To feed the world's growing and more affluent population, global agriculture will have to double its food production by 2050. More farming, however, usually means more environmental harm as a result of clearing land, burning fossil fuels, consuming water for irrigation and spreading fertilizer. Agriculture already imposes a greater burden on Earth than almost any other human activity, so simply doubling current practices would ruin large areas of land as well as poisoning rivers and oceans.
An international research team led by Jon Foley at the University of Minnesota has concluded that five basic changes in the way agriculture operates—and in the ways we eat—could double food production, yet decrease overall environmental impacts. The steps are as follows: improve crop yields, consume less meat, reduce food waste, stop expanding into rainforests, and use fertilizer and water more efficiently. The changes are reflected in a series of maps. For a detailed explanations, see "Can We Feed the World and Sustain the Planet?".
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Add CommentUnlike Hansel and Gratel, we ate the house of the witch in the forest, therefore she is coming to hount us in decades ahead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBest way to solve the world overpopulation problem is to reduce it, not feed it... 2050 will more problems than trying to feed rioting millions...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Richieo People stop having children when they rise out of absolute poverty. We can bring people out of poverty by helping them feed themselves. If we help the billion people in this world who are starving, the world will be better for everyone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe world will be underpopulated by the end of the century. I expect below 2.5 billion population in 2014 and still starving.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEcological common sense: the carrying capacity of the environment will be increased with more food production. Therefore, we'll have more people, and in 50 years, we'll see the same article, and again, and again... When will we understand that we need to adapt? Anyway, poverty and starvation are due to the inequality between people, not to the absolute food availability. That's what we should fix first.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe economic value of Natural capital will need to be integrated within the economic system to provide the market signal to the billions. Without an EcoCommerce structure, the signal is dead air. Enlightenment is hastened through economic signals - and to implement the 5 steps will require a great awakening to a loud an clear market signal. Adding an ecological dimension to the economy is the next step toward a more mature economic system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding Step 3, who exactly should eat less meat?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the nearly 1 billion people in the world who live in, and with, daily hunger (because they subsist almost entirely on cheap starchy diets, which is all they can afford) 'switched to all-plant diets' as recommended here, they would suffer only more from malnourishment and the greater disease burden that comes in its wake, with more people dying before their time, particularly children and women of child-bearing age. Study after study shows that even a modest addition of milk, eggs and meat to poor diets of very poor people greatly enhances their nutritional status.
By all means advocate for the 1 billion of us who are over-fed to stop over-consuming fatty red meat and other unhealthy dietary habits. But let's be careful not to advocate for policies that go global---and hurt some one billion people living without our many dietary (and other) choices.
I agree with comment #7.(sMacMillan)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissecondly,the food that is offered to animals for meat and egg production is far poor quality and can not be consumed by humans.Also the quality of food that we get through meat, eggs and milk is far superior to plant food which has been proved beyond doubt.If everybody go for plant food ,( without milk even) they will definitely suffer from gross malnutrition.
Did you get that number from the winged monkeys that flew out yer butt? Huge numbers of people live on the verge of starvation for decades without dying. Just because Americans are fat doesn't mean everyone needs this much food. Are you buying into the "several ancient calendars end about the same time out of the hundreds of thousands of ancient calendars so the world will end then" crowd? I have seen nothing that seems likely to bring about a population crash.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnlike most other animals, when we run short of food we find ways to make more.
How? Some people are more productive than others on a personal level. I know a number of people that produce more than I do under the same conditions and even more that produce less. Why should the productive be punished and the less productive be rewarded? I'm all for leveling the playing field but even if everyone had the same tools and opportunities many would simply not put out the effort. Unless you propose a Stalinist regime you will fail. If you do propose a Stalinist regime then watch your back because the motivated will hate you for depriving them of the benefits of their labor and the unproductive will hate you for killing and torturing millions of them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust a few thoughts:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst - I've read study after study that shows maize is a net loss nutrition source and some reports blame maize cultivation for the decline of certain civilizations. How about we expand more rewarding crops and cut way back on maize which many people simply can't digest?
Second - As others have pointed out, many would starve without meat. Rich nations should cut way back on meat because we get enough nutrition from other sources. It would be better to cut way back on meat from unhealthy agro practices such as antibiotics for healthy animals that don't need it. We could expand the array of meats consumed to include common pets. Alternatively we could ban all non-working pets because they eat food as well. Cutting way back on over processed junk food would help a lot too.
Third - The "diet gap" is lower than ever in human history and gets better every year as infrastructure is improved world wide. Biofuel may be required to supplant fossil fuels (though I am skeptical about it's viability). A lot of that "waste food" is seriously sub-par.
Lastly (or should I say Fifth?) - There are six steps to this five step plan. Did someone flunk math?
No mention of the use of GM Crops, The likes of golden rice and other equivalents to provide greater nutrition, or the changing of compounds to reduce crop failure... Surely this is a brighter alternative to becoming a planet of vegetarians??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we can change food so that it requires less maintenance, less fertilizer and yet give more of the specifically required nutrients, we need to tap that!
Spot on!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe means by which soils can be elevated to true fertility - as against seasonal dosage of soluble chemical stimulants - has been applied in South Australia since 2005. It involves the intelligent utilisation of the world's tropical rainforests rather than their decimation, however this does not accord with the ideology of chemical agriculture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSadly, the investment required to apply solutions such as this demands action - not words!
Maize may be the best way to produce calorie per acre- but it makes a poor quality staple. It has little nutritional value beyond pure calories- there are other more nutritional foods.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan cannot live on maize alone.
I don't worry about this shit...overpopulation has a way of taking care of itself, if it is really a problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe MUST create a planet that is 100% sustainable for the provision of energy, food, transportation, jobs, etc. without any petroleum and the production of greenhouse gases if humanity is to survive the next 50 years, to say nothing of the next 500,000! Please bear in mind that the last 2012 years back to the Year Zero are only 20 times the 5 generations, grandparents to grandchildren, that we will know in our own families, and that the components of our genes, which have combined and recombined with every generation since life first appeared here, will not be able to survive in a future without the energy, food, transportation, plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, pesticides AND COSMETICS that petroleum currently provides!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease view my designs for the creation of the world's first 100% sustainable global infrastructure at www.greenmillennium.eu
Thank you very much, on behalf of the generations to come!
Yours sincerely,
Kim Gyr
Director, Green Millennium
I agree; there is a sharp social justice element in fighting superpopulation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat do you think will precipitate this dramatic drop in population?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfarmers should use biochar to fertilise the soil and sequesture carbon
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooking at all the fat asses in America I would have to say this country alone could solve the worlds food shortages if we all just ate half as much as we do. We would still be way to fat, but rest of the world would at least have enough to forestall starvation for another century or two.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI want the total grain production ( inabsolute units not in index) in USA and Worldand India since 1960=2010 in tne year gap
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