Record Details

Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security

CGSpace

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security
 
Creator Khoury, Colin K.
Bjorkman, Anne D.
Dempewolf, Hannes
Ramírez Villegas, Julián
Guarino, Luigi
Jarvis, Andy
Rieseberg, Loren H.
Struik, Paul C.
 
Subject data analysis
crops
diversidad genética como recurso
análisis de datos
cultivos
genetic diversity as resource
 
Description CIAT- Outstanding Research Publication Award (ORPA) - 2014
The narrowing of diversity in crop species contributing to the world’s food supplies has been considered a potential threat to food security. However, changes in this diversity have not been quantified globally. We assess trends over the past 50 y in the richness, abundance, and composition of crop species in national food supplies worldwide. Over this period, national per capita food supplies expanded in total quantities of food calories, protein, fat, and weight, with increased proportions of those quantities sourcing from energy-dense foods. At the same time the number of measured crop commodities contributing to national food supplies increased, the relative contribution of these commodities within these supplies became more even, and the dominance of the most significant commodities decreased. As a consequence, national food supplies worldwide became more similar in composition, correlated particularly with an increased supply of a number of globally important cereal and oil crops, and a decline of other cereal, oil, and starchy root species. The increase in homogeneity worldwide portends the establishment of a global standard food supply, which is relatively species-rich in regard to measured crops at the national level, but species-poor globally. These changes in food supplies heighten interdependence among countries in regard to availability and access to these food sources and the genetic resources supporting their production, and give further urgency to nutrition development priorities aimed at bolstering food security.
 
Date 2014-03-18
2014-09-09T18:50:47Z
2014-09-09T18:50:47Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Khoury CK, Bjorkman AD, Dempewolf H, Ramírez Villegas J, Guarino L, Jarvis A, Rieseberg LH, Struik PC. 2014. Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 6 p.
0027-8424
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/42297
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1313490111
https://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HYOWIC
 
Language en
 
Rights Open Access
 
Format 6 p.
 
Publisher Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
 
Source Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America