ALICOM 99/18




Conference on International Food Trade
Beyond 2000: Science-Based Decisions, Harmonization, Equivalence
and Mutual Recognition
Melbourne, Australia, 11-15 October 1999

Prospects for the Future:
Nutrition, Environment and Sustainable Food Production

by

Prof. M. Wahlqvist, Director, International Health and Development Unit and Asia Pacific Health and Nutrition Centre, Monash University

Table of Contents

I. Evidence Based Nutrition and Ecoscience

1. In policy making, project planning and health sciences, there are now strong moves to make decisions and recommendations more robust by marshalling evidence about the complex systems involved. Following on from the implementation of such decisions, monitoring and evaluation with revision of strategies is still required. The kinds of evidence relevant for the broad field of nutrition and eco-science include familiar analytic, observational, experimental and deductive methods of science, with hypothesis formulation and testing. However, with the levels of complexity involved, predictive models, where contributors to the model are well-defined, with various interventions, accompanied by outcome measures, are more likely to be used1.

2. Final decisions about how intrusive of the environment food production for humans can be, will rest on the limits of such evidence and future predictions, and take account of ethical, socio-cultural, economic and political matters28,45.

II. Role of the International Community

3. Through international agencies, like the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO) and World Trade Organization (WTO), it is possible to adduce evidence, make recommendations and set benchmarks in food production for practices which will encourage food security, food of which food safety is part, in the short and long term, which means sustainability. National and local governments have a role to reflect these benchmarks in policy and in regulatory frameworks.

4. Of increasing importance, as the revenue base of governments diminishes, are the roles of the corporate sector and non-government organizations (NGOs) in creating the milieu for sustainability. Local communities, the old and new villages, allow realistic approaches to sustainability to develop.

5. Alliances between the various constituencies of the international community are required to match ecosystem needs. At the same time, a sense of individual identification with an ecological niche will facilitate sustainability - and part of this identification will come from a knowledge of the origins of food. Edward Wilson developed the concept of "biophilia" for a deep biological need for affiliating with life and nature. He identified several values of nature that have to do with human development24 (Table 1).

Table 1.

Value

Definition

Function

Utilitarian

Practical and material exploitation of nature

Physical sustenance/security

Naturalistic

Direct experience and exploration of nature

Curiosity, discovery, recreation

Ecologistic-Scientific

Systematic study of structure, function and relationship in nature

Knowledge, understanding, observational skills

Aesthetic

Physical appearance and beauty of nature

Inspiration, harmony, security

Symbolic

Use of nature for language and thought

Communication, mental development

Dominionistic

Mastery, physical control, dominance of nature

Mechanical skills, physical prowess, ability to subdue

Humanistic

Strong emotional attachment and "love" for aspects of nature

Bonding, sharing, cooperation, companionship

Moralistic

Spiritual reverence and ethical concern for nature

Order, meaning, kinship, altruism

Negativistic

Fear, aversion, alienation

Security, protection, safety, awe from nature

III. Food Variety and Human Health

6. The most internationally agreed upon dietary guidelines specify the promotion of breast feeding and the enjoyment of food variety. At the beginning of extra-uterine existence we can depend on one food alone, from one's mother, ideally eating a variety of foods herself, and, thereafter, we explore a widening array of foods, if they are available, and achieve food variety.

7. Simple ways of expressing food variety mathematically (number of biologically distinct foods eaten over a nominated time frame) are now current 18,19,22,23,35,47. Greater food variety in the human diet predicts capacity for survival and reduced morbidity across ethnic groups21,48. More socially active people are more likely to achieve food variety20.

8. The combination of social activity, physical activity and food variety is the most likely lifestyle profile to optimize health, reflected in longevity and healthy ageing49. It is an approach which is also likely to reduce substance abuse. But it is predicated on biodiversity for food variety and environments in which it is a pleasure to be active, both socially and physical.

IV. Biodiversity and Human Health

9. There are several ways in which biodiversity confers health28,50:

  1. A varied food supply is essential to maintain the health of the omnivorous human species.
  2. A range of diverse food sources is necessary to safe-guard against climatic and pestilent disasters which may affect one or more of the food sources.
  3. A diversity of plants and animals may provide a rich source of medicinal material, essential for the extraction of undiscovered therapeutic compounds.
  4. Intact ecosystems of indigenous plants and animals appear to act as a buffer to the spread of invasive plants and animals, and of pathogens and toxins, thus contributing to the health of populations nearby.
  5. The `spiritual' values of exploring the diversity of plants, animals and ecosystems in an area appear to have a beneficial effect on mental health, strengthening the feeling of `belonging to the landscape'.

10. Seasons and the added diversity they bring also appear to confer vigour. Even where seasons have been regarded as simply `dry' and `wet', as in the tropics, the reality is great change through the solar and lunar years15,24.

V. Food Variety and Biodiversity

11. Food variety is indeed contingent on biodiversity.

12. It is a moot point whether key genetic material for human health can be located in a narrower range of organisms, equivalent to the more biodiverse biomass.

13. One factor determining the required biodiversity, from a food variety point of view, is obviously the extent of required food variety. Available evidence indicates that, with a week as a time frame, at least 20, and probably as many as 30 biologically distinct types of food, with the emphasis on plant food, are required35,47.

14. One of the more intriguing interfaces between biodiversity and food variety is human resistance to infections such as malaria, a parasite that crossed into the human species near its evolution 200 000 years ago, according to the mitochondrial genetic homology studies of Sangkot Marzuki at the Eijkman Institute in Jakarta. A number of genetic changes in red cell metabolism have featured in populations exposed to malaria, notably sickle cell anaemia and various haemoglobinopathies. Glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency limits use of a plant food, broad beans, and is known as favism, but partially protects against malaria. Here a food restriction is required for survival prospects.

VI. Eco-nutrition Case Studies of Basic Food Commodities
or Ingredients

15. Some examples of how the food supply may not meet nutritional expectations on account of environmental restraint may be helpful in constructing recommendations about nutritional health and sustainability.

  1. Water
    One of the most limiting factors in food production and in human habitation is an adequate and safe water supply. In the past, reticulation and separation of water from human and animal waste have played a huge role in human health. Now, whole waterways like the Murray-Darling, the most important river system in Australia, are being damaged by salination, excess fertilizer and pesticide residue run-offs, with algal bloom and their toxins producing unsafe water for stock and human46. Adequate water flow is also being compromised by excessive irrigation. In China, 60 million people cannot get enough water for their daily needs14, and , in 1996, 50000 people were affected by water-pollution-related disease14. It would appear that China has fewer water reserves for agricultural and industrial expansion than previously thought and that this will restrict China's ability to feed its own population, with considerable consequences for global food security. Thus, water availability and safety is a measure of environmental integrity and of sustainability of the food supply.
  2. Fish
    There is growing evidence that a regular intake of fish, principally, but not only, as a source of long chain omega 3 fatty acids is protective against a number of health problems and diseases7,9,10,11,27,40,41,52. These include cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and mood disturbance. At the same time, world fish stocks are in decline through overfishing and pollution of water ways (www.fao.org). A partial solution may be found in aquaculture . However, aquaculture can itself, through the feeding methods used, significantly damage ecosystems with actual losses of fish stocks. Again, the nutritional value and safety of fish produced depends on what they have been fed, and omega-3 fatty acid levels may be extremely low (fish can chain elongate and desaturate omega-3 fatty acid obtained from lower down the food chain, but not form these fatty acids de novo). It may yet be possible to develop more sustainable ecosystems for aquaculture with, for example, the introduction of genetically modified fish feeds containing omega-3 fatty acids.
  3. Meat
    Food obtained higher up the food chain, like meat and dairy products requires a higher overall biomass for its production. But, when it is low in fat, it has high nutrient density (nutrients per unit of energy), a measure of nutritional quality. Thus, such foods can add significantly to the nutritional safety of a cuisine, and do so in small quantities. One reasonable deduction would be that small quantities of meat for most of the world's population would be more environmentally sustainable than the large quantities presently consumed by a few affluent nations. It will be difficult, ultimately, to escape these questions of nutritional equity in relation to sustainability of the food supply.
  4. Soy
    Another way to approach some of the nutritional needs met by fish and meat, insofar as omega-3 fatty acids and high quality protein are concerned, is to consume certain plant foods like soy (and in the case of omega-3 fatty acid linseed, purslane and certain sea plants). Soy also has other health protective properties, because of its exceptional phytochemical profile of isoflavones like daidzien and genistein. This may account for its apparent cardioprotective and cancer-protective role in Chinese, Indonesian and Japanese populations51.

    Combining nutritious plant-derived foods with small quantities of fish (as little as 1 or 2 servings a week) and meat is nutritionally and environmentally attractive. The question is then how to produce and fill the growing need for plant foods like soy. GMF (genetically modified food) could be helpful here, since greater yields can be obtained where soy, for example is pest or pesticide resistant. For such approaches to be environmentally successful, the monocultures will need to be not so extensive as to reduce overall biodiversity. This is a matter of environmental governance and requires the agreement of a number of parties and organizations, locally, nationally and internationally.
  5. Fruit
    Fruit has an increasingly well substantiated place in human health based not only on its provision of the macronutrients, water and carbohydrate (glycaemic and non-glycaemic), and micronutrients (vitamins and elements), but also protective phytochemicals of which polyphenolic flavonoids, anthocyanins and a wide range of carotenoids are characteristic. Fruits and vegetables are consistently protective against cardiovascular26,36,37 and neoplastic disease22,23,55. They also contribute to much of the potential variety in the human diet. Curiously, men more than women have difficulty in eating adequate quantities of fruit, but, if they did, global fruit consumption and production would rise markedly32. Fruit is a convenient food, which has its own "packaging", as a skin, keeps usually for days, or even weeks, and can be preserved in many different ways.
    The environmental advantages of fruit are that the trees that produce it provide canopy with atmosphere improvement, add to biodiversity, and that it can often be grown locally and eaten without transport or packaging.

    The problems in fruit production come with the demands for pesticides, although FAO now has "Integrated Pesticide Management" strategies (www.fao.org) to help minimise residue contamination. As with other horticultural products, safety in fruit produced for human consumption applies through the whole chain, from orchard to mouth. Recent outbreaks of salmonellosis and rotavirus infection in Australia with fruit juice consumption attest to this.
  6. Rice
    Rice is one of the world's oldest crops and staples having probably first grown in Henudu in about 5500 B.C.53 Higher yielding rice was the hallmark of the "Green Revolution" of the 1970s28,45, controversial for what its net impact on the environment has been, and per caput, given the numbers of people now fed.

    Improvements in nutritional quality of rice, notably protein, were also made at a time when protein nutrition in its own right was a focus of nutrition research.

    It could be argued that improvements in rice production and quality were spurred by the food-health concepts of the day, located around staples (and monocultures) and selected nutrients. Today we have a bigger picture and a variety of cereals, amongst an even greater variety of foods, is seen to be more scientifically desirable, as long as it is culturally acceptable and implementable.

    Moreover, we now know that rice yields have begun to fall with greater pesticide usage (www.fao.org).

    More attention could be given to growing rice whose environmental impact is least, by international agreement and with trade benefits. For example, more with natural rainfall and less where water supply is marginal.
  7. Herbs and spices

    Herbs and spices have been a major feature of world food trade since its beginnings. Ten percent of the value of food imports into Australia are herbs and spices. They have, for herbs especially, been accorded a place in the health promoting properties of food and, for spices, regarded principally for their flavour enhancement of food and the pleasure so-derived. But, for both, the new wave of food phytochemical science and the explanation of health effects of these food components is giving renewed importance to them in the human diet (Ref. Book on herbs and spices chemistry)8,12,13. Many phytochemcials are multifunction compounds covering biological attributes like being anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, immuno-modulatory, anti-mutagenic, anti-angiogenic, anti-neoplastic, oestrogenic, anti-oestrogenic, hypolipidaemic, carminative, laxative, analgesic and mood-altering38,39,51.

    In the past, the spice trade has stimulated local cash economies, sometimes with environmental detriment, and adverse colonial arrangements. However, since small quantities of a range of herbs and spices have commercial value and health benefit, it is possible to grow them in a way that supports biodiversity. For example, they may be grown amongst other crops or by subsistence agriculturalists, or in greenhouse conditions.
    Another potential benefit of these crops is that they have the potential to restore contaminated environments. This is because they respond to environmental stressors by producing many of the compounds that characterize them38,39.

    The microbiological safety of herb and spices is more guaranteed where they are treated by irradiation. This has been a prototype for the introduction of this technology into a major area of world food trade.

    The production, trade and consumption of herbs and spices can be expected to grow in response to food cultural diversification and perceived health need. It can do so with environmental benefit.

VII. Food Production Practice

16. It will be evident from the consideration of water and food supply relationships and from the growing appreciation of the range of foods required to optimize health that they must be produced together as far as possible. Methods for successfully doing this are being described as permaculture30,31 and eco-agriculture6.

17. The Australian wine industry has profited in this way following the initial work at Botobolar vineyard in Mudgee, New South Wales with ecological control through and inter-vine cultivation of other plants with their insect population and birds that feed on them44.

18. Post-harvest waste is a major environmental threat because it puts unnecessary strain on food production. It occurs through mishandling and poor management, holding facilities not secure against pests and rodents, unsatisfactory climate control with spoilage and moulds, and inappropriate preservation techniques, and limited transport from site of harvest to food processor. In South-East Asia, as much as 30% of fish harvested is lost to human consumption in this way, and some of the remainder which is eaten is unsafe1.

19. Many areas where food has been produced in the past are now desolate because of desertification, salivation or pollution by accumulated heavy metals from fertilizers (eg. cadmium) or pesticide residues. Prevention of these problems would have been preferred, chief amongst them would have been retention of environmentally intact locales and of trees. But methods of eco-restoration are becoming available. Their support by nutrition and health scientists with a long-term view of their own role in health is crucial. Nutritious food in the short term, at any long-term cost, is not sustainable. Fortunately biodiversity, food variety and health intersect favourably.

VIII. Role of Trade in Health Advancement through Food

20. Various nutrition policies have placed emphasis on local food production for food security and health34. The rationale for this is that, in times of food trade difficulty, there continues to be a local food supply; that knowledge about food and skill in its production are not lost; that local food culture, with its beliefs, habits and checks and balances on intake continues to play a role, even in the evolution towards a more contemporary food culture. Hopefully, food cultural change can be informed by science, health and environmental considerations.

21. Such emphasis on local foods and cuisine is not exclusive of food trade, which, in any case, can be complementary to the local food supply. And, even though humans have migrated far from their original roots, in or around the Rift Valley in Africa, to successfully occupy various environmental niches, many communities and nations are now dependent, to a lesser or greater extent, for their food security on trade. This is especially so where local population size has outstripped local food production capacity and/or water supply, sometimes because food imports have been affordable.

22. Examples of heavy dependence on food trade for survival are island states, desert economies, remote mountainous and icy regions. In the past, communities in these areas were small and seafaring, or nomadic, with highly developed hunting and gathering skills, complemented by subsistence agriculture or animal herding. Indigenous peoples, until recent times, managed their food affairs this way. Trade capability has, in a sense, changed much of that and respectful and consultative review of the situation of such peoples, their food and ecosystems is required.

23. In the case of Pacific Island communities, generally small and far-flung, at the end or on the course of long trading routes, local foods tend to be limited and imported foods expensive. The traditional cuisine which included plentiful seafood, along with coconut, greens and root vegetables, with some birds and their eggs, served remarkably well until early this century. It gives some guidance as to the lower limits of food diversity and the food commodities required at the level of variety. Learning to live healthfully with a rapidly changing imported food supply and its impact on locally produced foods has not been easy. The rises in prevalence of obesity, Non-insulin dependent diabetes (NIDDM) and cardiovascular disease have been dramatic42,43,58,59. Part of the problem has been an associated decline in energy expenditure associated with food gathering in the past.

24. In the case of Singapore on the other island, an island city state, urbanization has brought similar risk. The policy has been to virtually entirely import food, and use food production resources like land to excel technologically and economically. The problems of physical inactivity and obesity have been addressed by political leadership and international policies in schools, the defend forces and the community-at-large. Even then, NIDDM and cardiovascular disease prevalences equal or exceed their earlier industrialized counterpart. These experiences underscore the need for broad health policies to accompany new trade initiatives.

25. There are some geographical locations where there are endemic nutrient deficits, like iodine and selenium, because of soil deficits17; or away from safe water so that nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids are hard to come by40,41; or where certain plants grow with difficulty and their components are not available. Clearly, imported food helps resolve these problems without recourse to food fortification or supplementation, generally a less satisfactory option as it oversimplifies the basic food inadequacy as a nutrient or food component inadequacy.

26. There is also a special situation for large continental nations where a wide range of food can be produced in different climates and food exported in quantity. Such nations have a great international responsibility for sustainable food supplies.

27. Food trade is often stimulated as people migrate with their food cultures. This is particularly evident in culturally pluralistic advanced economies like those of North America and Australasia. There is good circumstantial evidence that the injection of new foods into these locations has contributed to health advancement. Greater emphases on food trade might have spared some of the new precarious ecosystems in these locations - like the rice growing areas of Australia.

28. The limits to food trade from an environmental point of view will be:

i) the import of food export on the ecology of the locale from which food is exported

ii) the non-renewable resource costs of food transport

iii) the impact of food import on local eco-agriculture - in some parts of the world new and sustainable ecosystem have developed around old agricultural practice, with Europe, Africa, Meso- and South America, the Far East and South East Asia all providing such examples. Classically, the bird and insect life changes in relation to crop production.

IX. Food Safety Issues in the Food Chain

29. At each step in the food chain, food safety issues can arise. They may be microbiological, physical (filfth), chemical (contaminants, naturally occurring toxicants) or nutritional (changes in food components, or the expectation which a food will serve in a cuisine, be it old, emergent or composite).

30. Risk analysis, management and communication are now required at a greater level of sophistication as environments for food production, food trade increases, new food technologies including biotechnologies emerge, and food cultures evolve.

31. A traditional horticulturalist may use animal manure or human waste as fertilizer, and process the fruit in a way that solves the intrinsic microbiological risks. One who sends his or her fruit to a juice manufacturer may not. There are many such examples, which ecological, food and nutrition literacy may partially address, but for which safety protocols and management will increasingly be required.

X. Food Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs)

32. The FAO and WHO have formulated and promulgated FBDGs, following a Cyprus resolution in 199556.

33. These guidelines take account of the least available food, nutrition and health science and offer an approach whereby communities can take account of and evolve these local food culture and cuisine with this knowledge. They recognize that there is not only one way by which food intake can serve health for a species which is omnivorous. One of the underlying principles which will consistently be applied, however, is that of the value of food variety for humans, with one staple being less satisfactory from health and food security points of view.

34. FBDGs can, therefore, support sustainable approaches to food and human health.

XI. Future Foods and Future Health

35. Human health patterns are changing in a major way, especially with the advent of life-style related diseases (so-called chronic non-communicable diseases, or CNCD) and will continue to change57.

36. What has been surprising is that there may be communicable elements of so-called CNCD - like H. pylori in upper gastrointestinal disease29 and chlamydia in atherosclerotic vascular disease. The nexus between nutrition, and immune function and infection is pervasive. Also undernutrition, even in pregnancy, and early life may contribute to CNCD2,3,4,5,33. Thus food available throughout life and the role it plays in family health remains important.

37. Changing demography, especially towards ageing population, also affect eco-nutrition thinking. At once, there is an enduring repository of food and health knowledge amongst the aged, whilst they, in their frailty, have special nutritional needs25,54. But the biological potential of older individual is greater than heretofore thought25 as life expectancy increases and compression of morbidity to the end of life becomes more evident. Older people can still engage in the food chain! Population projections are that the world population will stablized in numbers, with about 20% over the age 60s by the year 2020. With such large numbers of older individuals, any sustainable food and health strategy must carefully factor them in.

38. As we seek to finesse human health we look to food to help. Food technological innovation matched with progressive nutrition science will develop new food for this purpose.

39. Yet there will be unexpected new health problems and questions about the role of food and the environment - mood and cognitive disorders, new infections. This is where eco-nutrition will need to be more pro-active.

XII. Recommendations


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