If you have a subscription to Nature, this week’s issue is dealing with agriculture’s challenge of producing enough food as the world population reaches its plateau (apparently, this is to be expected around 2050). I’m just digging in, and it’s very interesting…
First of all, while certainly a major scientific challenge in the next decades, it doesn’t seem to be the quite impossible task it seemed a few times ago (say, in the early 90’s, scientists perspective was rather more pessimistic I think). Thanks to our population growth converging to an equilibrium and having the opportunity to change many ways food can be produced and distributed:
– not every place is taking advantage from the green revolution crop improvements from the last century, progress can still be expected from genetics and breeding, minor -neglected- crops have a dramatic potential, which are the classical ways to increase crop production,
– but also, between one fourth and one third of the food produced is still wasted or spoiled so research in storing, supplying and food transforming processes are probably a major source of novelty to improve worldwide food availability.
(Of course one the main issue with feeding the world isn’t exactly producing food actually, but rather to distribute it properly, which brings the issue to more political sides).
Just to quote about this comforting perspective*:
Scientists long feared a great population boom that would stress food production, but population growth is slowing and should plateau by 2050 as family size in almost all poorer countries falls to roughly 2.2 children per family. Even as population has risen, the overall availability of calories per person has increased, not decreased. Producing enough food in the future is possible, but doing so without drastically sapping other resources, particularly water, will be difficult.
And since’re at it, I’d also like to quote this week’s editorial**, and its take on GMOs and crop production (so close to mine I guess I couldn’t express it better):
Genetically modified (GM) crops are an important part of the sustainable agriculture toolkit, alongside traditional breeding techniques. But they are not a panacea for world hunger, despite many assertions to the contrary by their proponents. In practice, the first generation of GM crops has been largely irrelevant to poor countries. Overstating these benefits can only increase public distrust of GM organisms, as it plays to concerns about the perceived privatization and monopolization of agriculture, and a focus on profits.
Hum… Now I face the dilemma fo reading more or go back to paper writing. But that’s of a much smaller challenge…
Have also a look at Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog’s take on the issue (Nature’s), they get a point…
* Nature 466, pp. 546-547 (2010)
** Nature 466, pp. 531–532 (2010)
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Fairfood and fabfoodfestival, fabfoodfestival. fabfoodfestival said: RT @fairfood: Food is next millenium’s challenge! as the world population reaches its plateau. Read more about it http://bit.ly/cpIwdi […]
I hear GMO critics making this claim frequently, yet I’ve never heard a GMO proponent actually make this claim. I think all of us in the industry understand that it is an incremental tool that, when combined with other tools (both technological and cultural), can provide a benefit.
I think the many farmers in India who now face a much reduced incidence of accidental pesticide exposure would disagree that GMOs have provided no benefit to poor countries.
Hi Ted,
If you were in Europe, you’d hear this argument made over and over and over again. I’ve seen people seminally making the argument (GMOs will save the world from hunger), and then presenting work on cotton, mustard, and flowers… No kidding!
Also, I think we have yet to see a GMO that would be so incredibly good at improving crop production… (the notable exception is with protection against enemies, there’s probably a great efficiency to be gained there). Rather, I see GMOs as probably good tools for food quality control, but I haven’t seen much in this direction yet.
In my opinion, both sides are making bad arguments. The reason I lean toward skepticism about GMOs is that too many proponents behave so scientistically. As an e.g., when discussing potential for weed resistance transfers, the very first reaction was “they are different species, they never intercross”. Then, hybridization was demonstrated, and the answer was “yes, they do hybridize sometimes but odds are so low”. Then, when incidence of herbicide select for the transferred resistance, the answer turned into “indeed, this can become quite an issue, but now we do transform chloroplasts so transgenes cannot make this out walk anymore”.
That’s fine, but I remember how I was patronized only ten years ago. I think opposition to GMOs actually brought much more than only debate. It’s very good that some scientists did not overlook issues unexpected by molecular geneticists but made uncomfortable claims. Many issues needs to be addressed with regard to GMOs, and that’s why the debate is much needed.
And there’s more… :-)