivation more efficient. Resultantly, diets have diversified and food availability has increased in various parts of the world. It has also led to a situation where the majority of the world’s population lives in countries that are at least partially dependent on imported food. This can intensify vulnerabilities during global crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as global food supply chains are disrupted.

“There are big differences between different areas and the local foliage. For example, in Europe and North America, temperate crops, such as wheat, can be obtained mostly within a radius of 500 kilometres. In comparison, the global average is about 3800 kilometres,” said Pekka Kinnunen, dissertation researcher at Aalto University, in Finland.

A study led by Kinnunen and published in Nature Food modelled the minimum distance between crop production and consumption that humans around the world would need to be able to meet food demand. The study was conducted in collaboration with the University of Columbia, the University of California, the Australian National University and the University of Göttningen. The study factored in six key crop groups for humans: temperate cereals (wheat, barley, rye), rice, corn, tropical grains (millet, sorghum), tropical roots (cassava) and pulses. Researchers then modelled the distances between production and the consumer for both normal production conditions and scenarios where production chains become more efficient due to reduced food waste and improved farming methods.

Optimised distance between food production and consumption graphic. Image credit: Aalto University. Click here for clearer image.

Findings showed that 27% of the world’s population could get its temperate cereal grains within a radius of fewer than 100 kilometres. The share was 22% for tropical cereals, 28% for rice and 27% for pulses. For maize and tropical roots, the production was 11–16%, which researchers say displays the difficulty of relying solely on local resources.

“We defined foodsheds as areas within which food production could be self-sufficient. In addition to food production and demand, food fences describe the impact of transport infrastructure on where food could be obtained,” Kinnunen said.

The study showed that foodsheds are mostly relatively compact areas for individual crops. When crops are looked at as a whole, foodsheds formed larger areas, spanning the globe. This indicates that the diversity of current diets creates global, complex dependencies. The results also indicate that local production alone cannot meet the demand for food; at least not with current production methods and consumption habits. Increasing the share of effectively managed domestic production could reduce both food waste and greenhouse gas emissions. It could also lead to water pollution and water scarcity in densely populated areas, as well as vulnerabilities during poor harvests or large-scale migration.

“The ongoing COVID-19 epidemic emphasises the importance of self-sufficiency and local food production. It would be important also to assess the risks that dependence on imported agricultural inputs, such as animal feed proteins, fertilisers and energy, might cause,” said Matti Kummu, associate professor.

Top image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/smolaw11