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Food security in the Netherlands

Food is a necessity for every being on earth. Whether you do or don’t eat meat, whether you’re lactose intolerant or not, you have to eat. It is thus unthinkable to be food insecure, especially in the western world. At least, that is what is the common idea. This is, however, not completely true. Even in America, a country thought to be one of the wealthiest in the world, 13% of the households is food insecure. This percentage will only grow in the coming years as climate change will have an impact on crop growths in warmer countries, causing a balanced and healthy diet to rise in cost.

Our diet is not very diverse anymore

Due to the latest trend in agriculture being to purely boost the yields and not the quality and diversity of crops, the average daily caloric intake in the western diet consists of mainly four crops: corn (554), soy (257), wheat (768) and rice (91). The average caloric intake should be around 2250 calories a day, and these four crops thus account for 1670 calories per day. The conclusion that can be taken from this is, our diet is not very diverse anymore. This can be seen in every piece of food we eat, however. 

Malnutrition

This will only keep dwindling if climate change continues, due to crops not being able to survive the relatively rapid change in both humidity and temperature. This will cause more people to die from malnutrition, as well as increase the number of people with nutritional deficiency caused diseases (type 2 diabetes, scurvy). Research expects an increase of 5 to 170 million additional people at risk for malnutrition in 2080, which is mainly dependent on socio-economic developments. 

The problem it poses for food security is that we will not be able to keep increasing our yields this way, and with the ever increasing population, the additional nutrients are necessary to feed all 7 billion people on the planet; however, the positive trends in yields will reverse as the amount of arable land decreases. This decrease in arable land is mainly due to the monoculturisation of agriculture which causes the soils to be nutrient deficient. Plants are then unable to grow in these nutrient deficient soils, which affects the gross amount of food globally. 

Increase of food prices

Taking the decreasing trend into account, another problem is posed. Suppose the global food security is not an issue for solving global inequalities. Then if we solve global inequalities, currently developing countries will end up having the same purchasing capacity as the developed countries. The demand for food will steadily increase, with the supply lagging behind. This will affect the prices of food, causing our purchasing capacity to diminish due to inflation in food prices. The power the Dutch market has on the world market will be marginal, and our status as one of the richest countries will be in jeopardy, as will our nation’s food security.

The somewhat askew part is that currently we are producing enough food globally to end world hunger, simply too much in one part of the world and too little in another. We are coping with both an epidemic of obesity and malnutrition, with these epidemics only growing bigger as the climate keeps changing and diets keep shifting towards highly processed, unsustainable foods.