Jaydev Jana
New Delhi, Nov 27 (UNI) Poverty and hunger share a tragic intertwined relationship, where each condition can both cause and perpetuate the other. Widespread poverty results in chronic and persistent hunger.
The physical expression of continuing the enacted tragedy is the condition of undernutrition which manifests itself among large sections of the poor, particularly women and children.
This condition of undernutrition reduces working capacity and productivity among adults and enhances mortality and morbidity amongst children. Such reduced productivity translates into reduced earning capacity, leading to further poverty; the vicious cycle goes on.
The cruel irony is that despite the impressive increase in food production in the last 50 years, the world grapples with the chronic problem of undernutrition and hunger.
Theoretically there is enough food to feed everybody, but the world’s “margin of safety” has declined substantially. The J-shaped curve of the early rapid growth of agriculture worldwide slows down, reaches its limit, and levels off becoming an S-shaped curve.
According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) the impending global food crisis is being driven by intensifying conflicts, economic volatility, climate change, and reduced humanitarian funding.
Old -fashioned Malthusianism is very much out of fashion. But ecological neo-Malthusianism sees population growth in conjunction with the progressive degradation of food-producing environmental resources as the cause of the impending food crisis.
The current global population is estimated to reach about 9.7 billion by 2050, before peaking at around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s. Hunger has already surged worldwide.
Moreover, those who get to eat are not eating healthy food. As a result, there is now a high prevalence of malnutrition. Nearly every 10th person in the world does not have proper nourishment, as per the UN’s “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” report.
As to the availability of land, the increase of population indicates that the area of land that provided enough food to feed 27 people in 2010 will need to support 43 people in 2050.
On the other hand, owing to the incessant increased emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), especially carbon dioxide (CO2), the Earth has been registering global warming.
One of the worrying consequences of warming is climate change. Highlighting this, Celeste Saulo, the then Secretary-General of World Meteorological Organization, said: “Climate change is the biggest challenge humanity faces.”
A rise in mean temperature of the order of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius will lead to a reduction of wheat crop production. A researcher of the International Rice Research Institute has shown that rice production decreases by 10 per cent for every one degree Celsius rise in night temperature during the dry part of the growing season.
The Green Revolution of the 20th century provided remarkable food security in developing countries by introducing improved cultivars possessing high yield potential and adopting agrotechnological methods entailing generous uses of minerals, fertilizers, pesticides and other practices.
We are now grappling with long-term negative effects of this, environmental chemicalization, water pollution, degradation of soil health, to mention a few.
The grand challenge of future agriculture is to introduce a sustainable “New Green Revolution” to feed the growing population. At this critical juncture we need science more than ever.
Albert Einstein aptly said, “To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks a real advance in science.”
The most important effort in our creative imagination should be the development of resilient plants that can thrive in warm and arid environments as well as making plants that can be more productive.
Electro-farming or electro agriculture is a novel farming method that uses centricity to enhance or replace photosynthesis. At first sight, it may appear like a science fiction food growing strategy.
The method rests on two main approaches: (1) uses of electricity to convert CO2 and water into acetate for plants (allowing growth without sunlight) and (2) electroculture, a traditional gardening method that uses atmospheric electricity that stimulates soil microbes and plant growth.
The aim of the process is to boost efficiency of photosynthesis. Solar photovoltaic cells are laid on top of massive indoor hydroponic farms having genetically-altered crops that are engineered to use acetate.
The method relies on genetically modified plants that eat acetate. To get plants to eat acetate, scientists are exploiting a pathway that allows germinating plants to break down the stored food to seed, which naturally switches off during photosynthesis.
Mushroom, yeast and algae can be grown in this process. Plants will come later down the line. Scientists are trying to turn the pathway back on adult plants and reawaken their native ability to use acetate. It is analogous to lactose intolerance in humans.
As babies, we can digest lactose in milk, but for many people that pathway is turned off when they grow up. There are multiple advantages of the method over that based on conventional photosynthesis.
If US food supply is produced via electro-agriculture, land usage could be decreased by 88 per cent and sustainable decentralized food production and supply could be ensured.
This means potential freeing up of land from deforestation and placing vertical farms in urban environments, reducing the carbon footprint through decreasing the need for distant transportation. Interestingly, electro farming could be set up in deserts and, one day, even in outer space.
Science and technology can significantly help address global food production challenges. But we could hardly afford to ignore the sage advice of Bertrand Russell, “Knowledge is power but it is power for evil just as much as for good.
It follows that, unless men increase in wisdom as much as in knowledge, the increase of knowledge will be an increase of sorrow.” Hence, most experts agree it is not a singular solution. A multi-faced approach incorporating science, policy and behavioral changes are needed for ensuring sustainable food security to all.
(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
In arrangement with The Statesman