Research into farming technologies will reap rewards, conference told

Climate change is a major challenge facing global food production over the coming decades, according to Juergen Voegele, Director of Agricultural Global Practice at the World Bank in Washington.

Addressing the Agricultural Science Association annual conference in Naas, Co Kildare, yesterday, Dr Voegele said the approach to climate change globally is fragmented.

“Global food production must continue to increase to meet the ever-increasing consumer demand,” said Dr Voegele.

“But if we continue with a ‘business as usual’ strategy, agriculture will account for 70% of global carbon emissions by 2050, compared to 25% at present. This is a devastating prospect.

“We need a future model of food security that enables production systems to be carbon neutral. Grassland-based systems, such as those in Ireland, have a much better opportunity to reduce emissions and even become carbon positive.”

Dr Voegele said a key part of a new strategy on mitigating climate change is the need to give credit for the role of grassland as a carbon sink.

He said there is a good prospect of such a change in global climate change policy taking place.

On global food prospects, he said rising population and growth in the global middle class population point to higher prices.

World food demand is likely to be 70% higher in 2050 than it is today. However, he warned there will be volatility and shocks to the system and this will discourage farmers from investing.

“Over the past 15 years, extreme weather conditions in different parts of the world have reduced global food production by around 3%,” said Dr Voegele. “There is now less than 10 weeks supply of food in stock on the planet.

“We have added 300m people, the equivalent to the population of Europe, to the global middle classes over the past two decades. This trend will continue and will be a key driver of increased food demand”

Julian Little, communications and government affairs manager with Bayer CropScience, said the amount of food produced globally is only just keeping pace with the number of mouths to feed.

He predicted that food prices will increase over the coming years and said EU countries that are prepared to take steps to encourage research into new farming technologies will benefit greatly from the opportunities that arise.

“A decision to encourage research into new farming technologies would be to the benefit of farmers and the food industry and would further enhance Ireland’s competitive position in food production,” he said.