Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Aparently it's virtually impossible to feed world and protect environemt

Options
  • 30-01-2014 11:38pm
    #1
    Grudaire
    Registered Users Posts: 3,620 ✭✭✭


    I'm not sure where Simon Covney get's this from, but he has said:

    "We have this virtually impossible challenge of producing 50 per cent more volume in less than two decades while at the same time doing more to protect the sustainability of our environment so that we can pass it on to a new generation"

    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/virtually-impossible-to-feed-world-and-protect-environemt-coveney-1.1674123

    It's definitely a massive challenge but I'm not sure I believe it's such an impossible task - especially with the high levels of wastage.. Has Anyone seen any data/research that backs what he says up?


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    Greensleeves
    Registered Users Posts: 337 ✭✭Greensleeves


    Grudaire wrote: »
    It's definitely a massive challenge but I'm not sure I believe it's such an impossible task - especially with the high levels of wastage.. Has Anyone seen any data/research that backs what he says up?

    According to this report from the UN we don't need more food, we need to stop wasting the food we have.

    Fancy tech will not solve massive land loss, says UN

    We don't need more food, we need to stop wasting the food we have. Failing to do so could mean losing an area of the land the size of Brazil to agriculture by 2050.

    So says a new UN report, Assessing Global Land Use.

    Smart production technologies like GM crops and vertical farms may be important for feeding the world, but first we need to stop wasting a third of the food that we produce. The way to do this is through pest control, better warehousing and less wasteful processing and consumption, says Stefan Bringezu of the Wuppertal Institute in Germany, a lead author of the report.

    Roughly 5 billion hectares of land is used for agriculture. Of that, one-third is used to grow crops and two-thirds for pasture. Meanwhile, cities are expanding at the expense of farmland, and cropland is advancing at the expense of pastures and forests, resulting in a huge loss in biodiversity.

    Full story...

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24955-fancy-tech-will-not-solve-massive-land-loss-says-un.html


  • Options
    #3
    BrenCooney
    Registered Users Posts: 106 ✭✭BrenCooney


    Agree with this completely. It's just huge, and where does most of it go? To landfill! People in this country object to digesters which recover part of the food waste as energy and produce a fabulous nutrient rich soil improver/fertiliser.
    There was a programme a few weeks ago where they looked at the food wastage in the supermarkets in an Irish town in Cork I think. It was really disgusting to see the good food being binned just because it had a perceived imperfection. The wealthier we become the more wasteful we become.
    Also we need to only farm properly the land we have to feed the world, and then some, but then we wouldn't need the GM seeds etc with their patents. Don't have a problem with GM per say, but I do have a problem with the patent regime. I know the firms are looking for a payback on the research carried out which is not cheap and for further research, but!


Advertisement