For the past several years, a main focus of the Global Food Safety Conference has been food security: As a group of professionals focused on providing the world’s food supply, how are we to meet the growing need to feed the world’s ever-increasing population? Can it be done safely and sustainably? It is with these concerns in mind that Food Safety Magazine (FSM) sought to question several experts in the food safety and food security arenas to build awareness of the challenges ahead in solving this critical problem: How do we do more with fewer resources?
FSM asked Bruce M. Chassy, Ph.D., professor emeritus, food science and human nutrition, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to enlist an expert panel for this discussion. From the food safety arena are Richard E. Goodman, Ph.D., research professor, food science and technology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Alison Van Eenennaam, Ph.D., Cooperative Extension specialist, animal genomics and biotechnology, University of California, Davis; and Wayne Parrott, Ph.D., department of crop & soil sciences at the University of Georgia. The food security experts include David Zilberman, Ph.D., professor and Robinson chair, department of agricultural and resource economics, University of California, Berkeley; Ronald J. Herring, Ph.D., professor of government and international professor of agriculture and rural development, Cornell University; and Clare Thorp, Ph.D., managing director at the Biotechnology Industries Organization.
FSM: Describe the cost and impacts of food insecurity in the world today.
Zilberman: There are between 1 and 2 billion people who are not reaching their human potential because of lack of access to food. Besides problems of blindness because of lack of vitamin A, stunting and wasting, hundreds of millions are suffering from nutritional deficiencies that affect their mental as well as physical development, and many more suffer from key nutrient deficiencies and at the same time are obese.
FSM: Can society bear the costs of solving food insecurity? Can it afford not to solve the problem and will it be at the sacrifice of food safety?