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Feeding 9 Billion People
Between the world's increasing population and its growing food consumption as poverty declines, experts predict we will need 70-100% more food by 2050.
How we might be able to produce that food is the subject of a report published in the journal Science called “Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People.”
The paper, written by Britain's chief scientific adviser, John Beddington, and nine other experts, does not offer specific recommendations, though the authors are working on those. They note that climate change and its impact on agriculture, soil and water resources will further complicate the task of feeding a world population estimated to hit 9 billion by 2050.
“Here, we are raising broad strategies to address food security,” says lead author and University of Oxford professor Charles Godfray.
Those strategies:
1) Closing the yield gap: The wide variation of agricultural productivity, even in regions with comparable climates, is known as the yield gap. The variation can be the result of factors like technical constraints and economic issues.
“Straight agronomic research can help hugely in choosing which of the spectrum of currently available crops/technologies are most appropriate to which particular site," Godfray says. "Second, the yield gap is not static, but can increase as pests and diseases are introduced or evolve; scientific innovation is constantly needed to counter these challenges.”
2) Increasing production limits: Growing more food on existing farmland may require genetically modified crops, which the authors call a "potentially valuable technology," though they note that GM foods still need to gain greater public trust.
3) Reducing waste: Roughly 30-40% of food in both the developed and developing world is wasted. In the latter case, the problem may be pests and inadequate storage; in the developed world, the waste is usually post-retail: in restaurants and homes.
4) Changing diets: Demand for meat is on the rise, especially as consumer wealth increases in India and China, but meat production brings some undesirable environmental impacts, including methane production and deforestation for land. Still, the authors point out that to say all meat consumption is bad is too simplistic.
“Of the five strategies we explore, assessing the value of this one is the most difficult,” Godfray says. “I think all we are saying at the moment is that this cannot be ignored but needs further study.”
5) Expanding aquaculture: Aquatic products supply almost three billion people with at least 15% of their animal protein intake, but aquaculture practices need improvement. Better stock selection, larger-scale production technologies, aquaculture in open seas and larger inland water bodies, and cultivating a wider range of species are some of the paper’s suggestions. GM technologies may play a role here too, as research looks at factors like salinity tolerance, disease resistance and fish feed with enhanced nutrition.
Focusing on the yield gap is key — and so is being practical about approaching food security, says food security researcher Molly Brown of the Biospheric Sciences Branch of NASA and an author of the study “Declining Global Per Capita Agricultural Production and Warming Oceans Threaten Food Security,” published last summer in the journal Food Security.
“It’s important to keep in mind a goal that’s achievable in the next two or three decades,” she says. During that time, Brown’s paper predicts that per capita cereal production could decline 14% as population growth outpaces yield increases.
“What we need to do is invest in yield gains in places that are inefficient. West Africa is the top of the list,” she says. “You don’t need to spend trillions of dollars. We need to provide tools to very vulnerable places so they can feed themselves.”
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Increased production is not the ultimate solution
I invite you to read this Soil Association investigation report about where exactly the "need to double food production by 2050" figures came from: http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=qbavgJQPY%2Fc%3...
Production is not the only factor, distribution is more important. Yields have been increasing for a long time, but there are still 800 million to 1 billion or more starving people in the World.
This is even acknowledged by the UK Government:
“But simply increasing food production will not end hunger. Even when food was at its cheapest in 2000, there were still 800 million people without enough food to eat. There are huge problems in terms of access to food, distribution, and affordability”.
So please, stop propagating the lie that increased yields are the solution, they are only the drum that greedy agribusiness corporations beat whenever they advertise themselves. GM crops are not a solution to any of the World's problems, they are simply a means by corporations to seize control of markets and profit.
Increased production is not the ultimate solution
I invite you to read this Soil Association investigation report about where exactly the "need to double food production by 2050" figures came from: http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=qbavgJQPY%2Fc%3...
Production is not the only factor, distribution is more important. Yields have been increasing for a long time, but there are still 800 million to 1 billion or more starving people in the World.
This is even acknowledged by the UK Government:
“But simply increasing food production will not end hunger. Even when food was at its cheapest in 2000, there were still 800 million people without enough food to eat. There are huge problems in terms of access to food, distribution, and affordability”.
So please, stop propagating the lie that increased yields are the solution, they are only the drum that greedy agribusiness corporations beat whenever they advertise themselves. GM crops are not a solution to any of the World's problems, they are simply a means by corporations to seize control of markets and profit.
Feeding 9 Billion
9 Billion people is a hugely daunting number. I have no idea how we will be able to feed that many people - especially since around 15% of the world are currently starving as it is. GM crops are a good choice, but will need to gain a lot more trust in public as was mentioned above. The western world needs to be more responsible with food, especially since so much goes to waste due to human choice, and not up to natural factors as evident in 3rd world countries.
aquaculture
Godfray's call to increase aquaculture in order to increase food production is a bit misled. Increasing aquaculture production in open seas and larger inland water bodies will have a detrimental impact on natural occurring species and that in turn can have an effect on food production and catch yields.
Aquaculture has resulted in a decline in wild populations of fish as evident by several scientific papers and studies. Aquaculture salmon in northern Europe have been found to outnumber wild salmon by more than 10 fold. With such a large population to keep track of escapes are common with an estimate of 2 million salmon escaping each year in the North Atlantic region. When escapes inevitably occur the farmed salmon invade the wild population at all life stages and become part of their breeding population.
Breeding interaction between farmed and wild salmon results in genetic interaction and mixing of wild salmon with farmed. Domesticated strains of salmon have been proven to have less allelic diversity than wild salmon. Allelic diversity in a sense means that these salmon have less genetic variability that can be passed along to offspring. The decrease in truly wild salmon and the subsequent loss in genetic diversity will leave this food source susceptible to changes in the environment which will inevitably occur as our climate shifts and as human populations increase even further.
In addition to the issue of mixing of wild and farmed populations there is also the problem of pollution and disease. Aquaculture production is highly chemical dependent in order to deal with issues such as sea lice and other diseases. With a mixing pot like open waters there is no limit to where chemicals will go and what effect they can have on wild species at all trophic levels. In addition to chemical pollution there is also a high output of effluent pollution which is inevitable with large farm populations reaching up to the millions.
I agree with the authors that there must be an increase in food production in order to feed the increasing number of people on the planet. However modifying and destroying naturally occurring species, populations, and ecosystems is not the answer. In order to eliminate contact between farmed and wild fish populations aquaculture should be moved onto land with tanks and large aquaculture facilities. A positive move has been seen in British Columbia: (http://www.timescolonist.com/columnists/Closed+containment+systems+comin...)
and hopefully catches on throughout the world. Feel free to contact the editors for my e-mail address and I can direct you to some literature on fish farming and aquaculture which I referred to in this comment.
climate change effect agriculture
climate change effect agriculture in the following way
Soil processes
-The potential for soils to support agriculture and distribution of land use will be influenced by changes in soil water balance:
-Increase in soil water deficits i.e. dry soils become drier, therefore increased need for irrigation but:
-Could improve soil workability in wetter regions and diminish poaching and erosion risk
Crops
-The effect of increased temperature and CO2 levels on arable crops will be broadly neutral:
-The range of current crops will move northward
-New crop varieties may need to be selected
-Horticultural crops are more susceptible to changing conditions than arable crops
-Field vegetables will be particularly affected by temperature changes
-Phaselous bean, onion and sweetcorn are most likely to benefit commercially from higher temperatures
-Water deficits will directly affect fruit and vegetable production
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