UK Chief scientist calls for 'green' food revolution

Roger Highfield, The Telegraph 5 Jun 08;

A call for a "new and greener" revolution to prevent half of the world's food from being lost before it even reaches the plate has been made by the Prime Minister's chief scientist.

The early Green Revolution refers to the transformation of agriculture that began in the 1940s in the developing world, and led to the spectacular increases in cereal crop yields in developing countries during the 1960s, through better seed quality, pesticides and irrigation.

"We have got to look for something new and different in what I call the new and greener revolution," says Prof John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser, speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival today, sponsored by The Daily Telegraph.

Food yields have not increased for around two decades, while there has been a significant rise in the world's population - expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. As a result, there have been "enormous increases in prices in the last year or so."

But the degree of food wastage is mind boggling. He points out that the world loses around 40 per cent of its key crops due to pest and disease: for maize, the figure is around 30 per cent; 37 per cent in the case of rice; and when it comes to potatoes, the figure is around 40 per cent.

After harvest, another 40 per cent of cereal crops is lost, he adds. In the case of wheat, for example, around 26 per cent never gets to be eaten.

If the world could stop the current crop loses that take place before food reaches the plate, it could double the global food supply in very rough terms. "You could make a major difference, though to be honest I have not calculated it," he says.

Because of greenhouse gas emissions and the climate change agenda, "we have to look for something different in the new revolution," he says. And that uses significantly less water.

By a second revolution he means the prudent use of pesticides, fertilisers and irrigation. The new revolution should also focus on making hardier crops. "There are cunning ways to get around that," he says, referring to how one crop can be planted to help protect another one nearby from pests and weeds.

Agriculture should also focus on new ways to store crops to stop spoilage. "These are the areas where the solutions are," says Prof Beddington.

Regarding genetically altered crops, he says that it is not "a silver bullet" when it comes to crop protection. "It can solve some problems", he says, such as helping plants to be more drought tolerant. But there are alternatives. "Crop improvement is possible using conventional breeding."

Global agriculture is under pressure from many factors - increasing energy prices, a shift to non food crops, climate change, water supply issues and alleviating poverty. By 2030, two thirds of the world will be living in cities, and these urban sprawls will compete with local agriculture for ever scarcer water supplies.

Another factor is the rise of the middle classes, since they leave a much bigger footprint on the planet's resources, as they demand high-value agricultural products and processed food compared with the desperately poor.

The strain is already showing in the food supply, which is at an all time low. Since 2005, world agricultural production has started to lag behind population growth and the resulting rise in demand for energy, and as the middle classes change their diet from pulses and grains to more meat, will put huge pressure on irrigation and agriculture.