15/09/2006 - The FAO has called for a second Green Revolution to feed the world's growing population while preserving natural resources.
Addressing a meeting of the World Affairs Council of Northern California in San Francisco, FAO director-General Jacques Diouf said that a major international effort was needed to feed the world when the population soars from six to nine billion.
"The new Green Revolution will be less about introducing new, high-performance varieties of wheat or rice, important as they are, and much more about making wiser and more efficient use of the natural resources available to us," he said.
Diouf added that the original Green Revolution of the Fifties and Sixties doubled world food production by bringing the power of science to agriculture, but relied on the lavish use of inputs such as water, fertilizer and pesticides.
The task ahead may well prove harder.
"We not only need to grow an extra one billion tonnes of cereals a year by 2050 - within the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren but do so from a diminishing resource base of land and water in many of the worlds regions, and in an environment increasingly threatened by global warming and climate change," he said.
More
More about Feed the World - Feed the World with Vegafam
No comments:
Post a Comment