MANHATTAN, Kan. — To feed a world population projected to exceed 9 billion people by 2050, technology that can enhance food production will be a significant asset.
Dramatically increased food prices around the world in recent years, social unrest over food scarcity in countries like Argentina, Bangladesh, Egypt, Mozambique and many others — combined with a growing world population — are raising the question what will it take to feed the world’s population 40 years from now.
Technology boost
According to Kansas State University agricultural economist Ted Schroeder, technology isn’t a magic wand to make these problems disappear, but it can contribute significantly to increasing food production.
He cited how Iowa’s corn yields sped past Italy’s when Iowa farmers embraced yield-enhancing, genetically modified corn varieties that have been shunned by Italy and much of the European Union.
“It shows so starkly what technology can do to increase food production with the same fixed resource base,” Schroeder said.
“Technology discovery, technology development and technology adoption are huge in terms of food prices, who will produce the food and how we’re going to feed the world.”
Gene mapping
Genetically modifying crops certainly isn’t a new technology, Schroeder said, but advanced abilities for DNA gene mapping — especially in animal populations — is a promising area of development.
“Any technology that increases our ability to understand and predict how an animal or plant is likely to react to a stimulus or environmental factor, or technology that targets managing specific food product attributes produced from crops and livestock, is going to make a substantial difference in providing affordable, high- quality, safe food to the growing base of global consumers,” Schroeder said.
Population growth
One of the biggest challenges to food technologies that could feed a growing population is reduced support for research and development.
Although public research support has declined, Schroeder said private investment, driven by profit incentive, is growing rapidly.
Social policies can’t hamper
“The evidence for how technology development can better feed the world is so dramatic that we’d better make sure we find ways to support that research and that we don’t create unfounded social and political impediments to research and development,” he said.
“If we create political and social barricades to food production technology development, we’ll ultimately not only need a reduced global population growth rate, but we’ll also need a reduced population, period.
“At some point we’ll have exhausted our potential to produce given fixed resources, and food prices will be so high that people will rebel — and not just in poor countries.”
In my opinion, a better way to feed the world is to teach them the technology instead, allowng them the independence of feeding themselves!