‘9 Billion Served’ — A Global Discussion Of Food Security

WASHINGTON, DC — Hoping to continue Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug’s tireless efforts to provide farmers with the tools and resources to improve farming techniques, experts from around the world met on Feb.12 to discuss how Borlaug’s legacy could endure and world agriculture could hope to feed a booming population. Five industry experts sat on a panel hosted by CropLife International, Council on Agriculture Science and Technology, and Biotechnology Industry Organization. The event was moderated by Emmy-award winning journalist Frank Sesno, Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University and host and creator of Planet Forward. Along with hundreds of in-person attendees, more than 35,000 people followed the session on Twitter as they tried to answer such questions as:

  • How will we feed 9 billion people in 2050?
  • Will there be enough water for a thirsty world?
  • How can we improve the livelihood of our world’s 2.5 billion farmers?

Audience questions were taken in-person or online via webcast, Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail.

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The panel pinpointed many challenges they expect agriculture to face in 2050. Among them are the expected population increase of another 3 billion people; the lack of roads, rural clinics and schools; the diversion of agricultural output to energy and meat; climate change; potable water; and politics, including budgets and trade tariffs. Additionally, the amount of arable land hasn’t changed in more than 50 years, said Dr. Nina V. Fedoroff, Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and to the Administrator of USAID. She also voiced her support for genetically modified (GM) crops, particularly in regions with high populations and less food. “India is realizing needs to invest more heavily,” she says, pointing out that “political barriers to modern science in agriculture” are preventing that country’s own green revolution.

Dr. Robert Paarlberg, Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, also supports worldwide approval of GM crops. “Biotech in medicine is not stigmatized in Europe,” he says. “Only in ag do regulators clamp down.” He describes the opposition as due to “Not presence of risk, but absence of a direct benefit.” GM food in the EU doesn’t have the benefit that it would in a high population region with food production problems like Africa, says Paarlberg, the author of “Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out Of Africa.”

Dr. Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy School of Government Professor and Director of Science, Technology, Globalization at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, says that Africa needs a land grant and extension system such as that which revolutionized agriculture and rural development in the US. “Africa is not getting access to modern technologies,” Juma says. “Without infrastructure, you go back to subsistence agriculture. People only grow what they can use because they can’t move it. You can’t create processing plants.”

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According to the panel, 70% of Africans live more than a 30 minute walk from an all-weather road. “Farm-to-market roads built all over the country [in the US] were critical,” says Dr. Gale Buchanan, Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) report lead author and former USDA Under-Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. “The land grant concept provided framework for infrastructure,” Buchanan says. “It involved the institute and people, and got to the local farmer level. Extension people went to farms, calibrated machinery, etc.”

“Local isn’t always appropriate, but often is,” says Mark Cantley, former Advisory in the Directorate for Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food, of the Directorate-General for Research of the European Commission, and formerly head of the OECD’s Biotechnology Unit. He says the EU has been “making major strategic policy mistakes. Others can learn from these — the private sector will not give everything needed to improve ag technology.” 

Approval of GM food crops, building infrastructure, and education are just a few of the answers the panel came up with to answer the pertinent questions. When Federoff mentioned the old idiom, “If you give a man a fish, you’ll feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish, you’ll feed him for a lifetime,” Buchanan added his own spin. “If you give a man a fish, he’ll get one meal out of it. If you teach him to fish, he’ll fish until all the fish are gone from the pond. But if you teach him to grow fish sustainably, then you’re okay.”

The discussion has been archived online. For more information on what the world agriculture community needs to do to feed the expected 9 billion people on Earth in the year 2050, click here.

 

 

 

 

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