Food Security, Food Systems, and Environmental Change

One of the centralsustainability challenges of ourtime is how to achieve food security for a population anticipated to exceed nine billion by 2050 while minimizing further environmental degradation.1 Further, food consumption patterns are changing rapidly as average wealth increases(especially forthe emerging ‘middle class’ in much of the world), leading to many people consuming more food overall, and particularly more meat.2 This needsto be seen in the context of naturalresource depletion, stagnating rural economies,significant social and sociocultural changessuch asthe ‘Westernization’ of diets, and a changing climate.