The food and environment tightrope

摘要

"If world consumption of animal protein rises to 75 percent of North American levels, based on current yield and available land, we will need three or more Earths to produce it", said J. Oliver in the AG Biotech Bulletin in 1998. So, how are thingsgoing to proceed? David J. Farrell of the School of Land and Food at the University of Queensland in Australia, analysed the current agricultural developments, to see if they really are a recipe for disaster. Where do we find the ingredients to feed ourlivestock? was the subject Dr. David J. Farrell covered for the Crawford Fund~* seminar last year in Canberra, Australia. The projections for the future are rather gloomy. It has taken only 12 years to increase the world population from five to six billion people, and the next billion will be here in 2010, and in the next 50 years the population will increase by another 50 percent. The majority of this growth will take place in Asia and Africa. It is also expected that halfway through this century Asiawill represent the major share of the wealth in this world and will be richer than North America and Europe put together. The menus in these countries will have changed from rice and cassava to products such as wheat, meat, dairy produce, fruit and vegetables as a result of increase in incomes. Table 1 illustrates the developments in gross domestic product per capita in some Asian countries.