By the year 2050, the UN estimates the global population will reach a staggering 9.8 billion. One of the biggest existential challenges facing this population projection will be the 70% rise of food demand. With most growth generating from developing nations, high-yield agricultural solutions based on food technology, sustainability, precision farming, and genetically engineered crops must be implemented. A look at past successful Green Revolutions that have lifted millions out of starvation is necessary in order to solve the problems of low-yield, waste, climate change resistance, in order to implement necessary solutions.
Currently, 850 million are malnourished, and 36 million die yearly worldwide despite there being enough food (the daily caloric intake of 2,870 calories) to feed the globe. Starvation will only be exacerbated by 2050 when food production will have to increase by 70% to meetdemand. This amounts to an estimated growth rate of 1.1% annually to cover food demand by 2050. Demand for grains used for human and animal consumption is expected to reach 3 billion tons by 2050 up from 2.1 billion tons currently. Current problems hindering increased food production are insufficient crop yield, food waste, affordability and extreme weather occurring to the detriment of crops.
By 2050 world’s population will increase by over 35% and crop production will need to double. Food production is the largest non-CO2 environmental contributor so this can
not be achieved through agricultural expansion but rather through precision farming techniques, food technology, sustainable meat production and the reduction of waste.
Food production is the single largest contributor of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emission on the planet. Therefore, increasing low-yield agriculture sustainably, in order to feed 9.8 billion, has proven to be a great conundrum. Crop yield is defined as production per seed input per unit area of land. Currently, only 38% of the planet earth is ice-free land with only a smaller fraction used for farming and livestock grazing. Furthermore, agriculture is responsible for 75% of deforestation worldwide. In order to meet a 70% increase in food demand, we will have to increase land for agriculture by more than 36 million square kilometers and cut down 61% of today’s standing forests.
“The relationship between population growth and food supply has been controversial at least since Reverend Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1807. Malthus argued that human population will grow geometrically, unless it is controlled somehow— he suggested delaying marriage to decrease birth rates ( ).”
Rising standard of living will exacerbate this land issue as demand for meat will go up. Meat production is responsible for the largest environmental pollution of the food industry. It takes 13 pounds of feed, 460 gallons of water, 7 square meters of land to produce just one beef patty. Today only 55% of the world’s agricultural calories feed people, while 36% feed livestock.
Therefore, the solution to increasing yield and doubling food production, is producing more on less land, not agricultural expansion. Precision farming techniques successfully implemented in Netherlands, and other food technologies have proven effective at this. Crop production must double by 2050 through challenges such as insufficient yield, food waste, and extreme weather.
Another issue which contributes to a insufficient food globally is food waste. It’s estimated that 25% of available calories are lost or wasted before they can be consumed. That is, 1.3 billion tons of food gone to waste every year through various stages of production and consumer handling. In monetary value that amount comes around to $1 trillion USD in lost food. Twenty-five percent of all wasted food could feed the 850 million undernourished people world-wide. In wealthy countries 222 million tons are wasted – the equivalent of all the food produced in sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tons). Americans specifically, waste about 141 trillion calories worth of food – that adds up to about $165 billion per year – four times the amount of food Africa imports each year. Furthermore, food waste generates 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide thereby hastening climate change.
The scale of waste is vast — out of the 200 million metric tons of food produced annually in the U.S., 60 million tons go to waste. Residential waste is responsible for 47% of all waste in addition to waste caused by improper handling, transport quality deterioration, inadequate storage and cooling infrastructure. Agricultural losses in developed countries are estimated at 24-40% in developed nations due to selective produce standards. In the West: 20% is wasted during production and 33% trimmed during preparation.
Scientists estimate climate change may reduce crop yields by 2% per decade over the next 100 years, with developing nations to be the worst affected. This issue must be adressed through sustainable or reduced meat production, halting deforestation and employing higher-yield farming techniques instead.
Sustainability moves beyond the successful Green Revolution which fed a population that increased from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.1 billion by 2000. Sustainability is defined as defined as a “network that integrates several components in order to enhance a community’s environmental, economic and social well-being. It is built on principles that further the ecological, social and economic values of a community and region (CRC).” Implementing a sustainable system that can feed 9.8 billion people involves doing so by minimizing the intensive “use of water and fossil-fuel-based chemicals” of the Green Revolution. Increasing yield requires careful analysis and improvement on what has worked the past few decades. However, the process of modernizing the food supply began in France. France was one of the first nations to produce industrial foods as chemists and public food experts began manufacturing innovative foods (Spary).
“Some examples of things that obviously cannot continue indefinitely are harvesting natural resources (such as fish, trees, or fresh water) faster than they are replenished…Soil loss due to erosion and excess accumulation of salt in soil are two examples of intrinsic threats to sustainability. Rates of soil loss often exceed the slow rates of replacement by natural soil-forming processes, especially when soil is disturbed by plowing or cultivation to kill weeds. Irrigation water always contains some salt, which can accumulate to levels that harm plants, unless it is removed via natural or artificial drainage (Denison 21).”
The “Green Revolution” was the implementation of revolutionary agricultural practices beginning the mid-20th century which increased production of grains such as wheat and rice. High-yielding crops saw success in India and Mexico. In 1943, new agricultural techniques to help alleviate starvation and improve standards of living began in developing nations. Mexico went from importing around 50% of its wheat to being self-sufficient 8 years later, then exporting half a million tons per year. India and Pakistan lacked agricultural power to sustain population booms and Norman Borlaug’s agricultural techniques helped it become a top rice productor. India now exports 4.5 million tons of rice. Agricultural innovation in China, Vietnam, Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, and other countries helped save the lives of millions of people around the globe.
This was made possible through the development of high-yield, disease-resistant, pest-resistant crop varieties. However, these genetically engineered crops used pesticides and chemical fertilizers to produce high yields. Many poor farmers weren’t able to afford this and it caused runoff which tainted vital water supplies.
Population grows exponentially but agriculture was only able to grow at a linear rate. There was no possible way to feed the world population without implementing Bolgour’s techniques. The poor quality of soil in many developing nations of the world meant these necessary measures had to be taken.
Subsequently, the Green Revolution increased crop yield. Especially in essential crops such as wheat which makes up 45% of the daily world diet. This revolution brought wheat crops with higher protein levels and disease-resistance. An essential to developing nations suffering from malnutrition and couldn’t otherwise obtain animal protein. Farmers were able to produce more food on less land thereby saving millions of acres of grassland and rainforest from destruction.
What sparked this revolution is thought by author Curry to be a mutation breeding program beginning in the 1940s.
“The initiative, begun in the early 1940s and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, aimed to improve wheat and maize production in particular. Its successes, especially in producing high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties and encouraging the adoption of intensive, industrial-style agricultural production, would later be credited with sparking the Green Revolution, first in Mexico and Latin America, and later in southeast Asia. These programs were closely tied to concerns about not only hunger but also the relationships among population growth, food security, and national and international security—concerns on the minds of governments, international organizations, and foundations alike in the early postwar (and Cold War) decades (Curry 195).”
A continuation of these food biotechnology advances enacted by Borlaug which doubled, even tripled yield, will increase productivity sufficiently to feed a growing world population. Optimizing plant breeding to maximize food output is key part of this process. Darwinian Agriculture, outlines specific actions that have proven effective, such as breeding plants for shorter stems to reduce lodging, breeding one stem plants with less leaf area and vertical leaves.
“If our goal is to increase agriculture, what do we want to improve? Some important criteria include productivity (yield per acre, to use no more land than necessary), efficiency in the use of scarce resources (to use no more water than necessary, for example), stability over years (to prevent even occasional famines), and sustainability (to maintain all of these benefits over the long term). Improvements in any of these will affect the billions of us who live in cities, both through effects on our food supply and through effects on the availability of land and water for other uses. Other important goals include the health of wildlife living on or near farms and the welfare of people who work on or near farms (Denison 74).
According to Darwinian Agriculture: How Understanding Evolution Can Improve Agriculture, experiments at the International Rice Research Institute showed “A shorter rice variety developed during the Green Revolution had much higher grain yield when grown alone than an older, taller variety, mainly because the short variety invested more (Denison 112).”
The author Denison continues, “Selection for shorter, less-competitive, but higher-yielding plants during the Green Revolution is the best-known agricultural example of reversing an evolutionary arms race, but it is not the only one.”
According to this body of research, traits that can increase crop yield in addition to shortness, and fewer and smaller leaves (Denison 113 ). ”At wide spacing, this reduced leaf area per plant would be insufficient to catch all the available sunlight.”
“Donald also advocated more-vertical more-or-less overhead, a vertical leaf will catch less sunlight a same size..Donald also suggested that plants like wheat should have only one stem per plant (Denison 113 ).”
In fact, the results of this mid-20th century movement have been so promising that currently, 92% of corn acreage in the United States has been genetically engineered. This crop has been modified to be insect resistant, herbicide tolerant, and more. Moreover, research has not showed a significant difference in nutritional content or safety of organic foods and ones produced conventionally.
Furthermore, the use of nitrogen fertilizer and improved crop management throughout the 20th century, has led to six-fold increase in U.S. and Canadian corn yield between 1930 and 2000 (Denison 115).
Netherlands has demonstrated that record high-yield can be achieved through precision farming; without the use of fossil-fuel-based chemicals and excess irrigation of the Green Revolution. That is target application of fertilizers, pesticides, and water through the use of computerized tractors equipped with sensors and GPS. In turn, this efficient system minimizes runoff into waterways.
Despite being a small nation, Dutch farming is also paving the way for the future of food production through climate controlled greenhouses with crops planted in hydroponics.
“First, only one of these problems is caused by excessive chemical inputs; furthermore, the input of concern is salt naturally present in irrigation water, rather than some synthetic chemical. So, although reducing synthetic inputs like pesticides may often be a good idea, that may not be enough to guarantee sustainability. Second, both erosion and salt accumulation can occur on either organic or conventional farms. If killing weeds with herbicides allows conventional farmers to use less tillage, then we need to compare the environmental impact of herbicides with possible increases in erosion from tillage (Denison 21).”
Precision farming maps crops by using sensors, satellites, and drones to identify variations in crop yield. This analyzes moisture levels, nitrogen levels and more so farmers can optimize them. These techniques have resulted in Dutch agriculture to be the second larger exporter of agriculture, producing $92 billion worth of food. With some farms in the Netherlands producing twice the world’s average yield in potatoes per acre. The Netherlands could fit into the U.S. 200 times, yet they’re overwhelmingly providing the world’s food supply.
Organic farming is another sustainable method that can reduce excess chemical and water use. It involves using mulches, compost, and water conservation. Farmers are using more precise irrigation methods such as subsurface drip irrigation.
In order to sustainably feed a growing population of 9.8 billion without excessive environmentally detrimental measures, meat production must be reformed. Livestock feed doesn’t only take away nutritious grains that could otherwise feed the 850 million that go hungry, but also occupies 26% of ice-free land thereby having the largest ‘carbon-footprint.’
It takes 13 pounds of feed, 460 gallons of water, 7 square meters of land to produce just one beef patty. Today only 55% of the world’s agricultural calories feed people, while 36% feed livestock. Furthermore, grains make up 45% of the diet yet 40% of grains worldwide are fed to cattle. The U.S. alone could feed 850 million people with the grain eaten by livestock. If U.S. grain was exported, it would boost the U.S trade balance by $80 billion a year.
Concurrent rising populations and standard of living won’t see a decline in meat demand anytime soon, as more people can afford to buy meat. Therefore, efficient ways to produce meat and a change diets will be a solution to sustaining this food production. Instead of agricultural land expansion that requires cutting down 61% of forests to meet a 70% increase in demand, switching from grain-fed beef to pastured-raised farm animals is a solution.
Increased grain-production is an essential part of feeding a world of 9.8 billion since grains make up 45% of the world diet.
“World grain production per person peaked around 1984. Since then, population growth has outpaced increases in production. 7 By 2006, worldwide grain production per person had fallen to 1.8 pounds (0.83 kilogram) per day. If none of this grain were spoiled, eaten by rats or farm animals, or fermented into ethanol, then it would provide more than enough protein and energy (3000 calories per day) for a healthy diet. However, the efficiency of conversion from grain calories to meat calories (chicken or pork) is only 15 to 25 percent, 16 so 1.8 pounds of grain would yield less than 1000 meat calories per person per day. In other words, the world currently produces enough food for an adequate grain-based diet for everyone, but not enough for everyone to eat a meat-based diet (Denison 17).”
Neither population growth or meat consumption will decrease so freeing up livestock feed for human consumption is the optimal solution ( ). “First, there are far more people of child-bearing age or younger than there are people dying of old age. Therefore, even an immediate and universal switch to two-child families would take decades to slow and stop population growth. Second, many people like to eat meat. As people who could rarely afford meat in the past become richer, global meat consumption is likely to increase (Denison 17).”
Additionally, the reduction of food waste is essential to feeding 9.8 billion. Currently, 25% of all waste food could feed the 850 million undernourished people in the world. This can be achieved using bacteria monitors such as a biosensing patch. Food manufacturers can “easily incorporate this into [their] production process ( ).”
Another factor hindering increased production is climate change. Agriculture accounts for at least 20% of total greenhouse gases emissions ( ). Climate change and agriculture are interrelated processes. That is, climate change affects agriculture and agricultural emissions aggravate climate change. This is because food production is the single largest contributor of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emission on the planet. Scientists estimate climate change may reduce crop yields by 2% per decade over the next 100 years, with developing nations to be the worst affected. This issue must be addressed through sustainable or reduced meat production, halting deforestation and employing higher-yield farming techniques instead.
Poor small farmers, and already food-insecure areas will be the worst affected in areas such as Africa were drought has caused mass devastation, and Asia where flooding and cyclones have ruined crops. In order to prevent mass starvation, extreme-weather resistant genetically engineered crops must be used.
“Today, agriculture often makes negative rather than positive contributions to some aspects of environmental quality. For example, nutrient runoff from agriculture (nitrogen mostly from fertilizer use on cropland; phosphorus mostly from animal manure on pastures and rangeland 58 ) is thought to be a cause of the oxygen-free “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico (Denison 28 ).”
Genetically modified crops have already seen tremendous increases in agricultural output following the Green Revolution. Because of this, global grain supplies are at record low prices and GMO crops have increased yield for 20 years. Higher yield without agricultural expansion is a strategy essential to preserving the natural ecosystem according to Darwinian Agriculture.
“Nevertheless, it is clear that natural ecosystems do provide major benefits to humans. Forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thereby reducing global warming with all of its risks (spread of malaria mosquitoes out of the tropics, flooding of coastal cities from melting polar ice, and so on). Both forests and wetlands purify water, benefiting fisheries as well as drinking water.
Affordability is another component of current mass starvation facing developing nations. Developing countries will be the fastest growing nations in the coming decade with sub-Saharan Africa’s population growing the fastest (!14%), while East Asia’s the slowest (13%) ( ).
Production in developing countries will need to double. Annual grain production would have to increase by one billion tonnes, meat by over 200 million tonnes. Furthermore, areable land available is scarce and “suffers from constraints (chemical, physicial, endemic diseases, lack of infrastructure) ( ).”
Water scarcity in many countries also questions the effectiveness of a genetically-engineered-only strategy. As occurred during the Green Revolution, poor farmers did not have the resources to continuously irrigate and tend to GMO seeds as was required for higher yield. These GMO seeds required higher amounts of water and fossil-fuel based chemicals such as herbicide.
Per the USDA, the implementation of genetically modified crops by farmers “has increased herbicide use over the past 9 years in the U.S.” Glyphosate for one, is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Round Up.
Genetically engineered crops date back to the mid-20th century. Curry best described the process of genetic and breeding involved modern food and grain creation.
“It took until the 1960s for one variety of the hybrid grain, called triticale (referring to the genus names for wheat and rye, Triticum and Secale ), to finally enter commercial production. Unfortunately, the earliest varieties of triticale had many traits that rendered them unsuitable to both growers and consumers. Another decade of breeding efforts resulted in improved lines of triticale and interest in the crop resurged in the 1980s. Triticale nonetheless did not become a global economic crop as breeders had once envisioned (Curry 113).“
These developing countries spend 60-80% of their income food. While Americans spend 10%. Moreover, U.S. food insecurity rates decreased in 2015 to 12.7% from 14.0%. If massive increases in agricultural yield are not achieved, matched by massive decreases in the use of water and fossil fuels, a billion or more people may face starvation.
Works Cited
Allen, Mark W., and Terry L. Jones. Violence and Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers. Routledge, 2016.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Green Revolution.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 12 Mar. 2009, www.britannica.com/event/green-revolution.
Curry, Helen Anne. Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America. The University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Denison, R. Ford. Darwinian Agriculture: How Understanding Evolution Can Improve Agriculture. Lightning Source UK Ltd., 2017.
Foley, Jonathan. “A Five-Step Plan to Feed the World.” Feeding 9 Billion – National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/
Global Agriculture towards 2050. fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/Issues_papers/HLEF2050_Global_Agriculture.pdf
Hoffman, Beth. “GMO Crops Mean More Herbicide, Not Less.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 2 July 2013, www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crops-mean-more-herbicide-not-less/#300ec7713cd5.
Rintoul, Jesse. “Farming for the Future: 5 Reasons Why the Netherlands Is the 2nd Largest Food Exporter in the World – DutchReview.” DutchReview, 1 Mar. 2019, dutchreview.com/news/innovation/how-the-netherlands-remains-second-largest-agriculture-exporter-in-the-world/. Spary, Emma C. Feeding France: New Sciences of Food, 1760-1815.
