Filling the Bellies of the Billions

MY friend Wu Wei is understandably concerned about the safety aspects of intensified food production.My own particular interest is in how we are going to cope with the ever-increasing demands for food from a global population that threatens to overwhelm the resources of the worlds land mass.

If that sounds a little melodramatic, just consider the following statistics: 2,000 years ago, the population of our planet was possibly as many as 300 million people.It wasnt until 1820 that the population reached one billion.By the year 2000, however, the worlds population had reached six billion, and is expected to increase to nine billion by 2050. In other words, the number of mouths we have to feed will have increased by 50 percent in a period of just 50 years.

How can this possibly be happening?Well, one reason is that the dramatic improvements in both diet and medicine have meant that people are less prone to the diseases that in the past provided an important control on population growth.Infant mortality, for example, is a small fraction of what was customary 100 years ago.Famine is a phenomenon that is restricted to a relatively small number of regions around the world, and the effects of climatic conditions are far less severe than they used to be, either because we are more able to cope with excessively dry or wet weather, or because we no longer suffer the ravages of extremes of cold. So, like it or not, we must make provision for a population growth curve that will continue to head for the stars.

Professor Jonathan Foley, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota, wrote in 2009 of a “global crisis in land use.”He talked about the degradation of the ecosystem, and especially the loss of the rainforests of Africa, South America and Indonesia.He also noted the worrying decline in fresh water stocks, observing that we currently use an astonishing 4,000 cubic kilometers of water per annum, 70 percent of which is for agricultural irrigation.As a consequence, rivers and lakes are drying up and water tables are falling.One only has to look at the disappearance of the Aral Sea to know how serious that problem has become.The third impact is in the form of pollution through the overuse of agricultural chemicals, which are now affecting the open sea, as well as the land, and thereby threatening fish stocks.Finally, he pointed to the well-rehearsed problem of greenhouse gas emissions, observing that agricultural practices and deforestation emit more carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane than all forms of transport used by man.And we like to think that farming activity is somehow green and safe!

Professor Foleys responses to all these problems include researching new hybrid crops that will be more nutritious and so enable us to reduce the increase in food consumption below the rate of population growth.He also advocates the development of perennial crops to replace those that require annual replanting, thereby saving some of the noxious emissions of agricultural machinery.Finally, hes looking for forms of agriculture that are more efficient in their consumption of water.

Other steps that we might consider are to recover infertile land and to reuse abandoned hillside terraces, in order to increase the supply of agricultural land.To achieve both these things, the world will require huge new sources of water, which realistically will probably only be provided by desalinated water taken from the oceans, those greatest of all reservoirs.We will need to be more robust advocates of organic farming in order to ensure that the water run-off does not carry with it damaging chemicals that will lead to further infertility downstream.Increased water use and deforestation also suggest a threat of enhanced soil erosion, which in turn further destabilize the ecosystems on which agriculture depends.The loss of myriad beneficial insects and birds that help to control harmful pests would rob us of the confidence to rely more heavily on organic farming systems, so we should pay greater attention to protecting our fertile land and to maintaining our forests.

And perhaps we will have to do even more radical things, such as persuading consumers to change their eating habits by adopting as staple foods the sort of crops that are more nutritious, more productive and less environmentally damaging.And we should look at large-scale mariculture, taking benefit from the fruits of the sea.

The problem with all that is that man is a very fickle beast who loves his luxuries and responds only grudgingly to the demands of common sense.But we really do need to wake up to this new crisis.We are already aware of the detrimental affects of climate change and environmental damage, and their consequent implications for the wellbeing of future generations.But the boom in consumer societies over the past century has meant that we are reluctant to forgo our right to enjoy whatever we want, even if common sense tells us that our enjoyment will be at a great cost to our grandchildren.

The successful interaction between humankind and our environment depends on very delicate balances, which we find very hard to strike.I confess that I am little better than the average man in this regard, but this is about the survival of mankind.We must encourage our governments to put more funding into agricultural research, and each of us as citizens must do our bit, too.The problem is we fail to recognize that each of us has a contribution to make.Its not good enough simplyto leave it to others to deal with.Life is more precious than that.