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individuals whose food preferencesare not met in the latter case be con-sidered food insecure? Further, shouldagricultural landscapes that cur-rently support much biodiversity bedegraded to ensure those preferencesare met in the name of food security?

Statistics are often cited suggestingthe world must increase food supplyby 100–110% by 2050 (Tilman et al.2011). Global analyses assess thecapacity to meet this demand, forinstance by closing agricultural yieldgaps (the gap in yield between whatis, and what could be, produced froma parcel of land; Foley et al. 2011).We know little about how closingyield gaps will affect biodiversity,nor, critically, how the consequencesfor biodiversity would differ if thegoals were:(1) Supplying enough food only for

the world’s hungry, and inregions where it can be accessedby those facing food shortages, asopposed to:

(2) Supplying food at the aggregatelevel to meet all demand,encompassing both the needs ofthe poor and the preferences ofthe rich.

The conflation of needs andwants in sustainableintensification How can humanity provide enoughfood for a growing population whileminimizing threats to biodiversity?One concept championed to pro-duce a “win–win” for food produc-tion and biodiversity is “sustainableintensification”. Loos et al. (FrontEcol Environ 2014; 12[6]: 356–61)challenged sustainable intensifica-tion, pleading for greater conceptualbreadth such that the notion encap-sulates all pillars of sustainability,rather than just (and questionably)environmental sustainability.

Loos and colleagues touched brieflyon a point that has been overlookedin much of the scholarly literature:that achieving food security shouldrelate to satisfying the food needs ofpeople who currently face food short-ages (Figure 1), rather than the wantsof increasingly affluent populationsand associated dietary shifts fromvegetable to animal protein. Thesetwo issues are frequently blurredthroughout the literature, whichspeaks in general terms about howmuch food will be required to meetfuture demand. This conflation putson equal terms the moral imperativeto feed the world’s hungry and thedietary preferences of the world’scurrent-and-future rich.

At the heart of this issue is thevery definition of food security,which is met “when all people, at alltimes, have physical and economicaccess to sufficient safe and nutri-tious food to meet their dietary needsand food preferences for a healthyand active life” (FAO 1996). Thisdefinition arose at the 1996 WorldFood Summit, replacing the previousdefinition of “access by all people toenough food to live a healthy andproductive life” (see Pinstrup-Andersen 2009). An important dis-tinction must be made between cul-turally based food preferences anddietary shifts resulting from increasesin affluence. The question is, should

Analyses that evaluate differentapproaches to increasing food pro-duction, such as land sharing versusland sparing (Phalan et al. 2011),focus on the comparative effects onbiodiversity (ie which approach hasthe least negative effects on biodi-versity?) rather than the absoluteeffects (ie what is the reduction inspecies richness or density of aspecies regionally?). Instead of focus-ing solely on how we should satisfydemand for food, there needs to bemore science on the outcomes forglobal and regional biodiversity ofincreasing food production, whichcan help assess whether all prefer-ences for food should be inevitablysatisfied. Satisfying the food wants ofpeople demands additional discus-sion, particularly as wants thatreflect cultural desires may indeedrepresent a valid objective; however,food wants based on affluence-related dietary desires may be neitherappropriate nor reasonable.

Feeding the hungry is such anobvious moral imperative that fewwould argue against tackling globalhunger in the most sustainable man-ner possible. By contrast, a more

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Figure 1. Workers cultivating rice in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Bangladesh is among the poorestcountries in the world, and legitimate issues of food security due to food shortages persist.

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ardent debate should take placeabout the need to expose ecosystemsto further modification to meet foodpreferences of people who are at norisk of malnourishment. The fusionof these two distinct issues can pro-pel environmental degradation onmisleading grounds under the twinguises of “food security” and “sustain-able intensification”.Dale G Nimmo

Centre for Integrative Ecology, Schoolof Life and Environmental Science,Deakin University, Melbourne,Australia (dale@deakin.edu.au)

FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organi-zation). 1996. World Food Summit:Rome declaration on world food secu-rity and world food summit plan ofaction. Rome, Italy: FAO.

Foley JA, Ramankutty N, Brauman KA, etal. 2011. Solutions for a cultivatedplanet. Nature 478: 337–42.

Phalan B, Onial M, Balmford A, andGreen RE. 2011. Reconciling food pro-duction and biodiversity conservation:land sharing and land sparing com-pared. Science 333: 1289–91.

Pinstrup-Andersen P. 2009. Food security:definition and measurement. Food Sec1: 5–7.

Tilman D, Balzer C, Hill J, and Befort BL.2011. Global food demand and the sus-tainable intensification of agriculture.P Natl Acad Sci USA 108: 20260–64.

doi:10.1890/14.WB.013

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