**8. References**

Aghion, P.& Howitt, P.W. (1998). Endogenous Growth Theory. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London.

**1. Introduction** 

**2. Food security** 

mostly in rich nations, have become obese.

**13** 

*USA* 

Richard E. White *Smith College* 

**Fossil Fuel and Food Security** 

The ongoing growth of global population, projected at about 9 billion by mid-century, has prompted increasing attention to the challenge of adequate nutrition. Food production outpaced population growth during the late 20th century, owing to increases in land devoted to food production, large increases in fertilizer use and irrigation, and notably the introduction of high yielding strains of major grain crops. Even so, roughly 1 billion people, primarily in developing countries, remain undernourished, while comparable numbers,

Fossil fuels play critical roles in the contemporary global food system, yet potential limitations in fossil fuel supplies receive scant attention in current discussions of food security. This chapter reviews elements of food security that depend on fossil fuels, highlights the potential instability of fossil fuel supplies, and considers the corresponding impact on food security over the coming decades as the human population increases.

The narrative proceeds as follows. Many authorities acknowledge food security as a global challenge for the coming decades (Section 2). These narratives highlight the enormous success of the Green Revolution in expanding food supplies in the late 20th century, but underplay the reliance of this success on the widespread availabilty of inexpensive fossil fuels (Section 3). Climate change, which is driven primarily by fossil fuel burning and by deforestation to expand agricultural lands, increases the food security challenge (Section 4). Finite supplies and increasingly difficult access to fossil fuel resources already have impacted fuel and food prices; their impact is virtually certain to grow in the coming four decades that form the primary focus of food security discussions (Section 5). Sustainable agricultural methods, particularly including reduced dependence on fossil fuels, are essential to meet growing human nutritional needs in a stable way, and sustainability in the food system also requires attention to other dimensions of food security (Section 6). Increasing fossil fuel costs will prompt evolutionary changes in the movement of food from farm to fork in different parts of the world (Section 7). Addressing the food security challenge in the face of fossil fuel scarcity is a critical element in the transition to a

sustainable human economy based on renewable energy resources (Section 8).

security that was formulated at the 1996 World Food Summit (FAO, 2008):

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provides a definition of food

