Humans have innate hunger for high quality diets
technology is key to meeting the growing demand for high quality
food
The US based Centre for Global Food Issues said recently that the efficient use of the existing agricultural land base and new technology is key to meeting the growing demand for high quality food, reports Farmscape.
According to the report, research and education director Alex Avery said that although the expansion of the global population is slowing and will continue to decelerate over the next 50 years, the demand for quality food continues to grow. He maintains that there's an innate human hunger for high quality diets, including meat, milk and eggs.
In the report Avery comments that high yield agriculture has a crucial role to play in delivering that food while conserving land area and wildlife habitat.
"I think it's just idiotic for the United States to try to grow all of it's own sugar, for example, with sugar beets. It's much more landefficient to grow sugar in cane in tropical areas. It's much more efficient to grow dairy products in cool climates than to grow them in India. Trade will help the world increase its resource use efficiency as well as appropriate use of technologies, biotechnology in particular," said Avery.
Avery added that people need to look at the bigger picture and recognise that high yield agricultural production is not an environmental negative.
