The Food System and Human Security Confronting Hunger and Biological Threats in a Time of Global Cha

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The Food System and Human SecurityConfronting
Hunger and Biological Threats in a Time of Global
Change

• Bryan McDonald
• School of Social Ecology and
• University of California, Irvine

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Changing Security Landscape

• A number of forces are dramatically changing the
  global security landscape.
• Nations and individuals are increasingly
  vulnerable to transnational threats, or threats
  that cross borders but cannot be linked to the
  official policy of another country.

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Changing Security Landscape

• Our world is organized into around 200 sovereign
  states, but many of the urgent security
  challenges we face are transnational in terms of
  both their structure and their impact.

Political Violence
Cyber Threats
Infectious Disease
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Toward Human Security

• Security has far too long been interpreted
  narrowly as security of territory... or as
  protection of national interests... or as global
  security from the threat of nuclear holocaust....
  Forgotten were the legitimate concerns of
  ordinary people who sought security in their
  daily lives.
• - UNDP, 1994

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Human Security

• Human security is a concept that can recover the
  earlier on-the-ground focus of the states
  security practices.
• Human security involves
• Safety from chronic threats such as hunger,
  disease, and repression
• Protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in
  the patterns of daily life.

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Food system links humans to nature, and each other
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Project Overview

• Interrogation of threats confronting the global
  food system
• Consider the way in which the security landscape
  is being reconstructed by
• economic
• technological
• cultural practices

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Project Overview

• Consider evolving relationship between hunger,
  disease, and security using examinations of
  current food security challenges including
• Malnutrition
• Infectious Disease
• Accidental Contamination
• Biological Weapons

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1. Malnutrition
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Malnutrition

• Malnutrition remains a major challenge to human
  wellbeing
• One-quarter of children in developing counties
  are underweight
• 2 billion people receive sufficient calories, but
  inadequate nutrition each day
• Also dealing with challenge of growing number of
  people who are overweight or obese
• Often in same countries where people are
  undernourished

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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1991,
1996, 2004
(BMI ?30, or about 30 lbs overweight for 54
person)
1996
2004
No Data lt10 1014
1519 2024 25
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Malnutrition

• Malnutrition tied to other issues of global
  significance such as water scarcity, lack of
  infrastructure, climate change, and high fuel
  costs
• Approaches like agricultural biotechnology and
  organic farming offer new opportunities, but also
  new challenges

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2. Infectious Disease
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Infectious Disease

• Diseases have had significant impacts throughout
  history
• 1346-1350 - Bubonic plague killed 1/3 of
  Europes population
• 1500-1900 - 93 epidemics of European diseases
  decimated the native population of North America
• 1918 - Avian influenza pandemic sickened 40
  percent of global population, killed 20 million
• Current disease threats amplified by
  interconnections between worlds populations,
  economies, and ecologies.

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Infectious Disease

• The spread of natural infectious diseases have
  many social components how people live, move,
  eat, etc.
• During late 1990s, growing concerns that threats
  from infectious diseases were outstripping
  abilities of medical and public health fields to
  address them
• Concern about possible rapid emergence and spread
  of previously unknown infectious diseases

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From Theory to Reality SARS
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From Theory to Reality SARS

• SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) first
  reported February 2003
• Spread to more than two dozen countries in North
  America, South America, Europe, and Asia
• 8,098 infected, 774 deaths during the 2003
  outbreak

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Infectious Disease

• Recent attention to danger of an influenza
  pandemic and concerns a pandemic could occur if
  avian influenza A (H5N1) shifts into a subtype
  that easily spreads from human to human.
• Even in the absence of impacts on humans,
  infectious diseases can cause tremendous harm.
• Avian influenza A (H591) is one of a series of
  livestock disease outbreaks that have caused
  losses of more than 100 billion over the past
  fifteen years.

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3. Accidental Contamination
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Accidental Contamination

• Threat to human health
• According to the CDC, 1 out of 4 Americans
  develop food borne illnesses each year
• Analog for danger of intentional contamination
  of food system. Examples
• 1985 Salmonella in milk sickens 170,000 in
  U.S.
• 1994 Salmonella in ice cream mix sickens over
  220,000 people in 41 U.S. States

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4. Biological Weapons
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Biological Weapons

• Increased awareness of vulnerability to
  biological weapons in wake of the 1995 Tokyo
  Subway attack, September 2001 attacks, and the
  Anthrax incidents in October 2001.
• Food systems designed to rapidly move goods to
  people and could provide an ideal delivery
  vehicle for biological weapons.
• Controlled conditions provide less variability
  than natural environments.
• In 2003, a meat from a cow suspected of having
  Mad Cow Disease (Bovine Spongiform
  Encephalopathy) was distributed to eight states
  and one US territory before testing completed.
  Meat was recalled.

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Advances in biological technologies could

• Make it easier to develop biological weapons
• Increase difficulty of detecting and monitoring
  BW activities
• Remove many of the technical hurdles preventing
  military uses

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Conclusion
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Hunger, Disease, and Security

• 20th Century food security focused on increasing
  food supply and improving food distribution.
• 21st Century food security is more complex.
  Involves
• Addressing the challenges of malnutrition
• Protecting people from infectious disease threats
  from both natural and nefarious sources.

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Hunger, Disease, and Security

• Facing a number of complex security problems that
  are interactive, and solutions must be as well.
• Goal is to reduce threats from infectious disease
  and biological weapons and support increases in
  health and wellbeing.
• Will require strategic partnerships between
  global health, development, and security
  communities.

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Questions?