Part V Increasing global crop production: the new challenges A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible. Welsh proverb 14 Feeding the world – fallacies and realities I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would con- tribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life. Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Famine643 Introduction It is frequently opined in the popular and scienctific media alike that crop production may have serious difficulties in coping with projected increases in the global human population over the next fifty years. It has also become commonplace to hear state- ments, from biotech companies, politicians and even some public sector scientists, that this putative crisis in food production can only be fully resolved by the global deployment of transgenic crops.644 Of course, over the past few centuries, we have repeatedly heard various Malthusian predictions about imminent famine, all of which have proven to be misplaced.645 As we saw in Chapter 4, it was forecasts of future famine that prompted the USDA to begin its programme of worldwide germplasm collections in the late nineteenth century.
The spectre of overpopulation was a recurring theme during the twentieth century, but the most egregious instances of misguided predictions of imminent apocalypse occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At that time, numerous ‘experts’ informed us that global famine was just around the corner.646 In reality, of course, even as they were being uttered, these dire warnings had already been gainsayed by the achievements of the Green Revolution crop breeders such as Norman Borlaug and his colleagues at CIMMYT (see chapter 6). So is there really an imminent food crisis in the twenty-first century, or are these concerns yet another false alarm? 213 214 Part V: Increasing global crop production As we will see below, we currently produce more food per capita than ever before, and more than enough to feed the world for many years to come. It is therefore puzzling and worrying to hear warnings about imminent global starvation from many shades of opinion, including respected scientists.
It is even more troubling to hear powerful and influential political leaders arguing that the best way of addressing the supposed food crisis is to invest massively in agbiotech on a global scale. The ‘saving the world with GM crops’ lobby has already convinced important decision makers, including US presidents Clinton and Bush, of the rectitude of their cru- sade.647 Ironically, this case for an imminent food crisis is rejected by those in anti- GM environmentalist groups. But, is the pro-GM lobby actually correct this time; do we really face a food crisis? In the next two chapters, we will begin by examining the reality of the food supply situation in the light of population growth over the next 40–50 years. We will seek to address the following questions.
What is the most likely magnitude of the expected population growth? How will the extra people be fed? What are the prospects for increasing crop production to cover increased food demand? And, finally, are transgenic varieties really required as part of a sustainable global crop improvement programme? The case for a global food crisis by 2050 is based on three premises, one of which is sound while the other two are decidedly suspect, as we will now discuss. The first premise is that human populations will rise appreciably over the next half century. This premise is based on well-characterised population trends. There is widespread agreement among demographers that the world population will increase, possibly by as much as 50%, by 2050.
The second premise is that we are now growing food on virtually all of the potentially arable land around the world. However, we will see that recent evidence on land availability, from South America and elsewhere, seems to contradict this almost universally held assumption. The third premise is that conventional, non-transgenic, breeding techniques have been exploited almost to their limit and that we cannot possibly expect the yield gains of the last fifty years to continue.648 We will see that this argument is based on a narrow analysis of a few of the major commercial crops. It ignores or understates the immense and barely tapped genetic potential of dozens of other staple crops around the world.
Even concerning the major crops, the experienced and respected breeder, Donald Duvick of Pioneer Hi-Bred, has recently stated that ‘yield gains can continue at the same pace for several more decades’ and that ‘conventional plant breeding will continue as the essential foundation’,649 while Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug has argued that the world already has the technology available to feed 10 billion people on a sustainable basis.650 In the rest of this chapter, I will argue that, although we must not allow ourselves to become complacent about population growth, we nevertheless have an amply sufficient capacity in our production, management and 14 Feeding the world – fallacies and realities 215 crop improvement systems to avert a serious food crisis. This conclusion is sup- ported by the most recent findings from respected international bodies.651 For example, in 2004 an FAO report titled World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030, stated that, between now and 2030:. growth in food production will be higher than population growth. By the year 2015/2030 per capita food supplies will have increased and the incidence of undernourishment will have been further reduced in most developing regions.
The world population will be increasingly well- fed by 2030, with 3050 kilocalories (kcal) available per person, compared to 2360 kcal per person per day in the mid-1960s and 2800 kcal today. This change reflects. the rising consumption in many developing countries whose average will be close to 3000 kcal in 2030.652 The projections for food production in this FAO report are based on current breeding technologies and make no assumptions, either for good or ill, about the contribution of transgenic varieties to future food yields. In short, this and other robust evidence from impartial and reliable sources suggests that it is most unlikely that we will face anything resembling the catastrophic mass hunger that has been repeatedly predicted from the time of Malthus until the present day.
With regard to the best way to improve food production, I will argue that the yield gains realised from readily implemented measures, such as better management and infrastructure in developing countries, bringing more land into cultivation, and abolition of per- nicious subsidies and tariffs in industrial countries, will achieve vastly more than even the most optimistic dreams of the proponents of transgenic crops. We will now begin by examining the evidence for population increase and the frequently over- looked role of economic growth in augmenting future food production.653 Population, economic growth and food production Projections of global population growth over the next fifty years are in general agreement in estimating that, while the rate of growth is now slowing down appreciably, there will still be an additional 2.6 billion people by 2050.654 Virtually all of this population growth will take place in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa. The projections are based on current trends that include an increasingly dynamic and productive economic outlook for most of the developing regions that will experience significant population growth. Factors that curtail economic growth will, ironically, lead to much higher rates of population increase, because less well-developed societies tend to have far higher ratios of births per woman.655 Indeed, it is largely the increasing affluence of countries like China and India, due in part to the Green Revolution of the 1970s, that has facilitated the steady decline in global birth rates over the past few decades.
216 Part V: Increasing global crop production For the past fifty years the world has increased its food production at a much faster rate than the population increase. Excess food production has been especially pronounced in industrialised countries, where surpluses have been accentuated by agricultural subsidies from governments. The oversupply of food has been reflected in a steady decline in the prices of edible commodities over the past fifty years. For example, in 1950 palm and soybean oils cost about $2 000 per tonne, whereas current prices are more like $400 per tonne.656 This represents a staggering 80% decline in the value of these internationally traded staples.
Similar declines have occurred in the value of other major crops such as rice and wheat. Higher food production has far outstripped increases in demand, whether due to rising populations or increased affluence. In many parts of Europe and North America, crop surpluses have even contributed to a significant depression in agricultural sectors, leading to the setting aside or abandonment of good arable land for food production. This agricultural overcapacity is one of the resources that can be tapped to increase food production in the future.
Targeting disadvantaged regions In a sense, we already produce enough food to cope with the expected population increase until 2050. This is because, although the world population has increased by 2.2-fold since 1950, food production increased by 3.1-fold over the same period. We now produce 40% more food per capita than in 1950 and most of the world’s population now consumes significantly more food per capita than previously.657 So, even if the world population does increase by 40% in the next few decades, it could still be fed from our current levels of agricultural production, provided that we all reverted to a 1950s-like diet, i. less meat and fat and a lot more plant carbohy- drates.
However, while such a diet might be beneficial for the chronically overfed in industrialised countries, it is unlikely that we will all need to go back to what would undoubtedly be a less-than-universally popular 1950s dietary regime of bread, potatoes and turnips.658 In reality, we have several options for increasing global food supplies in addition to breeding higher yielding crops. Other options that have been overlooked by many in the food debate include expansion of arable land area and improved management of existing crop systems (see below). Although current world agricultural production provides a modest overall surplus of food, for a variety of mainly economic and/or political reasons, this food does not always reach the most disadvantaged groups. Given the political will to distribute them, sufficient food reserves already exist to cope with periodic localised shortages due to events such as drought, disease, flooding or warfare.
Moreover, the FAO predicts that improved agricultural and economic development will cause the number 14 Feeding the world – fallacies and realities 217 of hungry people to fall from 770 million to 440 million by 2030, despite a predicted population increase of well over one billion people during the same period.659 In the past, the region that always seemed to miss out on advances in agriculture was sub- Saharan Africa. According to a series of FAO reports, the number of hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa will not decline appreciably between now and 2030.660 In contrast, as discussed above, the numbers in the rest of the world are predicted to fall sharply over the same period.661 Economic growth and sustainability It is obvious that one of the primary concerns of global agriculture over the coming decades should be to provide sufficient food to sustain increasing human popula- tions. Two other concerns about the ‘mission’ of agriculture are that it should be both economically rewarding for the farmer and sustainable in the long term. The former concern is far from being realised in the present unfree global marketplace, with large government subsidies being paid to certain farmers, most notably in the richer industrialised countries of North America, Europe and Japan.