Sustainability and the Needs of 2050 Agriculture
February 16th 2018
Danna Razal
Author Note
Terry Stone is currently a Vice PResident at Agrinos. He has over 30
years of experience in plant biotechnology, and he currently directs all
regulatory affairs initiatives for Agrinos.
Reading #13
Sustainability and the Needs of 2050 Agriculture
Terry Stone
Notes
●
Food security is not only a matter of supply. Even where there is an
adequate food supply, there is not always adequate food access
because of income limitations.
●
In developed countries, half of those over age 75 and in hospitals are
thought to be nutrient deficient, as are, ironically, many obese people.
●
Demand increase is coming not just from population growth, but from
a growing global middle class that is moving up the food chain,
consuming more grain-intensive products such as meat, milk and eggs.
●
The coalition notes that one in ten Minnesotans run out of resources
before the end of every month, missing an average of ten meals every
30 days.
●
Despite steady improvements in agricultural productivity, enabling
food security on a global basis will be more challenging in the next 40
years.
●
By 2050, there will be an estimated 2 billion more people to feed as
the global population grows from the 7 billion it is expected to reach
this October to more than 9 billion.
●
To ensure food security for the global population at mid-century will
require producing twice as much food as we do today.
●
As often-cited World Wildlife Fund research points out, continuing with
business-as-usual in food production will require the resources of three
planet Earths to support human activities.
●
Agriculture already uses an estimated 40% of the globe’s arable land,
with some 3.75 billion acres in production.
●
In May, 2011, in a letter to the House and Senate agriculture
committees, groups representing grain and feed traders, livestock
producers, fertilizer manufacturers, meatpackers and others urged
Congress to put back into production millions of acres of farmland that
are now enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program.
●
It is expected that any effort to put these acres back into production
will face ferocious opposition from environmental and wildlife advocacy
groups.
●
Of the freshwater utilized by man, which is a fraction of what is
available on earth, 70% is used by agriculture.
●
In India and China, groundwater withdrawals are increasing at an
unsustainable pace.
●
It is incorrect, though, to juxtapose intensive farming against organic,
small scale or locally grown options in ways that suggest intensive
operations are not also sustainable.
●
That means thinking about sustainability in the context of growing
more from less through the smart use of proven practices and a suite
of agricultural technologies.
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