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my name is evan fraser and i work at the university of coffin ontario canada
mostly what i do is to try and understand one of the biggest issues
facing our world over the next fifty years
how can we feed nine billion people
start let's consider two images
the first shows us how much food you could buy for one dollar
on a market in the african nation of zambia
in two thousand and eight
the second shows us how much you could buy on the same market for one dollar
in two thousand and nine
what happened in between was skyrocketing food prices
a crisis for the strong tense
maybe even hundreds of millions into poverty
what's more
the victims haven't suffered quietly
they have rioted
smashed markets
and toppled governments
remember the revolutions that swept the middle east in two thousand eleven
they all began
with people in the street
upset over the price of food
what's more
many of the world's top agricultural experts believe that this is just a tip
of the iceberg
unless we figure out new strategies to deal with global food security
we may be entering a new and dangerous fades of human history
where food
and energy shortages
threatened not only worse poverty
but also civic unrest
and international conflict
there are a number of reasons for this alarm
the first reason is that in most years we produced only just enough food to
cover our uses
in fact
in six of the last eleven years we actually consumed slightly more food
than we produced
and the buffer we take from one year to the next has been steadily
so our system already seems pretty fragile
it's when we look into the future that things grow very dire indeed
rising populations
and are rich diets that take a lot more resources to produce than they used to
are driving our demand for food up
and scientists figure will need
fifty percent more food by twenty fifty
but producing this food is going to be hard
this is because the rising demand is coming precisely at the same time
as high energy prices and climate change
are making food harder
and more expensive to produce
shaking in these grim statistics is a four apart blueprint we need to follow
but since each of these strategies is extremely controversial
each requires careful analysis
the first strategy include science and technology
a major scientific hurdle is to develop technologies that will help farmers
reach their potential in terms of the amount of food they produce
some scientists figure we could easily boost production by fifty percent
just fighter plane currently available technologies
this is especially important in regions like sub-saharan africa
where many farmers only produce about twenty percent of what they could
due to a lack of good quality seeds
fertilizer
and better equipment
but it's not as if we can take the seeds equipment that seem to work on north
american firms
and simply give them away to african farmers
this doesn't work because african soils
cultures and communities
are totally different than in north america or europe
so scientists must partner with farmers
to develop locally appropriate solutions
to local challenges
just using science and technology won't be enough however
and this is where the second strategy comes in
we must do a better job of distributing the food we've got
to develop a strategy we need to consider an uncomfortable truth about
today's food system
if you take all the food on the planet
and divided equally by all the people on the planet
their is plenty
about twenty seven hundred calories per person per day
and seventy five grams of protein per person per day
that's more than enough
but because we feed a lot of our food animals
or true corn into ethanol or simply waste vast amounts
maybe twenty to fifty percent of the world's food is wasted
or because the people who need the food are too poor to afford it
hunger abounds
so we need to establish waste of making sure that less food is wasted
and the food we do have is better distributed
one way of doing this is through ensuring that international aid
organizations
have better access to food stories that can be used as short term food aid
in times of crisis
if we want to avoid hungry future
we need to make sure we keep the healthy population of farms and farmers around
our cities
this means we need to support local food systems which are important because they
stand as a buffer between individual consumers
and problems that might ocr in global markets
even if local food systems do not feed all of us all the time very critical
line of defense against hunger
none of this will be possible without stronger regulation and proactive
government policy
i was confronted with the need for better regulation while on a recent tour
of a feedlot that was license to hold a hundred thousand cows
there i saw a four hundred and ten thousand ton pile of newer
that's the weight of about thirty five thousand elephants
it was a sad reminder of the need for governments to get serious about
promoting more sustainable farming
course
each of these four strategies has its drawbacks
critics of technology and markets argued at new technologies inevitably seemed to
enrich corporations
more than helping humanity or the environment
anti regulation voices argue that all governments ever do is tight farmers in
red tape and stifle innovation
arguments for more equitable food redistribution
causes sometime after about the effects of big brother
forcing us all to read a uniform diet
but most often perhaps is the argument that with the world population poised to
reach nine billion by mid century
there will never be away for modern communities to feed themselves by means
of local
small farms
our cities are simply too big
our demands to great to be able to feed ourselves without relying on extremely
intense farms
but luckily based isn't a lost cause
takes southern africa in nineteen ninety two
that year it suffered the worst drought in a hundred years
purpose ranked by half stockpiles disappeared and seventeen to twenty
million people almost starved
yet apart from in war-torn mozambique there was no real crisis
and the story of how southern africa overcame the drought is a modern parable
for how to feed nine billion humans
it was the famine that wasn't
and the reasons for this
are that africans adopted the four strategies proposed here
before the emergency local plant breeding programs introduced drought
resistant varieties of the crops that small-scale farmers traditionally
cultivate
this meant that people had some food to fall back on when their main crops
failed
famine early warning systems
used up-to-date data and weather forecast to alert officials to the
problems months in advance
meanwhile international donors adopted proactive policies like for giving loans
they also contributed to food storage centers closed abominable communities
and so food prices stayed level
as such
local production systems on which poorer communities depend
bounced back
the key lesson from southern africa in nineteen ninety two
is that while all these criticisms have their points
they aren't universally applicable
and not across the entire complex landscape of the twenty first century
food system
to effectively tackle the challenges of feeding the future
the most sensible approach is to imagine these four types of solutions
as components of a well-balanced investment portfolio
one that's resilient enough to whether economic storms
is still able to provide strong year over year returns
and a secure against fraud
think of new agricultural technologies as similar to high-octane alrighty
stocks they're an important part of a profitable investment strategy
but in over-reliance on them
could cost you your shirt if the market turns against you
likewise local food systems are similar to more modest
rainy day investments
they can't be relied upon to feed everyone all the time
but there are a vital buffer between consumers
and the dangerous wings of the international market
and of course
every sound portfolio includes a cash reserve in case of emergencies
hence the need for more mechanisms to the store and distribute food
in times of crisis
lastly
one of the lessons of the present economic crisis is that left unregulated
financial institutions behave badly
in the same way we need a robust legal framework to restrain agriculture from
destroying the environment
in nineteen ninety-two southern african drew passed without excessive hardship
and the agricultural cycle trundle onwards
historically and always has
one of the few old testament stories to have a happy ending was the tale of
joseph enough
farrow's dream
this story recounts how the pharaoh dreamt that seven fac
cows emerged from the nile
followed by seven th in cows fold them and doubled the fat ones out
if era ended up listening to joseph
a prisoner has dungeons for the correct interpretation
joseph told him that the seven th fact housework good weather reports
signifying seven
years
they would be followed by seven dr years of no rainfall whatsoever
the signature from the famine
joseph it buys the pharaoh to taxes farms store the grain silos
and prepare for the rough times ahead
farah purposes vice the heart and age it was saved
today in stopping the global food crisis may seem like an impossible task
the stakes could not be higher
if we don't change how the world produces and distributes its food
then the suffering and violence of the past few years will be repeated
but a thousand times worse
but luckily today we have climate
and demographic modeling software that are far more reliable
then waiting for god to send a dream to a monarch
these models are quite clear
the years twenty fifty
two-twenty eighty are probably not going to be as productive as the ones between
nineteen fifty in nineteen eighty
but this doesn't necessarily mean disaster
we can avoid this nightmare
and replace it with a vision of a world where no one needs to starve
we have the solutions
all we need now
is the will to act on them
what can you do to help
first go to our website
there's more information about the each of the four strategies
and things you can do to make a difference locally
and internationally
we'll release an in-depth video and associated campaign for each of the four
strategies over the next year
but we need to know which you are most interested in
soco w_w_w_
dot feeding nine billion dot com
and vote on your favorite topic
then share this on twitter and face book
send it to your friends your colleagues your neighbors your families and get
them to do the same
our funding will flow if we have enough demand
and votes
to make the next video
until then
thanks for watching
and good luck
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Video info
VocabularyFeeding Nine Billion Video 1: Introducing Solutions to the Global Food Crisis by Dr. Evan Fraser
my name is evan fraser and i work at the university of coffin ontario canadamostly what i do is to try and understand one of the biggest issuesfacing our world over the next fifty years
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