Future of food
Global food crisis.
Green revolution.
Organic farming.
Livestock.
Agricultural system.
Global strategy.
Sea water.
Soil.
C4 genes.
Recycle.
Microbes.
Waste less.
Less dairy.
Sustainable future.
Food is now so pervasive that we tend to take it for granted.
This is true for all developed countries.
Eating is the most popular recreation in many of these countries.
One third of the children in US and UK are overweight or clinically obese.
In the UK 44% of males and 33% of women are classified as overweight.
In 1980, only 6% of men and 8% of women were obese in UK.
Food accounted for one third the household income in 1950s.
Now it accounts for 17% only, which has made food very affordable in developed countries.
The situation is different in other countries.
One billion people in the world are chronically under nourished.
180 million children are severely underweight.
In Africa per capita food intake is 20% less than it was in 1960.
This means endemic starvation, and widespread illness.
Climate change is impacting food production.
The demand for food is growing rapidly.
This calls for urgent action.
To provide sufficient calories for 10 billion people, we need to increase food production by 60 to100%.
The scale of this challenge is underestimated.
Oil is closely related to food production.
From fertilisers to logistics, food production is dependent on oil.
If oil prices go up, food prices also go up.
If there is an oil shortage, there will be a food shortage.
Given that oil is limited, we are heading towards a global food crisis.
On the bright side, there are technologies available which could potentially avert the crisis.
Artificial selection of plant species is as old as agriculture itself.
Early farmers selected species on the basis of how well they grew,
their hardiness, and resistance to pests and disease.
Our modern staples, wheat, barley, lentils, rice, maize etc., are descended from their original strains.
Classical plant breeding involves cross breeding of closely related species, to produce a new strain,
which has the beneficial characteristics of both parents.
This new strain is a hybrid of both parents.
The process is called as hybridisation.
Prior to the work of Mendel, hybridisation was an exercise in trial and error.
With no knowledge of genetics, farmers were unable to understand why some characteristics,
would disappear, and appear at some point further down the line.
The mechanism of recessive genes, and many other findings of Mendel,
has given an insight into the nature of trait inheritance.
With this knowledge, we could do deliberate pollination to produce predictable characteristics in hybrids.
These techniques led to a significant increase in crop yields.
This led to the green revolution.
Since then, there is no significant progress in yields.
The technology that offers the greatest potential, is the use of genetically modified organisms, or GM’s.
Currently one third of all food is lost prior to harvest.
This is due to pests, water shortage, and increased salination of fresh water supplies.
Biological engineering is well suited to address these problems.
There are many critics of this technology.
They support organic farming.
They claim that organic produce is healthier, more nutritious, tastier and better for the environment.
Organic farmers do not use synthetic pesticides.
Organic yields is only about 80% of conventional agriculture.
Five billion people now depend on food grown with artificial fertilisers.
If the whole world has to go organic, we can feed only two billion people.
Organic farming requires a much closer relationship with the soil,
and better understanding of the microbes and fungi within it.
By naturally enhancing soil fertility, and increasing biodiversity in land,
organic farming is less dependent on external inputs.
Organic farming uses 34% less energy, and 97% less pesticide.
The meat in our diet is one of the primary sources of green house gases.
Cows and sheep are ruminants, and their digestive system produces a lot of methane.
Methane is a green house gas, which has 20 times more global warming power, and carbon dioxide.
Cows and sheep require 8 kilograms of grain, to produce 1 kg of meat.
Chicken needs 1.6 kg of grain, to produce 1 kg of meat.
The more land we use to feed animals, the less land we have for other purposes.
80% of the fertiliser used in farming globally is for meat production.
Crops absorb only 50% of the fertiliser.
The rest runs off, polluting rivers and oceans.
Meat is not the only reason for rearing cattle.
Many diary products, like milk also require livestock.
Industrial farming involves mechanical innovation, genetic technology, and process improvements.
It produces most of the food that we consume.
Global food production doubled 4 times between 1820 and 1975.
From feeding one billion people in 1820, it feeds more than 7 billion people now.
In the 1930s, 25% of US population worked in agriculture.
Now less than 1.5% do so.
Currently worldwide there are 1 billion cows, 1 billion pigs, and 50 billion chickens.
The biomass of livestock exceeds that of mammals and birds living in the wild.
If we don’t alter our diets, we will require twice this number of livestock,
to feed the increased population.
These livestock would require correspondingly larger amount of grains, to feed them.
Some people feel that we should become strict vegans, to save the environment.
There are some alternatives to this strategy.
Food and energy are inextricably linked.
Food miles is a concept referring to the distance food is transported,
from the point of production to the point of consumption.
It highlights the environmental impact of food distribution on global warming.
The average number of food miles has increased significantly in the past hundred years.
This is due to several factors:
globalisation of trade,
consolidation of food production in fewer, larger regions,
and consumption of processed foods.
The increasing price of oil, will increase the price of food.
We need to overhaul the agricultural system.
A holistic systems approach is required.
We need to develop a global agricultural policy.
There are four important subsystems in the agricultural system.
Land strategy, production and harvesting, processing and distribution, and purchasing and consumption.
We have to maximise efficiencies in all the four subsystems.
Part of the problem of food supply, is that in developed countries,
it is controlled by small number of mega corporations.
They are driven by market forces.
They resist regulation in principle and practice.
Food is another form of energy.
Developing a global strategy, should be the collective responsibility of sovereign governments.
It does not mean nationalisation.
It means the development of an international strategy.
There is a major role for mega corporations.
However, they should operate within a framework towards an achievable goal.
Profit motive should not be the only objective.
They need to operate within the framework of global policy.
Less than 2% of people who work in agriculture, feed the 98%.
However their earnings are much lower than the general population.
This needs to be corrected.
Taking a global view, would allow key decisions to be taken in some areas.
Land use are agronomics is one such area.
Choice of crop species and genotypes is another.
Economic incentives is another area.
Global strategy should be to ensure agriculture produces what the market needs,
rather than what it wants.
There is a great disparity between the yields from farms in the developed world,
and those in the developing world.
Agriculture technology has to reach the developing world also.
There is one company which uses solar power to desalinate water.
This is used for growing vegetables all round the year.
There is no fresh water used for irrigation.
Very little fossil fuels is used.
This is a laudable model.
Traditional agriculture uses 60 to 80% of all fresh water supplies.
It uses 40% of all usable land.
Using technology which does not require, offers exciting opportunities.
The company uses motorised parabolic mirrors.
These track the sun during the hours of insulation.
The heat is stored in a pipe containing a sealed supply of oil.
Sea water is pumped and super heated by the pipes to a temperature of 160 degree centigrade.
The steam is used to drive turbines and produce electricity.
Sea water is then converted to fresh water in a desalination plant.
The advantage of this technology is that it is scaleable.
Soil forms the heart of the agricultural world.
Soil is formed as rocks breakup and are dissolved by micro organisms.
These particles bind with decaying to form the larger particles of soil.
This soil provides nutrients and minerals for plants to feed on.
They facilitate drainage.
The soil is loose enough to allow oxygen to reach the roots.
Soil is a natural resource, vital to life.
It is also extremely fragile.
It can be flushed away by rain or blown away by wind.
It can be degraded by pollutants or salts.
Salts can build up after irrigation water has evaporated.
Much of the soil is sealed up beneath our cities and towns.
As population grows this loss will also grow.
Soil is sensitive to climate change.
In warmer conditions the microbes within it can degrade organic matter much faster.
This releases carbon dioxide and other green house gases.
The best way to look after soil is to allow soil to look after itself.
We need to adapt some of the soil management techniques practiced by organic agriculture.
Current farming removes the natural microbes from the soil, and artificially adds nutrients to it.
Fertiliser, pesticides, and herbicides are dependent on oil.
Sterilising the soil allows a great deal of control, particularly in managing pests.
This is not the most sensible way to do it.
All microbes are not harmful to the plant.
In fact many of them are highly beneficial.
We are only beginning to learn the relationship between soil and micro organisms.
Scientists have shown how fungi dwelling in the soil affected the evolution of plants.
Plants colonised land before they evolved roots.
They gained growth promoting soil phosphorus from the fungi,
in exchange for sugar fixed by the plant through photosynthesis.
The symbiotic relationship between land and fungi,
played a crucial role in the evolution of Earth’s ecosystem.
Fungi and microbes influence a structure and function of host plant communities.
They can be used as a tool to suppress weeds and benefit crop species.
They provide a potential alternative to expensive, and environmental damaging herbicides.
Over several generations of growing in a sterile environment,
plants have become dependent on artificial fertiliser and herbicide.
Ploughing fields is an exercise in pest control.
However it causes problems for the fungi.
To take advantage of fungi, we need to drill rather than til.
The plough might have helped earlier farmers well, but there is no need for it today.
It is much better to use seed drill, which will enhance the soil quality.
This kind of conservative tillage improves soil structure and stability.
There is much debate over genetically modified or GM food.
However GM is absolutely necessary to produce the yields we require.
We should of course recognise that there is an issue with GM,
being the preserve of a few global mega corporations.
This problem has to be addressed independently.
Scientists are working on finding the genes in rice, that are responsible for the regulation,
uptake and storage of vital minerals.
If they succeed they will be able to bolster the nutritional value of the food crop,
of the world’s population.
One of the positive features of GM is that it allows us to take advantage of genes,
being turned off and on by environmental factors.
For example, a genetic pesticide produced by the plant itself,
is activated only by the presence of a pest.
Genes like this can be passed on naturally to closely related species.
Achieving such inherited characteristics is the basis of conventional plant breed.
There is some overactive gene present in some strains of rice,
that makes it resistant to a common herbicide.
A gene artificially inserted into a crop plant to fend off pests can also migrate to weeds,
in a natural environment, and make the weeds stronger.
This will provide us a better understanding of the evolution of weed species.
The potential upside for GM is significant.
Bio-engineering is well placed to address the problems like climate change, drought and flooding.
It can lead to a significant reduction in the use of artificial pesticides and herbicides.
This can be done, that the developing plants that can produce the same on its own.
GM can be applied effectively, to all the major staples:
Maize, corn, rice, wheat, potato, cassava, soya bean, sweet potato, sorghum, yam etc,.
Rice and wheat have a C3 photosynthesising gene, which is less efficient.
C3 photosynthesis is common to 98% of all plants.
Corn, sugarcane and millet have a C4 photosynthesising gene, which is more efficient.
Scientists are optimistic that they will be able to engineer,
the more efficient photosynthesising C4 genes, to the inefficient C3 plants, in about 30 years.
Success in this could increase the yields of C3 crops, like rice and wheat by 50%.
This would give us time to transit, to a stable and sustainable population.
An increase in food output of 50% would herald another green revolution.
It will provide us enough food for meeting the projections for demand upto 2050.
Rice is a staple food for more than 50% of the world’s population.
The production of rice is about 700 million tons per year.
For every extra 1 billion people, an extra 100 million tons of rice needs to be produced.
Without genetic modification this would not be feasible.
We are going to rely on the Haber-Bosch process in the foreseeable future to provide nitrogen.
There is uncertainty over the size of the world’s phosphate reserves.
For small number of countries like, China, USA, Russia, and Morocco have 70% of the market.
Phosphate is the finite resource.
In the long term we need to reprocess and recycle it.
Lentils, peas or beans are legumes.
Including legumes in crop rotation has many benefits.
It reduces the need for external nitrogen input through fertilisers.
Most of the nitrogen benefit of legumes come from plant residue.
The shoots and roots of these plants decompose gradually increasing soil fertility.
Agriculture would be transformed if crops could produce fertiliser as legumes do.
There is a lot of phosphate locked up with the soil.
Most phosphate in the soil is of a chemical form, that is not directly accessible to plants.
A M fungi could provide the means to achieve this.
A M fungi and Rhizobacteria can play a vital role in mineralising the phosphate,
and liberating it for plant growth.
Using human waste as fertiliser is an ancient practice.
It can be done with the benefit of modern sanitary safeguards.
We extract energy from the food we eat, to drive life processes.
In the process food is broken down into smaller molecules.
We need to make use of this valuable resource.
The manure of dairy farming, contains 5 times more phosphate than human waste.
There is enormous potential for recovering this resource.
Sustainability has to be at the centre of all efforts to provide enough food.
We have to broaden the focus beyond individual plants and animals.
We need to understand the complex relationship between species.
In future, our food supply must be able to withstand this challenges of pests and climate change.
Genetic modification or GM is helping us to develop crops that can engineer symbiotic relationship,
that reduce the reliance on fertiliser, pesticides and herbicides.
Certain plants exude chemicals from their roots which attract other organisms.
The environment around the plant’s roots teem with micro organisms.
Simple compounds such as sugar and organic acids are attractive to these micro organisms,
since they are a good source of energy.
Other complex chemicals are not attractants, because they were thought to be toxic.
Some bacteria use these chemical toxins to locate the plant’s roots.
The plant benefits from the presence of these bacteria, because they make important nutrients,
like iron and phosphorus more available.
They help by competing against harmful bacteria around the root system.
The soil around the roots of every plant is full of chemicals that has been released.
Research is ongoing to obtain a molecular blueprint, of the microbial communities,
that are shaped by the root chemicals.
This will help determine the beneficial impacts, these microbes have on plant health.
The oldest root fungus partnership has been found in the first trees from 350 million years ago.
The relationship accelerates mineral alteration.
Over time the evolution of the fungi and the tree accelerated the process,
that drive soil development.
This led to the release of calcium from the continental rocks into the oceans.
This locked up the CO2 in the mineral calcium carbonate.
The formation of calcium carbonate contributes to the regulation of Earth’s carbon dioxide levels,
over time scales of millions of years.
One of the biggest challenges to accurately model the global flow of phosphorus, carbon and nitrogen,
is that, we actually don’t know how much carbon is locked up in the biomass.
At present estimates are based on forest samplings.
Trees are cut down in a small area and measurements are done.
This is extrapolated to the total amount of trees, using photographic evidence, collected from satellites.
Satellites use long wave radar that is sensitive to woody vegetation.
Using this it measures forest biomass.
Biomass addresses a number of scientific, political, economic, and environmental issues.
It provides information on land use change, forest mortality, emissions and carbon dynamics.
As greenhouse gases continue to increase, it is vital to understand where they originate,
and how they disperse.
Satellite use the spectroscopic finger print of green house gases, methane and CO2.
They provide valuable information, on how much of these comes from natural sources,
and how much is the result of human activity.
This can be used to make big longterm improvements in agriculture.
In the USA and UK, 1/3rd of all the food produced is thrown away.
Supermarkets routinely discard food that is not fresh enough, or passed the expiry date.
Food does not always look uniform and good.
The food that does not pass muster in the beauty parade is discarded.
This is in spite of the fact, that it is no less nutritious or tasty.
We need to learn to waste less to have a sustainable life.
In the future the calorie will be equivalent of the unit of currency.
We need to think of food in terms of trading energy.
Let us consider the energy involved in making a cup of tea.
Boiling the kettle requires 40% of the energy.
Growing, processing, packing and transporting the tea and sugar contributes 20%.
Remaining 40% is contributed by milk.
Dairy worked well when the population was less than 100 million people,
but it cannot support a population of 10 billion.
At one time it was an excellent solution of getting more calories from a finite piece of land.
It has since become hard wired into our culture.
This is more a question of taste, rather than cost.
Dairy is a want and not a need.
We need to accept that we are going to pay much more for it, and consume much less dairy.
We need to accept Genetic Modification or GM with increased yields.
It should also require lesser chemicals.
We could match plants to changing environments to address some of the issues,
associated with climate change.
We should look to managing the entire ecosystem more holistically.
This means looking beyond single traits.
In our current approach, plants have lost their connection with the environment.
Soil is a precious natural resource.
There is a limited supply of it, and it needs to be treated with care and respect.
With GM, we can breed strains which have a more symbiotic relationship with soil and micro-organisms.
Our diet needs to change.
We need to eat more vegetables and less meat and dairy.
We need to get more proteins from grains and fungi.
We have to accept the fact that exponential growth is not feasible.
There is a ceiling of 400 years growth of energy use at a modest 2.3% growth per year,
due to thermodynamic effect alone.
But with the current trends, climate change would have put an end to us, before that.
We need to respond urgently to the need of reducing overall consumption for a sustainable future.