Food Insecurity 2: Food Chain Reaction

Food Chain Reaction: A Global Food Security Game from Food Chain Reaction on Vimeo.

As a follow on from my previous discussion, the potential implications of a food insecure world were recently simulated in a global high-level crisis scenario in the ‘Food Chain Reaction’ event. Sixty-five countries were represented, as they worked through four rounds spanning 2020-2030, depicting escalating food insecurity. Food and climate were by no means the only two factors at play here, however they were considered to exacerbate an already quite volatile setting.

A number of different, and constructive solutions were considered; early warning systems, methods to decrease food wastage, technology exchange, enhanced water management systems and a global carbon tax. One of the apparent positives from the process was that a long term, multilateral approach was preferentially adopted by all those involved, as opposed to attempting to maintain a national, short term advantage.

The full results of this event are expected to be released next month, so hopefully I will have an opportunity to discuss these, and to also see how they correlate to the COP21 discussions.

Despite being, in my opinion, a little over dramatised, I think that the information presented here is incredibly interesting and well worth a watch. The overall message of the video is clear; with an expected need to produce seventy percent more food by the middle of the century, food security is something which needs to given much greater consideration now, if we are to avoid a number of the possible scenarios discussed during this event.