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Trade and the equitability of global food nutrient distribution

Nature Sustainability volume 1, pages 34–37 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Access to sufficient, nutritious food is a basic human right and is necessary to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. We demonstrate that international food trade, in the current global system, is essential to nutrient access and enables some poorer countries to be able to nourish up to hundreds of millions of people. Protectionist trade policies could therefore have serious negative consequences for food security.

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Fig. 1: Potential gains in people nourished with trade.
Fig. 2: Change in number of people who could be nourished without trade.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge M. Bradford, D. Kane, S. Kuebbing, E. Oldfield and C. Palm for helpful comments. S.A.W. was supported by a NatureNet Science Fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA, 22203, USA

    Stephen A. Wood

  2. School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Stephen A. Wood

  3. Department of Environmental Health, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Matthew R. Smith

  4. The Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, 20036, USA

    Jessica Fanzo

  5. Bioversity International, 3001, Heverlee, Belgium

    Roseline Remans

  6. Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Roseline Remans

  7. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Ruth S. DeFries

Authors
  1. Stephen A. Wood
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  2. Matthew R. Smith
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  3. Jessica Fanzo
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  4. Roseline Remans
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  5. Ruth S. DeFries
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Contributions

R.S.D. and S.A.W. conceived the project; M.R.S., R.S.D. and S.A.W. designed the analysis; M.R.S. and S.A.W. analysed data; all authors interpreted data; S.A.W. wrote the first draft of the manuscript; all authors provided feedback on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Stephen A. Wood.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–3, Supplementary Tables 1–5

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Wood, S.A., Smith, M.R., Fanzo, J. et al. Trade and the equitability of global food nutrient distribution. Nat Sustain 1, 34–37 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-017-0008-6

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