An international team of researchers has designed a global plan for sustainable agriculture.
Credit: McGill University
Meanwhile, current agricultural practices are amongst the biggest threats to the global environment. This means that if we don’t develop more sustainable practices, the planet will become even less able to feed its growing population than it is today.
But now a team of researchers from Canada, the U.S., Sweden and Germany has come up with a plan to double the world’s food production while reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature.
By combining information gathered from crop records and satellite images from around the world, they have been able to create new models of agricultural systems and their environmental impacts that are truly global in scope.
McGill geography professor Navin Ramankutty, one of
the team leaders on the study, credits the collaboration between researchers
for achieving such important results.
“Lots of other scholars and
thinkers have proposed solutions to global food and environmental problems. But
they were often fragmented, only looking at one aspect of the problem at one
time. And they often lacked the specifics and numbers to back them up. This is
the first time that such a wide range of data has been brought together under
one common framework, and it has allowed us to see some clear patterns. This
makes it easier to develop some concrete solutions for the problems facing us.”
A five-point plan for feeding the world while
protecting the planet
The researchers recommend:
- Halting
farmland expansion and land clearing for agricultural purposes,
particularly in the tropical rainforest. This can be achieved using
incentives such as payment for ecosystem services, certification and
ecotourism. This change will yield huge environmental benefits without
dramatically cutting into agricultural production or economic well-being.
- Improving
agricultural yields. Many farming regions in Africa, Latin America and
Eastern Europe are not living up to their potential for producing crops –
something known as “yield gaps”. Improved use of existing crop varieties,
better management and improved genetics could increase current food
production nearly by 60 per cent.
- Supplementing
the land more strategically. Current use of water, nutrients and
agricultural chemicals suffers from what the research team calls
“Goldilocks’ Problem”: too much in some places, too little in others,
rarely just right. Strategic reallocation could substantially boost the
benefit we get from precious inputs.
- Shifting
diets. Growing animal feed or biofuels on prime croplands, no matter how
efficiently, is a drain on human food supply. Dedicating croplands to
direct human food production could boost calories produced per person by
nearly 50 per cent. Even shifting nonfood uses such as animal feed or
biofuel production away from prime cropland could make a big difference.
- Reducing waste. One-third of the food produced by farms ends up discarded, spoiled or eaten by pests. Eliminating waste in the path that food takes from farm to mouth could boost food available for consumption another 50 per cent.
The study also outlines approaches to the problem
that would help policy-makers reach informed decisions about the agricultural
choices facing them. “For the first time, we have shown that it is possible to
both feed a hungry world and protect a threatened planet,” said lead author
Jonathan Foley, head of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the
Environment. “It will take serious work. But we can do it.”
The research was funded by NSERC, NASA, NSF
The study Solutions for a Cultivated Planet was
published in Nature. To read an abstract:http://www.nature.com/nature/
Contacts and sources:
Katherine Gombay
McGill University
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment