The views expressed in this presentation are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views or policies of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI),

the Asian Development Bank (ADB), its Board of Directors, or the governments they represent. ADBI does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper
and accepts no responsibility for any consequences of their use. Terminology used may not necessarily be consistent with ADB official terms.

Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture:

Current Issues and Challenges
Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture Forum
Seoul, South Korea
October 30, 2019

Jay Variyam, Director, Food Economics Division

Economic Research Service, USDA
 Global Food Security Challenges
• Food insecurity
– Access by all people at all times to enough food
for an active, healthy life
• Poor diets and related illnesses
– Obesity, diabetes
• Sustainability of natural resources
– Land, water, minerals, air, forests, seafood

2
 USDA Economic Research Service
• Inform and enhance public and private decision
making on economic and policy issues related to
agriculture, food, the environment, and rural
development
• One of 13 US Federal statistical agencies
• Provide data, statistics and research, including
• US domestic food security, global food security,
and sustainability

3
4
4
5
 Trends in US household food insecurity
(2-year averages 1996-2001, single-year rates 2002-18)
16
14.9
14

Food insecurity (including low and 11.8

12
very low food security)
11.1
11.1
10
Percent of households

5.7
6

Very low food security 4.5

4.3
4
4.1

Source: USDA, Economic Research Service using data from the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement.

6
 FAO’s Food
Insecurity
Experience Scale
(FIES)

The FIES is modeled after

ERS’s U.S. Household Food
Security Survey Module,
which has been tested,
validated, and used annually
since 1995

7
Global Food Insecurity in 2017 Was Highest in Sub Saharan Africa

8
 Per capita income growth anticipated
to improve food security in Asia
Number of food-insecure people, millions Percentage of population that is food-insecure
• Between 2019 and 2029,
350 16
Asia’s food-insecure
300 14 population is projected to
decline from 333.2 million to
12
250 92.6 million, and the share
200
10
that is food insecure is
8 projected to decrease from
150
6
13.9 percent to 3.5 percent.
100
• Much of the projected
4
improvement stems from per
50 2 capita income gains in India
0 0
and Indonesia.
2019 2029 • Yemen and North Korea are
Number food insecure Share food insecure
the region’s most food-
Source: USDA Economic Research Service, International Food Security Assessment, 2019-2029. insecure countries.

9
 Food Security - Sustainability
• What are the resource requirements if diets
move toward recommended healthy diets?
• What are some of the major trade-offs?

Assessing Transition to Healthier American Diets

An integrated modeling project linking
consumption, production, and resource use

10
 Natural resource material and service
case studies
Material or Resource Unit of Key resource Source of case study or
service group measurement cycles model documentation
1. Suitable soils Land Acres Soil nutrient Peters et al., 2014; Peters
and space cycle et al., 2016

2. Freshwater Water Gallons Water cycle Rehkamp & Canning,

2018

3. Fossil fuels Minerals Btu* Nonrenewable Canning et al., 2017

4. Disposal Air CO2-eq** Carbon cycle Hitaj et al., 2019

services
(GHG)

5. Forest Forests Dollars Forest life Canning, 2011; Canning,

products cycle; Carbon Weersink and Kelly, 2016
cycle
* British thermal units. ** Carbon dioxide equivalent.
Source: USDA, Economic Research Service

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Current American diets are resource-
intensive for several key factors
2,264 349 billion 85,927 7,351 22,400 14,416
million acres gallons/day trillion Btu million tons million $’s billion $’s
100.0%
Percent of U.S. total in 2007

28.0%
25.5% 18.1%
8.6%
11.5% 7.2% 8.6%
0.0%
Total land area Fresh water Fossil fuel energy Greenhous gas Forest product use Diet contribution to
(acres) withdrawals (Gal.) use (Btu) emissions (CO2eq) ($'s) GDP

Diet related Diet related Non-diet related Non-diet related

Source: USDA, Economic Research Service (2019)

12
Energy use in the U.S. food system is
on par with Canada’s total energy use

Source: Rehkamp & Canning, 2017

13
 Greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
food system is on par with Japan’s total
Total 2007 greenhouse gas emissions, billion tons CO2eq
8.00

7.00

6.00

5.00

4.00

3.00

2.00

1.00

0.00
China* United U.S. Non- Russia India** Japan U.S. Food Germany Brazil Canada United Mexico
States Food System Kingdom
System
* China statistics from 2005. ** India statistics from India Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Government of India.

Data sources: Hitaj, et al., 2019;

OECD.Stat; Govt. of India

14
Water use in the U.S. food system is on
par with Indonesia’s total water use

Data sources: Rehkamp & Canning, 2018;

Gleick et al., 2014

15
How do we measure resource use
in the food system?

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Food-Environment Data System (FEDS)
• Environmental input-output
(EIO) model
– All transactions throughout the
U.S. economy (344 sectors)
– Direct and indirect resource use
• Monetary or environmental
flows
– U.S. dollars, fossil fuels,
greenhouse gas emissions,
freshwater, land, labor
Image sources: Gettyimages; USDA

17
 Unique attributes of FEDS
• Methodology adopted by the
United Nations Statistical
Commission
– Adaptable to other countries
• Focus on U.S. food system
• Additionally…

Image source: USDA

18
Data built from county-level

Source: University of Nebraska, 2018

19
Life-cycle analysis covering each food
system stage

Image design: Lori Fields, USDA-ERS

20
If Americans begin to eat healthier,
how will they transition and what
will these diets look like?

21
 Model-derived diet scenarios
Diet name
Realistic Healthy Omnivore
Realistic Healthy Vegetarian
Efficient Healthy Omnivore
Efficient Healthy Vegetarian
Diet description
Represents the least change from current American
diets while meeting the Dietary Guidelines;
this diet is most representative of Americans
currently following the Guidelines
Represents the least change from current American
diets while meeting the Dietary Guidelines, but
eliminating meat, poultry, and seafood
Identifies the potential for resource conservation
while still meeting the Dietary Guidelines
Identifies the potential for resource conservation
while still meeting the Dietary Guidelines, but
eliminating meat, poultry, and seafood
22
• How do resource requirements change if
American’s attain the healthy diet scenario?
– How does food consumption change?
– How do resource requirements changes?

23
 Daily per capita calories by food group:
Baseline and Realistic Healthy Omnivore diets
Sugars, sweets, and beverages 315
103

Fats, oils, and salad dressings 49

3

Vegetables 151
312

Fruits 94
189

Grain products 724

660

Legumes, nuts, and seeds 67

183

Eggs and egg products 42

51

Meat, poultry, fish, and mixtures 391

298

Milk and milk products 235

382
Daily per capita Calories

Baseline Healthy American

Source: USDA, Economic Research Service

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Healthy diet scenarios reduce energy
use relative to Baseline Diet

Data Source: Canning et al., 2017 with author updates

25
Diet-related water use for the Baseline
and healthy diet scenarios

Source: Rehkamp & Canning, 2018

26
Nutrition and resource conservation
goals can be (mostly) synergistic
20% Change from Baseline to Healthy Omnivore Diet
(77.8 bil.
gal/day)
Percentage change (baseline value)

10%
16%

(1.3 bil.
(577 mil. (6.4 tons ($1.5
acres) qBtu) CO2eq) bil.)
0%
-3% -3% 0%

-9%

-10%
Productive Annual fresh Annual fossil Annual GHG Annual forrest
agricultural land water with- fuel energy use emissions product use
(acres) drawals (Gal.) (Btu) (CO2eq) ($'s)

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 Summary
• Per capita income gains have a demonstrated
impact on food security and the transformation of
agri-food value chains
– Projected food security gains in Asia in the next decade
stem from expected per-capita income gains in the region
– Per-capita income gains are also behind a rapid agri-food
value chain transformation in today’s low and middle
income countries (LMIC’s), which has lead to a rapid
increase post-farmgate food marketing (processing,
retailing, foodservices)
– These trends portend possible food security-sustainability
tradeoffs (see below)

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 Summary
• Substantial resource requirements occur beyond the
farmgate
– Agriculture accounts for less than half of total resource use
among fossil fuels, GHG emissions, and forestry products; the
majority of these resource requirements are in supply-chain
stages further downstream
– The rapid agri-food value chain transformation in today’s
LMIC’s has the potential of driving up global resource use
• A shift to healthier U.S. diets would decrease uses of
some resources but increase others
– Use of productive agricultural land, fossil fuels, and forest
products would decrease, while freshwater withdrawals would
increase
– possible human nutrition-sustainability tradeoffs

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 Thank you
Jay Variyam
Director, Food Economics Division
Economic Research Service, USDA
Jayachandran.variyam@usda.gov

30
 References and image credits
• Slide 11: Canning, P., S. Rehkamp, C. Hitaj, and C. Peters. (2019). “Resource Requirements of Food Demand in the United
States” USDA/ERS EIB (forthcoming).
• Slide 12: Canning, P., S. Rehkamp, C. Hitaj, and C. Peters. (2019). “Resource Requirements of Food Demand in the United
States” USDA/ERS EIB (forthcoming).
• Slide 13: Rehkamp, S. and P. Canning. 2017. The Potential for Healthier and Energy Efficient American Diets. Choices. Quarter
3. Available at: http://www.choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazine/submitted-articles/the-potential-for-healthier-and-
energy-efficient-american-diets
• Slide 14: Compiled from OECD.Stat (https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=AIR_GHG); Hitaj, C., S. Rehkamp, P.
Canning, C. Peters. 2019. “Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the US Food System: Current and Healthy Diet Scenarios”
Environmental Science and Technology, 53(9); and Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment.. 2010. India: Greenhouse
Gas Emissions 2007, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India (May).
• Slide 15: Rehkamp, S. and Canning, P. 2018. Measuring Embodied Blue Water in American Diets: An EIO Supply Chain
Approach. Ecological Economics. 147: 179-188. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.12.028; Gleick et al. 2014. The World’s Water:
The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Volume 8, Table 2. Available at: http://worldwater.org/water-data/
• Slide 17: Image Credits: GettyImages; USDA flickr by Bob Nichols (20120717-OSEC-RBN-8475)
• Slide 18: Image Credits: USDA flickr by Lance Cheung (20130920-OC-LSC-1235 and 20111031-FNS-LSC-0131) and no
photographer (20120106-OC-AMW-0070)
• Slide 19: University of Nebraska. 2018. Location of Irrigation Wells in Nebraska. Location of Irrigation Wells in 2007. Available
at: https://water.unl.edu/cropswater/newellsmap
• Slide 20: Image design: Lori Fields, USDA-ERS

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 References and image credits
• Slide 24: Canning, P., S. Rehkamp, C. Hitaj, and C. Peters. (2019). “Resource Requirements of Food Demand in the United
States” USDA/ERS EIB (forthcoming).
• Slide 25: Canning et al. 2017. The Role of Fossil Fuels in the U.S. Food System and the American Diet, ERR-224, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service (with author updates).
• Slide 26: Rehkamp, S. and Canning, P. 2018. Measuring Embodied Blue Water in American Diets: An EIO Supply Chain
Approach. Ecological Economics. 147: 179-188. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.12.028
• Slide 26: Canning, P., S. Rehkamp, C. Hitaj, and C. Peters. (2019). “Resource Requirements of Food Demand in the United
States” USDA/ERS EIB (preliminary).
• Slide 27: Canning, P., S. Rehkamp, C. Hitaj, and C. Peters. (2019). “Resource Requirements of Food Demand in the United
States” USDA/ERS EIB (forthcoming).

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