Growers and farmers have been urged to create a new system of “sustainable intensification” in an attempt to address the findings of the Foresight report.
Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board chief scientist Ian Crute told delegates at the NFU conference that the report - headed by government chief scientific adviser John Beddington and released last month after two years work - that a radical change to global food production is needed.
He expressed fears that developing world markets may evolve into the “wasteful, inefficient” ones of the developed world and said that if producers were knocked off course in attempts to produce more then long-term consequences would be grave.
Crute said: “We have just about kept up with demand for food in the last 50 years and to feed 70 million Britons or nine billion people worldwide by 2050 is possible but if we fail to maintain levels of production or elevate skills and secure the next generation’s knowledge then we will clearly fail in task and the future will not be a happy one.”
More than 400 experts worldwide worked on the Foresight report and Crute called on governments beyond the UK to study its suggestions to increase food production and develop supply chains.
Crute said to achieve sustainably intense production growers would need to improve efficiency, competitiveness, mitigate the effects of climate change and devise environment-friendly means of increasing yields.
NFU deputy president Meurig Raymond welcomed the study’s publication and said: “I do hope this report will gain traction, not just in the UK but across Europe.”
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