African Farmer – Bigstock photos
A solid shift to green technologies in world farming is vital if endemic food crises are to be overcome and production boosted to support the global population, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
And as a first step, governments and international agencies should focus on boosting small-scale agriculture in developing countries with support services like rural roads and sustainable irrigation, a report from the world body argued.
“Food security must now be attained through green technology so as to reduce the use of chemical inputs — fertilizers and pesticides — and to make more efficient use of energy, water and natural resources,” it declared.
The report, the U.N.’s latest World Economic and Social Survey, said a sharp move away from large-scale, intensive systems of agriculture was essential if growing environmental and land degradation was to be halted.
The food crisis of 2007-08 and a price spike this year “have revealed deep structural problems in the global food system and the need to increase resources and innovation in agriculture so as to accelerate food production,” the survey declared.
Food output, it said, would have to increase between 70 and 100 per cent by 2050 to sustain a world population that would have grown by 35 per cent from the present 6.9 billion to around 9 billion by that time.