Are there enough acres to feed the world? Maybe, for now.
While the population increases, the amount of land we use to produce crops remains relatively stable, up about 14 percent in my lifetime. The world’s population is about 7.25 billion; in 1960 it was three billion.
The relationship between those two pieces of information has significantly changed and will keep changing as some of the most productive land is lost to urban growth, water shortages and salinity. Meanwhile, more and more of the less-productive land will be cropped.
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In short, food creation is becoming more tenuous while supply and demand curves get closer together.
The free market is sometimes enough to spark greater efficiencies, but this requires global incomes to increase enough to drive demand and then spark technological improvements. With greater supplies come lower prices, which in turn then caps research and adoption.
The Green Revolution has created a five-fold increase in cereal production in developing countries since 1960, bailing the world out of its last population calamity. It was built on a combination of mechanization, agronomic information, fertilizer and genetics.
But now yield increases seem to have plateaued, while the population has not. In fact, that growing population is moving into the higher calorie-consuming middle class.
The next phase in food production gains needs to come from technology and extension agriculture. Small-scale organics might create jobs, but in most cases it won’t create more food.
These are global issues. But here in Western Canada we have a new centre developing these technologies and the methods to scale them for adoption by farmers around the world.
The Global Institute for Food Security has recently opened in Saskatoon and next week more than 300 people from around the planet will be there for a conference dealing with these issues. The Western Producer will host a live stream of a debate chaired by Rex Murphy on technology in food production on the opening day, producer.com/GIFSconf2016.
To find out more about the GIFS, visit gifs.ca.
I look forward to hearing what you think at michael.raine@producer.com or 306-221-8931.
