I have spent an hour this morning watching episode 1 of the BBC’s Future of Food. George Alagiah is touring the world (we’ll forgive his enormous carbon footprint because of the educational value) to look into our food security issues.

First on the list is Water. In the Punjab (known as the bread basket of India), wheat yields have been dropping for a decade because the water table is also dropping – by a metre a year. Debt and farmer suicides are both rising. But the problem isn’t limited to India – there are worldwide water shortages, and when a country like the UK imports food we are importing virtual water, and exporting drought.

Next up is Oil, and a trip to Cuba to see how the Cubans managed after their own oil shock in the 90s. Cuba went from an industralised agriculture system similar to ours to a low-oil one practically overnight. Which is not to say it was easy, and Cuba still imports around half it’s food, but after years with low calorie intakes they have now rebounded to levels similar to ours. The difference is what they eat – much more fresh fruit and vegetables, far less meat and fat. With an intensive system of agriculture based on multicultures (as opposed to monocultures) they could be more efficient still and become self-sufficient.

Third on the list is Climate Change, expected to decrease food yields in some African countries by up to 50% by 2020. Prices will rise, and there will be shortages and conflict. One Masai chieftan used to have a herd of 700 cattle, but droughts have increased four-fold in the last 25 years and now he has just 30 left. He can’t sell them or eat them, they’re practically skeletons. In Hampshire, the increasing unpredictability of our climate is making choosing what to grow very tricky.

Fourth was Obesity – what our heavily processed, industrialised diet is doing to us. We all eat far too much saturated fat, sugar and salt. A diet of fresh food and home-cooked meals would be better for us, but many families (here in the UK as well as throughout the world) don’t have the money that makes for better nutritional choices.

So our current diet isn’t doing us or the planet much good, and it’s unlikely that we can produce enough food to feed our growing population. The Earth will go into ecological debt this year sometime next month.

The next episode (second of three) will look at the impacts of overfishing, and why the UK only produces 10% of the fruit that we eat.

Unlike A Farm for a Future, which looked at the same issues earlier in the year, The Future of Food has yet to suggest any possible solutions. If you’re looking for solutions for sustainable living have a look at Permaculture Magazine.