Feeding the Future World Food production has always been one of the main things humans have prioritized and for good reason. Without food production we would still be a bunch of hunter gatherers fighting each other for the next kill and having to move on as we depleted the supply of animals and plants in a region. One could actually say discovering how to grow plants and domesticate animals made us what we are today. As the world population grows, so does the need for more efficient ways to supply them with food. It is not an easy task to do and there have been all different ideas put forth. Some of the ideas would mean we would have to change our ideas on what it edible, other ideas would force us to eat some sort of bland food paste made from things we wouldn’t want to know about. Lucky for us there are some ideas about food production which seem reasonable. A lot of people and many governments believe GMO foods are not foods we should eat. GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism. The US has done things to hide the fact we are eating this stuff, such as not requiring the fact something inside a package or can is genetically modified. Europe has stopped this stuff from being imported and it certainly is hard to blame them. If GMO foods were good for us why would the government not list them in the ingredients as being GMO? This was a ploy to get us fooled into eating this type of stuff. One of the problems with GMO foods is illustrated best by examining the corn crop. The Institute for Responsible Technology or IRT reported that a study of GMO corn revealed health damage and a cover-up. The corn produces its own pesticide called Bacillus thuringiensis or BT which is in the same stalk the corn is grown on. I know I don’t like the idea of something being grown as food which that same plant has a pesticide in it, do you? The institute stated a French Professor indicated the results of a test which was conducted on a GMO crop indicated a toxic reaction. One way to create more food might be by growing it faster and that is just what has happened. Australian researchers demonstrated a method for growing crops much faster. To be exact the crops would grow six times faster meaning we could grow six times as much food in the time it takes us today to grow only one crop. They used their method on different crops and the results were the same. They grew wheat, chickpea, barley in one-sixth the normal time and also grew canola plants four times in a year. The great part about this is the food was grown in an open field and didn’t need hot houses. The method used to do this is called speed-breeding. The scientists use specially tuned LEDs. These lights use the far-red spectrum and are high intensity. This accelerates photosynthesis. The scientists claim this production can be scaled up for industrial use and is not just limited to small areas. There is more to this, this production method produced results that surprised even the scientists. The result was healthier crops as compared to normal growth. We might just be looking at the future of farming. The British government has predicted climate change is going to be responsible for food riots by 2040. The study came from the Foreign Office and was based on a university study in coordination with Lloyd’s of London. If this report is correct what does it tell us? Well besides the obvious, which is we may not have enough food for everyone, it indicates not only are there going to be too many people to feed, but it also indicates we might try putting some effort into trying to nip climate change in the bud and by doing this avert the problem. This shows us it might be possible with the cooperation of all the countries on earth to slow down or reverse climate change if we all put our minds to it. Making this effort along with using ways to increase crop yields could be the way to end hunger. As countries get wealthier their citizens demand more than just crops, they want meat. One of the breakthroughs in recent time is lab grown meat. The first hamburger cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, $325,000 to be exact, but the price has come down to $11.36. This is still far too much, but it is getting less expensive as time goes by. There are predictions being made we will all be able to buy lab grown meat in the next five years. The plan is to have it taste exactly the same as meat from a slaughtered cow. In 2050 the world is going to need seventy percent more food. This is measured by calories. The reason for this is the population will grow to 9.6 billion people. Our population at the end of 2017 was 7.6 billion people. One idea which was put forth was a very simple and basic one and it was the elimination of food waste. It turns out we waste about one-third of all our food. If we could figure out how not to do this we would have plenty of food for everyone. Food is wasted all along the food chain until it reaches us and we waste more. It is estimated we have 870 million starving people in the world today and we could easily feed them and the future population by just not wasting food. There are plenty of ideas on how to feed the world, but one of the reasons we can’t put these ideas into production everywhere is in some places food is a weapon. Food and water are withheld from some populations in areas of Africa by war lords who want to sway populations. It is such a shame when the basic ingredients of life are withheld from people and they starve and die for some absurd political reason. Maybe changing the way some of us think about life could also be a way to feed everyone. If we had more respect for human life we might try harder to save it, by making sure people get what they need to eat and drink among other things. |
