Browsing by Author "Ray, Deepak K."
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Item Assessing and addressing the global state of food production data scarcity(Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 2024-02-20) Kebede, Endalkachew Abebe; Abou Ali, Hanan; Clavelle, Tyler; Froehlich, Halley E.; Gephart, Jessica A.; Hartman, Sarah; Herrero, Mario; Kerner, Hannah; Mehta, Piyush; Nakalembe, Catherine; Ray, Deepak K.; Siebert, Stefan; Thornton, Philip; Davis, Kyle FrankelFood production data — such as crop, livestock, aquaculture and fisheries statistics — are critical to achieving multiple sustainable development goals. However, the lack of reliable, regularly collected, accessible, usable and spatially disaggregated statistics limits an accurate picture of the state of food production in many countries and prevents the implementation of effective food system interventions. In this Review, we take stock of national and international food production data to understand its availability and limitations. Across databases, there is substantial global variation in data timeliness, granularity (both spatially and by food category) and transparency. Data scarcity challenges are most pronounced for livestock and aquatic food production. These challenges are largely concentrated in Central America, the Middle East and Africa owing to a combination of inconsistent census implementation and a global reliance on self-reporting. Because data scarcity is the result of technical, institutional and political obstacles, solutions must include technological and policy innovations. Fusing traditional and emerging data-gathering techniques with coordinated governance and dedicated long-term financing will be key to overcoming current obstacles to sustained, up-to-date and accurate food production data collection, foundational in promoting and monitoring progress towards healthier and more sustainable food systems worldwide.Item Crop harvests for direct food use insufficient to meet the UN’s food security goal(Nature Food, 2022-05-12) Ray, Deepak K.; Sloat, Lindsey L.; Garcia, Andrea S.; Davis, Kyle F.; Ali, Tariq; Xie, WeiRising competition for crop usage presents policy challenges exacerbated by poor understanding of where crops are harvested for various uses. Here we create high-resolution global maps showing where crops are harvested for seven broad use categories—food, feed, processing, export, industrial, seed and losses. Yields for food crops are low relative to other crop-use categories. It is unlikely, given current trends, that the minimum calorie requirement to eliminate projected food undernourishment by 2030 will be met through crops harvested for direct food consumption, although enough calories will be harvested across all usages. Sub-Saharan African nations will probably fall short of feeding their increased population and eliminating undernourishment in 2030, even if all harvested calories are used directly as food.