Tackling the global food challenge

The fall in Australia’s international standing in agricultural science is reflected the fact that we provided almost none of the 400 scientists asked by the World Bank to report on the challenges facing global agriculture. Only a decade or so ago we were world leaders in this field.

The solutions to this phase of the global food challenge are laid out in the IAASTD report, which Australia has refused to support (along with the US and Canada) because we did not like the claim that GM crops were not the “silver bullet” some insist them to be, especially for poor farmers. We are thus out of step with world scientific opinion about what needs to be done.

The scientific goals of the coming decade are clear, and I have outlined them in a longer paper, “The coming famine”. They include:

• a 200 per cent increase in water use efficiency in all crops;
• a global effort to put organic farming systems on a scientific footing and exploit still-unknown soil biological processes;
• development of low-input farming systems that rely far less on oil-derived fertilisers, chemicals and energy;
• a global effort to recycle all nutrients on-farm, in the food chain and sewage works;
• a massive effort to raise vegetable production and consumption to replace protein and carbohydrate-based foods, using more than 1,000 species of “new” vegetables currently undeveloped in agriculture - this will also address the obesity pandemic;
• large-scale introduction of “green cities” (urban horticulture on buildings) and vegetable protein biosynthesis using recycled sewage nutrients; and
• development of farming systems, especially for the Third World, that protect native vegetation and biodiversity, cleanse water and sequester soil carbon.

These challenges are far from trivial. With its current depleted agricultural science effort and over-commitment to a single technology (GM), Australia is in a position to tackle few, if any of them.

Half a century ago we shouldered similar global responsibilities with great enthusiasm, skill and commitment - but that nation is no longer recognisable in today’s apathetic mob of sybarites.

Just as humanity overcame two previous global food crises with the first agricultural revolution and the Green Revolution, it is now called on to do so again, with the sustainable food revolution. The effort required to launch this is far greater than indicated by the half-hearted response from out-of-touch governments at the recent Rome food summit.

First we must all be aware of - and, if possible, alarmed about - the position. Then, we must act. The issue of declining global food security is far more pressing than even climate change. It is the scientific challenge of the age.