The Future of Food
The Future of Food
In ancient times, the lack of food limited the growing number of human beings. Humans had to unite into tribes because they had to get the food and against the dangerous threats from nature. The challenges they faced were not only from bad weather but also the threats they faced when they were hunting. In feudal society, although people knew how to use tools to improve their living environment, the fast growth of the population, which was caused by the improvement of productivity, brought new food problems which relate to the food production system. For example, pollution, environmental changes, the developing of technologies, the countries’ economics, population, and other factors caused by human activities produced different food problems.
In today’s world, many animals and plants have become the members in the menus that are on human’s tables. We are growing animals and plants by using high technology because we want to eliminate the threat of death which caused by hunger, Scientists have also changed the DNA that is inside animals and plants to provide higher-quality food. All the things we did are trying to bring us a better life in the future but have humans really solved all of the food problems? Unfortunately, the answer is no; although humans have already solved many food problems when we look around the world, there are some new threats to the survival and continuance of humanity.
According to a report from the Chinese government, “Today, more than one point six billion Chinese who are living in the area that just have 960 million square kilometers of land.” They all need food. People who live in poor and technologically deficient places, such as Africa, have lower economic outputs, which makes it hard to provide enough food. In addition, a large number of heavily polluting enterprises in developing countries pollute the environment, which affects the growing environment of plants and animals. In addition, climate change, various crises, and GMO and grafting techniques that may change the makeup of plants and animals all may produce new food problems in the future.
When we began to think deeply about the future of food, how to solve these food problems and what should be the correct path concerning the future of our foods will become great questions that may be very difficult for human beings to answer. However, before we think deeply, we have many experiences are talk about what should we need to do to take care and develop our food, in our history, and why those seemingly unrelated factors caused these big and important food problems. Just like a guidance, those valued experiences may not only teach us how to avoid possible risks that may happen in the future but also, like a key to open a tool box full of clues, solve the food problems that we already have.
Pollution:
China has 22% of the world’s population but only has 7% of the world’s arable land (McBeath, 2010). From ancient China to modern China, food problems continue to be one of the most important problems affecting many Chinese lives. However, although the Chinese government is trying hard to protect and develop its agriculture, Chinese factories still produce large amounts of pollutants, which lead to serious and terrible air pollution. As we know, not only in China but also many developing countries, we all have those problems.
Today, because of many food security accidents, people are scared of heavy metal pollution, which is the worst type of pollution caused by industrial production (McBeath, 2010). Regarding the food security problem, the relationship between food safety and heavy metal pollution is very easy to understand. Industrial waste, which includes heavy metal material, goes into the soil with the industrial waste water. Plants then grow in those tainted soils, causing poisonous substances to transfer into the plant. Finally, people eat the poisoned plants or eat the animals that ate the poisoned plants. What will happen in the end? Plants are poisoned, animals are poisoned, and, vicariously, humans are poisoned.
The harm of heavy metal pollution is obvious; however, what about air pollution? Today, too little attention is paid to the influence of air quality on crops, but it really is an important effect that may cause the decline of crop production (McBeath, 2010). For example, wheat is sensitive to ozone. So what will happen when pollution damages the ozone layer, just like automobile exhaust caused? Cars, trains, planes, and ships make our lives easier and are beneficial to us, but at the same time, they seriously affect the growth of many crops, and this effect may hurt our children and grandchildren.
Stopping the production of factories or the use of machines is impossible, but we have to do something to protect our fragile nature to avoid serious damage to it. Fortunately, more and more countries have begun to realize the importance of environmental protection for food production. In China, strict government control of waste water discharge has improved the wastewater discharge standard and has played a positive role in controlling land pollution. The strict air quality control policy in U.S. is expected to reduce significantly ozone air pollution, which may reduce the impact on crops. China and the United States are not the only nations trying to fight pollution; many other developed and developing countries are doing similar things. More and more, people believe that in the future, pollution will no longer be a limiting factor in the development of food because humans will find an efficient and effective way to control it.
Environmental change
Environmental problems can produce many different negative effects; these negative effects seriously threaten the survival of mankind. However, until these problems become a well-known threat, people usually do not pay enough attention to them. For example, the public did not care about global warming and soil erosion until they revealed their disastrous consequences.
As we mentioned, the temperature change caused by ozone layer pollution affects the growth of wheat. In fact, when these temperature changes expand the global scope, it becomes global warming, which is a global climate catastrophe. Global warming leads to the shortage of water resources as well as a rise in food prices. At the same time, global warming exacerbates food safety problems and malnutrition (IPPC, 2014). For example, in India, global warming has had serious, negative effects on local agriculture. Indian authorities have to add a solution to global warming as an important part of the policy in the future (IPPC, 2014).
Otherwise, accounts for about 40% of the total population of the world 80 countries and regions are seriously lack of water; the main cause of this problem is the uneven distribution of water resources. We all know that crop growth cannot occur without water; the shortage of water resources will affect crop output. Unfortunately, this problem is exacerbated by global warming in today’s world.
The influence of soil erosion on food production is a long-term process. However, its destructive power is no less than global warming. Why should people care about this issue? Because the negative effects caused by soil erosion are almost irreversible. For thousands of years, there were fertile farmlands and pastures; today, there are deserted deserts and barren, yellow lands (Bu. Chongfeng, 2015).
So what causes soil erosion, and how does soil erosion affect the future of food? Humans are overdraw the world. Soil fertility loss caused by excessive farming, soil and plant loss caused by excessive deforestation, and the resulting weathering erosion are the main effects of soil erosion (Bu. Chongfeng, 2015). Indeed, humans may have achieved their short-term interests, but, in the long run, they lose more. A large number of cultivated land becomes barren, the destruction of the forest leads to the extinction of species, and all of this increases the difficulty when humans try to obtain food. For example, from 2000–2010, there were about 5.2 million hectares of forest area that disappeared every single year (Bu. Chongfeng, 2015). According to the XingLang website, “By 2050, a quarter to half of all species on earth will become extinct or endangered.” If the cultivated land becomes scarce and forests are cleared at the same rate as now, where will we find food?
In China, beginning many years ago, the government began to use sustainable agriculture policies, and the results were positive. Deforestation and cultivation were already prohibited, and a large number of afforestation projects also improved the domestic environment and limited the speed of soil erosion. Western countries are focusing on environmental protection, especially on limiting carbon dioxide emissions, which also affects policies in many countries around the world. These policies help to improve the environment and contribute to the sustainable development of plants and animals. Humans constantly find many new and better solutions; we are gradually saving the fragile earth and also the future of our food.
Technological events
With the development of technology, modern science and technologies are widespread used to raise agricultural labor productivity. People are getting more and more familiar with “Mechanical operations”, “Industrialized farming”, “The Internet agricultural”, “Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology” and other words come from modern agriculture. A complete set of agriculture science and technology make agricultural production technique upgrades from experience to science and increase agricultural productivity substantially.
On the basis of booming phytology, zoology, genetics, physics, chemistry and other science subjects, agricultural technology and science such as breeding, cultivation, feeding, soil improvement and plant protection are developing fast and extensive used. These science and technologies improve the unit output of agricultural products, ameliorate the quality of farm products, reduce labor intensity, reduce energy consumption and improve the ecological environment. First, though factories of microbial, scientists develop a non-green plant and pollution free agriculture. Second, research and development of renewable cellulose, industrial and agricultural waste, liquid waste and waste residue, which built an industry of resources recycling. Third, building single cell industry and developing algae biotechnology. Fourth, human realize the lifelike artificial environment in aquatic products, greenhouses, and fruit farming. Those new technologies broaden agricultural fields.
At the same time, GPS, GIS, CDS, RS, VRT and DSS are used in agriculture, which makes farm operations more standardizing, exquisite, efficient and regulate. In recent years, precision agriculture emerges in developed countries. Precision agriculture is a new agricultural mode that use important agricultural crop parameters and knowledge to optimize producing a system and produce crops in barren soil. Multi-functional agriculture was raised in 1992, which means agriculture not only produce food but also includes other functions such as recreation and sightseeing, ecological protection, and cultural transmission. Nowadays, more and more countries agree to develop multi-functional agriculture. In France, the government put forward Agricultural Command Law to confirm France entered multifunctional agriculture area in 1995.
However, technologies bring not only benefits to agriculture but also controversy. Genetically modified organism (GMO) is the most controversial technology among them. Scientists produce animals or crops by changing their genome; it is a hybrid process. From 1983 when the first transgenic crops appeared to genetically modified tomatoes were approved to come into the market in 1994, genetically modified food are developing in a swift and violent speed and bringing people kinds of new crops. This technic increase crops output, reduce production cost, enhance crops the ability to resist insects and virus, and improve farm products the ability to retain freshness.
Transgene Technology opens a new gate to modern agriculture. Nevertheless, it is not sure that genetically modified organism is harmful to human health or not. Firstly, genetically modified organism maybe is toxic. Many kinds of food biology contain the toxin, if they are mishandled in the process of genetically modified (gm) food processing, they will produce other virulence and bring harm to a human. Secondly, transgenic products are easy to give rise to irritability because they change the expressed protein or lead to gene which change GMO. Thirdly, antibiotics marker gene is another safety problem to human health. At last, people are suspicious of the nutritive value of genetically modified food. Many people think that genetically modified food changed protein composition so that they will not absorb effectively by the human body. As modern transgenic engineering has been not mature enough, no scientist can make sure that what genetic alterations will bring to human life. As a consequence, every country use more strict methods to check genetically modified food than food produced in the traditional way.
Until 2013, the substantial equivalence principle is widely adopted on the international to evaluate their safety. Many countries created laws to stipulate the production of transgenic food. For example, America has built a sound standard to control not only researches and development of genetically modified, but also its production and export. To unify the standard of safety of the genetically modified food, the international food standards committee has decided to set out an international safety standard of genetically modified food. In China, Ministry of Agriculture formulated Agricultural genetic engineering and safety management measures for its implementation, at the same time Agricultural biological engineering safety committee was built to take charge of examining and approving national agricultural biological genetic engineering. What’s more, in 2014, CCTV's advertising department stated that they would be forbidden if advertisements advocated GM products were healthier or more secure. Transgene Technology has a way to go to prove genetically modified organism is safe or not.
Population
Food and population are in the same competition, which one will be the winner in the future? Make a general survey of hundreds of years, even though world population keeps growing continually, food supply is improving with it. In the last 25 years of the nineteenth century, twenty to twenty-five million people died of famine, and at that time there were only about one billion four hundred million people in the world. After entering the 20th century, the speed of population growth raised fast and after the fifties the annual population growth rate was at about 1.9%. The population increased almost two billion in one hundred years. However, the population died of famine decreased twelve million.
According to the world food production, Malthus’s idea of food production will never catch up with population growth go broke. In the face of the facts, scientists have to agree that the speed of food supply is faster than that of population increase. However, the development of food production is still not stable which caused by inclement weather, and the disequilibrium in food consumption among the world. This kind of disequilibrium exists not only between developed countries and developing countries but also between different wealth classes in a same country. Food Agriculture Organization of United Nations estimated that more than 1 billion population suffered long-term malnutrition in the whole world. Most of them come from developing countries. In addition, rapid population growth has been always a threat to food supply. Now 67 out of 132 developing countries have adopted the policy of bringing the growth of population under control or supporting family planning. China has gained huge achievement in the process, along with other Asian countries. The huge achievement in population control shows that human can increase population with plans. In future, as long as, on the one hand, increasing food output positively and open up new food sources; on the other hand, controlling the unchecked growth of the population. It is possible for human to solve world population and food problem.
However, it is not so easy to solve the problem. Another problem should be concerned the price of food is increasing in a rapid speed. The biggest reason is world population booming growth. Demographers predict that to 2044, the world population will be more than 9 billion. Moreover, global issues such as climatic change and natural disasters bring troubles to food production. Even more serious is oil price fluctuation and mass production of bio-fuel are the roll booster of the food crisis. On the one hand, oil-producing countries are in turmoil, on the other hand, America and European countries are using food to produce ethyl alcohol. In America, 40% corns are used to produce new type fuel and in Europe it is more than 10%. This application makes the price of food increases be another level.
Furthermore, economic crises will happen every few years. After the economic crisis in 2008, developed countries such as America, Europeans, and Japan faced problems of country's economic recession and fiscal sleepy, they had to decrease international aid to developing countries. Developed countries had no idea to realize their promise to supply food aid at that time. Food and Agriculture Organization states that between the years of 2010 to 2030, should developed countries donate 1.2 billion dollars every year to help developing countries, the world food production will increase by 8.5%. Developed countries promised to donate about 200 dollars to help underprivileged countries respond to the food crisis, however until now the donation of that has been much lower than the amount of they promised. What’s worse, developed countries built trade barriers to shock the commodities markets of developing countries. For example, India had been the global agricultural exporter in a long time, but its agriculture growth keeps 3% every year, even many domestic farmers are a lack of food. At the same time, India now becomes a food importing country. In the future, economic crises are inescapable in the whole world. When they are coming, the global grain market stability will be impacted deeply. It is a hidden danger for food production, which will also destroy the stability of population system.
Conclusion
In general, in the future, the development of global food will be affected by the factors of pollution, climate change, technology and population. They are all under the control of a human, only if human draws on advantages and avoids disadvantages, can food production develop in a healthy and continuable way in the future.