“The war against hunger is truly mankind’s war of liberation.” John F. Kennedy
This quote from John F. Kennedy, former US President, highlights the importance of providing enough food to the people of the world under the threat of a growing global population and indirectly tells us to prevent it's wastage.
Marten and Glorian wrote an article in HBR (click here) in April 2016 discussing whether planet earth would be able to meet the rising global demand for food. With rising incomes across countries, global consumption of food per capita has increased, especially proteins. The strange question staring at our faces is, will we be able to grow enough food on planet earth by 2050 when global population is expected to cross 10 billion from the present 7.8 billion in 30 years.
Just like many parts of the world are suffering from static or decreasing crop yields, we find there are some regions particularly in the Northern hemisphere like China, Canada and Russia where we have untapped agricultural production potential. These countries are having large crop yield gaps and large barren lands which could be turned around for agriculture, with the potential to increase the global food production.
This quote from John F. Kennedy, former US President, highlights the importance of providing enough food to the people of the world under the threat of a growing global population and indirectly tells us to prevent it's wastage.
Marten and Glorian wrote an article in HBR (click here) in April 2016 discussing whether planet earth would be able to meet the rising global demand for food. With rising incomes across countries, global consumption of food per capita has increased, especially proteins. The strange question staring at our faces is, will we be able to grow enough food on planet earth by 2050 when global population is expected to cross 10 billion from the present 7.8 billion in 30 years.
Crop yield refers to the amount of crops harvested per unit of land cultivated. Are the crop yields in our country increasing at the same rate as the increase in population, this is a major question we need to address with all urgency.
What are the major factors that are impeding the growth in crop yields ? Lets have a basic look at some of the reasons ..
- Climate change related urbanisation
- Climate change related water scarcity
- Rise in global temperatures
- Extreme temperatures leading to extreme events
- Lack of investment from government and private agencies
- Lack of advanced logistics, storage and transportation network
- Lack of innovation to improve farm productivity
- Lack of integration among the players in the agri-supply chain
Just like many parts of the world are suffering from static or decreasing crop yields, we find there are some regions particularly in the Northern hemisphere like China, Canada and Russia where we have untapped agricultural production potential. These countries are having large crop yield gaps and large barren lands which could be turned around for agriculture, with the potential to increase the global food production.
Deforestation-free supply chains look at sustainable modes of supply chains which aim at
- improving the cubic utilisation of present storage warehouses,
- deploying efficient and high capacity transportation modes,
- more orderly and planned distribution channels,
- effective reverse logistics networks
Sustainable Intensification refers to using precision farming tools such as
- GPS based fertiliser dispersion systems
- drone based pesticide dispensation
- environmentally optimised crop rotations
- drip-based and other advanced irrigation systems preventing over stressed utilisation of natural resources.
Investments into agriculture in our budget is way below it's contribution to the national GDP. Improving this investment in agriculture is a sure step to increase the overall impetus on agriculture in the country and be able to ensure food security till the middle of this century.
George
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