Nature is one of the most prestigious scientific journals in which one can publish. Last week the journal ran four stories on food. This week we will comment on each of those stories.
Part 1 - The Growing Problem
THE FACTS:
1. In 2009, more than 1 billion people on earth were undernourished.
2. The problem is not a lack of food. People are undernourished because they can’t afford to buy enough to eat. The overall availability of calories per person has increased, not decreased over the last 40 years. It is estimated that at least 30% of food goes to waste.
3. Research into making food more available and affordable is lacking. In the future, we will have to continue to grow and raise as much food or more with less use of water, fertilizer, pesticides, and perhaps, petroleum. However, agricultural research only represents 5% of total research and development spending on science.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
1. Treat food as a gift - try your best to never waste food.
2. If you can afford to, donate food to those in need. We should never allow people to go hungry and undernourished.
3. Call, or write a hand-written letter to your representatives asking what sustainable measures they are taking, or research they are supporting, to enable us to feed an estimated 9 billion people by 2050. Tell them that China has already doubled their funding for agricultural research over the past decade.
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