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Linkages between sustainable consumption and sustainable production: some suggestions for foresight work

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Abstract

The authors investigate how consumption and production of agricultural products have developed in the past and could possibly evolve in the future. The main focus is on changing consumption patterns and the consequences for food security and for the pressure on natural resources. In this context, the question is raised as to how foresight work can reflect the mechanisms by which a transition towards more sustainable consumption can influence the sustainability of the production systems. The authors first analyze the main drivers of the past and future evolution of food systems and then the implications for foresight analysis. An attempt is made to identify specific issues and policies that should be further analyzed. In particular, future foresight will be challenged to incorporate the interactions between consumption and production more explicitly and to address four issues: (i) intra-national heterogeneity of diets and resulting nutritional outcomes, (ii) externalities resulting from the process of production, processing, and marketing along the product chain, (iii) competition between food and non-food uses of agricultural commodities and between agricultural and non-agricultural use of land and (iv) mechanisms by which food scarcity causes hunger and malnutrition.

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Notes

  1. Norwegian Ministry of the Environment (1994).

  2. Whereas agricultural production tripled from 1961 to 2010, land under cultivation increased by only 12 % (Fuglie and Nin-Pratt 2012).

  3. See Alexandratos and Bruinsma 2012.

  4. Note however that healthier diets are not systematically associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions (Vieux et al. 2013).

  5. The following section draws directly on an assessment of foresight work in food and agriculture presented by a group of authors at GCARD and summarized in Hubert et al. (2010).

  6. Msangi and Rosegrant (2012) analyzed the impacts of a 50 % reduction in per capita meat consumption in high income countries as well as in China and Brazil.

  7. For additional elements, refer to Combris et al. 2013.

  8. FAO, WFP and IFAD (2012); WHO (http://www.who.int/childgrowth/4_double_burden.pdf).

  9. The mentioned general rise in calorie intake with rising incomes may not hold for every country. Thus, Deaton and Drèze (2009) showed that in India over the last 25 years consumption of calories per capita has decreased in all groups of the population, including the poorest. The latter leaves open questions for research because the poorest do suffer from a calorie deficit.

  10. This analysis is mostly taken from Soler et al. 2013.

  11. We only describe here the main trends. The example of PDO (Protected Denomination of Origin) products, however, shows that other paths have been followed and have produced a different response. In the case of wines, for instance, consumers adjust very well to a marked variability over time in finished products and most of the differentiation comes from the agricultural product (at least in European wine production).

  12. The issue of food safety is particularly relevant in emerging countries as exemplified by various scandals associated with food safety in China. This might accentuate the demand of consumers for products sold in supermarkets to the detriment of small processors and traditional markets.

  13. For a discussion in the context of Africa see Garrity et al. (2012).

  14. For the methodology of scenario building see de Jouvenel 2000.

  15. An important difference in the approach is between economists who use economic equilibrium models whereas natural scientists usually do not. In the first case, markets play a role in the long term equilibrium. Integrating markets in the analysis provides some ‘consistency’ and allows evaluating the price implications of the analysis. When markets are not modelled the analysis informs about the consequences of exogenous assumptions but the analysis around how to reach this future is somewhat left out.

  16. http://www.egfar.org/our-work/shaping-future-together/global-foresight-hub

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Hartwig de Haen

  2. Department of Agricultural Economics, INRA, Toulouse School of Economics, Toulouse, France

    Vincent Réquillart

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  1. Hartwig de Haen
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  2. Vincent Réquillart
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Correspondence to Hartwig de Haen.

Additional information

This paper was first presented as part of the so-called Global Foresight Hub at GCARD 2012 in Punta del Este (Uruguay) and is partly based on a project developed by INRA and CIRAD in 2011–2012 (Esnouf et al. 2013). We thank participants of the GCARD meeting for their remarks, two anonymous referees as well as Robin Bourgeois for his very helpful comments.

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de Haen, H., Réquillart, V. Linkages between sustainable consumption and sustainable production: some suggestions for foresight work. Food Sec. 6, 87–100 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-013-0323-3

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