The future of our food production
With the world population nearing 9 billion in 2050, what is our option for food? By then we would have to at least increase our production by 60% if we do not want to deal with severe food shortages. This is not only a big technological step, but also a big step on how to preserving our forest and natural habitat for animals.
GMO... Is it THAT scary?
The main vegetables that we are currently producing to get food on our table is corn, wheat and rice. These 3 crops provide the world population for their bread, rice etc. Losing only one of them would prove devastating, so we either need to diversify or just keep them and hope that nothing bad happens in the near future.
Today crops such as corn, cotton and some wheat has been genetically modified to endure harsher conditions. Genetically modified organism is the same as changing some DNA to make the crop adapt to a harsher environment to endure whatever scientist/biologist demands it to do. Although it is still debatable whether this is safe or not, as some news outlet "cough cough fox news cough" has "reported" that this kind of food threatens our natural way of living and producing.
The next big problem with our current agriculture is that it consumes HUGE quantities of water, and as California is experiencing, fresh water is getting more and more sparse so we need more water efficient crop in the future. Just so you know it, 70% of the fresh water gathered is used for agricultural purposes, so it is quite a lot.
One of the research goal of this decade might be to modify a crop so that it can grow with saltwater. You see, water is not the problem but fresh water is. How to do this with crops that we use in everyday life is currently not known, but if we manage to grow wheat/corn/rice with saltwater then we have solved out need for food.
There are of course many ways to fix our food problem, and my two suggestions above are only two of a lot potential solution scientist have though of. One way to sustain the food production is... to maintain the population at 7 billion. Even with our current population, we are struggling to feed people where droughts are heavily affecting the area.
Image credits
"Wheat close-up" by User:Bluemoose - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wheat_close-up.JPG#/media/File:Wheat_close-up.JPG
"Corntassel 7095" by Spedona - en:Image:Corntassel 7095.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Corntassel_7095.jpg#/media/File:Corntassel_7095.jpg
GMO... Is it THAT scary?
 |
| Corn |
Today crops such as corn, cotton and some wheat has been genetically modified to endure harsher conditions. Genetically modified organism is the same as changing some DNA to make the crop adapt to a harsher environment to endure whatever scientist/biologist demands it to do. Although it is still debatable whether this is safe or not, as some news outlet "cough cough fox news cough" has "reported" that this kind of food threatens our natural way of living and producing.
 |
| Wheat |
One of the research goal of this decade might be to modify a crop so that it can grow with saltwater. You see, water is not the problem but fresh water is. How to do this with crops that we use in everyday life is currently not known, but if we manage to grow wheat/corn/rice with saltwater then we have solved out need for food.
There are of course many ways to fix our food problem, and my two suggestions above are only two of a lot potential solution scientist have though of. One way to sustain the food production is... to maintain the population at 7 billion. Even with our current population, we are struggling to feed people where droughts are heavily affecting the area.
Image credits
"Wheat close-up" by User:Bluemoose - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wheat_close-up.JPG#/media/File:Wheat_close-up.JPG
"Corntassel 7095" by Spedona - en:Image:Corntassel 7095.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Corntassel_7095.jpg#/media/File:Corntassel_7095.jpg
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