Maximising nutritional benefits within the energy, water and food nexus

Abstract

Many countries are exposed to malnutrition within their population, either in the form of undernutrition or obesity leading to dire affects for human health. As a consequence, a ‘Decade of Action’ was certified by the UN in 2016 to promote the need to end all types of malnutrition. Within food security objectives, this study evaluates the possibility to maximise the nutritional value of agricultural output through the optimal allocation of water and energy resources. Using a hypothetical case study in Qatar, two complementary multi-objective mathematical models are developed to solve various scenarios. Firstly, the goal programming minimises the expected value of negative deviation from the desired target in food groups and nutrients. Secondly, the linear programming model increases the expected value of self-sufficiency percentage in food groups and nutrients. The results indicate the specific dependency of increasing the self-sufficiency of different nutrients on the increased production of dates group and fish group, implying that dates and fish can be considered strategic crops in terms of their contribution towards food security, owing to the fact that they require the least quantity of water and energy resources for production. As poultry and meat groups require the largest quantities of water and energy resources, optimal results do not favour their production. The optimal production mix that increases the satisfaction of nutrients at 40% of the food groups self-sufficiency satisfaction with the same amount of energy and water are as follows: 52378, 47085, 111303 tonnes of dates, milk and dairy products and fish groups respectively. This production mix will achieve 29.18%, 100%, 90.8%, and 2.5% satisfaction percentage of carbohydrates, protein, fats, and fibres respectively.