In an opinion piece in the New Scientist (08/07), Robert Watson, chief scientist at the World Bank, and Beverly Mcintyre, technical adviser for the Agricultural Science and Technology Assessment, write that the demand for food is likely to change dramatically in the near future, reports the World Bank press review Monday.
With global GDP projected to rise by a factor of four by 2050, an increase in wealth will trigger a change in the type and nutritional quality of food that people demand. Couple this with a population that could reach 9 billion by 2050 and the challenges are evident. But addressing the twin challenges of reducing poverty and hunger is not impossible.
In recent decades, a number of countries have successfully achieved it. In most cases they began by boosting agricultural production. This not only feeds people but kick-starts a rural economy that increases income and triggers increased investment and economic growth.
Vietnam, Thailand and China successfully used this model, and watched calorific intake increase and the percentage of people malnourished decrease. The question is how to learn from their experience.
In many developing countries, the demand for increased food production comes at a difficult time. Because of AIDS and other diseases there are fewer people to work the land. Water supplies are dwindling because of demand from other industries and the amount of arable land is falling because of declining soil fertility, urbanization and war.
As a consequence, food production per capita has actually fallen in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
A new assessment will ask how agricultural science and technology has tackled these problems in the past and how it might help in future.
For example, how might it help communities make better use of dwindling water supplies, or increase soil fertility and improve the nutritional quality of food. And how can science combat agricultural pests and diseases, reduce post-harvest losses and improve food safety?
It will also tackle contentious issues such as transgenics and provide a critical evaluation of the environmental and health benefits and risks associated with them. Many problems, however, may be addressed with low-tech solutions.
For example, in many developing countries farmers produce only one ton per hectare in areas where they might be expected to produce 5 to 7 tons. GM crops may increase yield but so too could fertilizers. This would mean creating an infrastructure in which farmers can get the fertilizer they need at affordable prices. Fixing this problem may require better roads not state-of-the-art transgenic technology.
Vital to the success of meeting the challenges facing us will be bringing together all groups who care about reducing hunger and poverty: governments, the private sector, NGOs, food producers and consumers as well as the scientific community.
The agencies sponsoring the assessment are the World Bank, the Food and Agricultural Organization, the United Nations Environment Program, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The idea behind the assessment is to stimulate partnerships, and ensure the development and promotion of technologies accessible to all producers, including women. The assessment will begin later this year and will take three years to complete at a cost of 15 million US dollar.
With the worlds total research budget for agricultural science and technology running to 33 billion US dollar each year, this modest amount will help us determine how to better target investments in agricultural research to more effectively tackle hunger and poverty, Watson and Mcintyre write.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
