Inequality Of Global Food Supply And The Impact Of Trade

In recent years,rising income levels and urbanization have driven a shift in the structure of global food consumption.Due to the spatial mismatch between food production and demand,global malnutrition and overnutrition coexist,and the imbalance of food supply is prominent,and reducing the imbalance of global food supply is an important way to achieve the UN sustainable development goal of "zero hunger".Therefore,it is important to reveal the evolution of global food and nutrition production,explore the trend of food imbalance and the impact of trade on it,in order to achieve a balanced global food supply and formulate a nutrition-oriented food production and trade policy.Based on the analysis of the evolution of food and nutrition production at different scales,such as "global-continent-country",this paper measures the concentration and unevenness of food and nutrition production at global,regional and national scales using Lorenz curve and Theil coefficient,and reveals the impact of trade on the unevenness of food supply.The main findings are as follows:(1)From 1986-2018,global food production and per capita production showed an increasing trend,but the structure of output changed significantly.Cereals accounted for a larger share of total global food production,but showed a decreasing trend during the study period.On the continental scale,food production and per capita production increased more in Asia,followed by Africa and South America,while Europe showed a decreasing trend.There were also significant differences in the structure of food production at the continental and national levels.The global trend in total and per capita production of all types of food nutrients is increasing,and the main sources of nutrient increases are plant-based foods.Among them,fat increased the most,followed by calories and protein.There are significant differences in the sources of food nutrients across regions and countries,and the smaller the scale,the greater the differences.(2)The global concentration of food and nutrient production showed a decreasing trend during the study period.At the continental scale,food production was mainly concentrated in Asia,Europe,and North America.The concentration of food production was also high at the country scale,with the top 5 countries in each food category accounting for about 50% of total global production.The global concentration of calorie,vitamin,and mineral production is low,and the concentration of protein and fat production is high.On a continental scale,food nutrient production is mainly concentrated in Asia,followed by Europe.On a national scale,food nutrient production is concentrated in China,the United States,India,Brazil,and Indonesia.(3)The non-equilibrium of global per capita food production showed a decreasing trend from 1986-2018.From the results of geographic regional decomposition,the intra-regional contribution to global per capita food production disequilibrium tends to increase,mainly due to the fact that within the regions of Asia,Europe,Africa,South America,and Oceania,the disequilibrium of per capita food production tends to increase.In terms of food groups,cereals had the lowest non-equilibrium per capita production and contributed the most to the decrease in global non-equilibrium per capita food production.Among the various food nutrient categories,global per capita fat output had the highest non-equilibrium with an increasing trend,followed by protein,calories,vitamins and minerals.The intra-regional contribution to global food calorie,fat,vitamin,and mineral non-equilibrium showed an increasing trend,with Asia,Europe,South America,and within Africa,the non-equilibrium of nutrient output per capita in each country showed an increasing trend.(4)Trade had a significant decreasing effect on the global non-equilibrium of per capita food and nutrient supply during the study period,and the degree of effect increased from year to year.Trade had the most significant decreasing effect on the nonequilibrium of per capita supply of sugar,oil and hobby foods.In terms of food nutrients,trade had the most significant reducing effect on the non-equilibrium of per capita fat supply,followed by protein and calories.At the continental scale,trade had the largest reduction effect on per capita food and nutrient supply disequilibrium within Asia and the smallest effect on disequilibrium within Oceania.Based on the above conclusions,the future should improve the global balanced supply of food and nutrition by reducing the differences in food production between regions,constructing nutrition-oriented food production programs,and stabilizing continuous trade policies.