A British government-commissioned study into food security has called for urgent action to avert global hunger, BBC online writes Monday.
“The Foresight Report on Food and Farming Futures” says the current system is unsustainable (ikke kan klare det) and will fail to end hunger unless radically redesigned.
It is the first study across a range of disciplines deemed to have put such fears on a firm analytical footing. The report is the culmination of a two-year study, involving 400 experts from 35 countries.
According to the government’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, the study provides compelling evidence for governments to act now.
The report emphasises changes to farming, to ensure that increasing yields does not come at the expense of sustainability and to provide incentives to the agricultural sector that address (som skal modvirke) malnutrition.
It also recommends that the most resource-intensive types of food are curbed (begrænset) and that waste is minimised in food production.
– We know in the next 20 years the world population will increase to something like 8,3 billion people, he told BBC News.
– We know that urbanisation is going to be a driver and that something of the order of 65-70 per cent of the world’s population will be living in cities at that time.
– We know that the world is getting more prosperous and that the demand for basic commodities – food, water and energy – will be rising as that prosperity increases, increasing at the same time as the population, Beddington said warning:
– We have 20 years to arguably deliver something of the order of 40 per cent more food; 30 per cent more available fresh water and of the order of 50 per cent more energy.
– We can not wait 20 years or 10 years indeed – this is really urgent, he concluded, according to the BBC.
