Abstract
The United Nations sustainable development goals include eradication of hunger. To feed10 billion persons 2050, we need to get the trade-offs right between sustainability, foodsecurity, food safety, and make better use of food already produced. The hierarchy ofstrategies for reducing food losses and waste are in descending order source reduction,reusing or reprocessing surplus foods, recycle food as feedfor animals, recover theenergy as biofuels, nutrients as compost, or raw materials for industry, while as lastresorts one may consider recovering the energy by incineration or dumping as garbagein landfills. This paper will explore the trade-offs inherent when aiming at triple goals ofsustainability, food security, and safety looking at thesestrategies for reducing food lossesand waste and resource footprints. Intensification of food production and circular foodsystems could be parts of these solutions to future food security. In this regard couldour future trade-offs be informed by the experiences from the use of antimicrobials tointensify food production and from the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy(BSE) in terms of circular food production? There is no trade-off between intensificationof food production aided by antimicrobials and the public health risks from antimicrobialresistance due to the zoo-technical use of antimicrobials.A sustainable future requirescontrol of antimicrobial resistance. If one avoids that cycles of nutrients become cycles ofpathogens and/or hazards, circular food production systems will a major contribution tothe future sustainable food security. Source reduction i.e., limiting food losses and wasteappears to the strategy most promising for achieving sustainability. By using artificialintelligence and intelligent packaging major progress is possible, with the added benefitof better control of food fraud. A changed diet—eating more plant-based foods and noteating animal protein produced by edible feedstuffs, and source reduction of the foodlost or wasted should enable us to feed at least an additionalbillion persons. Solutions tosustainability and food security should integrate food safety considerations from the start.
Highlights
Food safety and security are two complementing elements of our sustainable future
Getting the trade-offs right, between the security, safety, and sustainability of food production, will require careful balancing between multiple concerns and challenges. In this balancing exercise could previous failures inform us—for example antimicrobials used for intensifying animal production, and the failed circular food and feed system based on meat and bone meal (MBM) that caused the mad cow disease epidemic (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE))?
This paper explores and discusses some of the tradeoffs between sustainability, food security and food safety
Summary
Food safety and security are two complementing elements of our sustainable future. This paper will argue that in the long run the aims of food safety and security must be aligned to achieve sustainability, and the trade-offs between these three goals must be managed carefully and based on evidence. Getting the trade-offs right, between the security, safety, and sustainability of food production, will require careful balancing between multiple concerns and challenges. In this balancing exercise could previous failures inform us—for example antimicrobials used for intensifying animal production, and the failed circular food and feed system based on meat and bone meal (MBM) that caused the mad cow disease epidemic (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, BSE)?. The discussion will follow the outline and food recovery hierarchy suggested by the US Environmental Protection Agency (Figure 1), but focus on the most promising options at the top of the hierarchy
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