The basic facts concerning the world's growing population and the food supply are so daunting that they demand wider appreciation:
- We have 7.2 billion people living on our planet today. By 2050, that number will grow to 9.5 to 10 billion.
- Global wealth, especially across Asia and Africa, will increase dramatically over the next 35 years, and an estimated 2 to 3 billion new consumers will join the middle class.
- The combination of more people, increased incomes and improving diets will increase the demand for food by 2050 by 70 to 100 percent.
- Climate change and shrinking fresh water supplies will make it even more challenging to grow enough food to meet the demand.
In confluence, these facts are creating one of the biggest and most complex global challenges humanity has ever faced. This challenge clearly will require a whole host of solutions. There is no single magic bullet.
But we already know what many of those solutions are, and if we can align and work on them together - instead of wasting energy in fruitless disputes over issues such as organic versus conventional farming and genetic modification (GMO) versus non-GMO - we can make the 21st century a success for food production.
We know we need to grow more food. We know we can't keep converting our forests and grasslands to create more farm land, because if we do so it is at the long term environmental peril of the earth. We know we need to reduce food waste, in our farming operations, during food production, transportation, storage...and at the dinner table. And we know we need continued innovation along with more investment and rational, science-based public policies.
The good news is we are making progress.
Crop losses in the developing world are being addressed through advances in harvesting, logistics and refrigeration. In the developed world we're getting smarter about food waste in our homes and restaurants, so less is wasted, landfills are avoided and more food is getting to people who need it. And all over the world, we're growing more food on the same amount of land due to a wide array of advances in biological research and data science.
Today we can breed seeds precisely, literally gene by gene, and make genetic improvements that would have been impossible only a decade ago. We can farm fields, meter by meter, using GPS navigation systems and detailed knowledge of soil type, land elevation and water movement. Farms of all sizes--in all areas of the world--will benefit from these advances.
These phenomenal advances fit within a strategy called sustainable intensification - growing more food on each acre of land using fewer resources or more sustainable inputs. It's a strategy in which nearly all of us in the polarized debate over food and agricultural issues - agriculturalists, food companies, environmental groups, policymakers and consumers - can find common ground. This strategy was best articulated in a white paper published last spring, "An Ecomodernist Manifesto," by prominent environmental scholars from around the world as well as officials of the Breakthrough Institute, a think tank based in Oakland, Cal.
To be successful, we must accelerate our progress now. The rate of global agricultural productivity growth has fallen below the level needed to meet global food demands in 2050, according to calculations by the Global Harvest Initiative, a Washington, D.C.-based private sector collaborative. This is one of the key reasons why an increased emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education is an imperative--we need the best minds across the globe to solve these challenges. We need more students with the training and tools, and we need to excite and encourage them to bring their talents to help solve food production issues.
We also need to increase our investment in agricultural science. Steven Leath, the president of Iowa State University, recently lamented the decades-long stagnation of federal research funding for agriculture. As this spending has stagnated, he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), so has the growth of U.S. agricultural productivity. Yet the world needs greater agricultural productivity than ever before, he observed, because of the combination of global population growth, rising prosperity and climate change.
I believe we can (and must) do it. In fact, I believe that by fully utilizing these remarkable technological advances, we can not only feed our growing population but also begin to shrink our farming footprint around the world - while reducing the pressure to clear more forests, drain more wetlands and till more prairies.
But first, we have to stop fighting over issues that don't matter and align on common-ground goals based on sustainable intensification. Most importantly, we need to work together--nobody can do this alone.
Food fights won't solve the challenges we all face as this century unfolds. Collaboration will.