Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People

The current issue of Science magazine has a special section on Food Security. The introduction to the section, along with a list of the articles, is available here. One of the most interesting articles, "The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People" (Science 12 February 2010: Vol. 327. no. 5967, pp. 812 - 818 DOI: 10.1126/science.1185383) takes an ecological sociology perspective arguing that "the goal is no longer simply to maximize productivity, but to optimize across a far more complex landscape of production, environmental, and social justice outcomes." In other words, the global food security isn't simply a matter of sufficient food, it involves a number of interconnected problems: 1) Matching the rapidly changing demand for food from a larger and more affluent population to its supply, 2) in ways that are environmentally and socially sustainable and 3) ensure that the world’s poorest people are no longer hungry.