The Green Revolution: Lessons for the Future

Borlaug 100 Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico

March 26, 2014

Sir Gordon Conway

The Green Revolution

• Yield ceilings of staple crops increased dramatically

• Especially in well favoured, well irrigated lands

• Production grew faster than population

• The real price of staple foods decreased

Wheat Yields in Mexico, India and Pakistan

FAO. 2010. FAOSTAT

Real Food Prices

Teething Problems

“India had produced so much grain over the next few years that there weren’t enough people to harvest the crop! There weren’t even enough bullock carts to haul the wheat to threshing floors. There weren’t enough jute bags, trucks, rail cars or grain storage facilities. Some towns closed schools temporarily to house the grain.”

The Limitations

• Focused on ‘ideal’ environments

• Heavy reliance on synthetic pesticides and fertilizers

• Not all the poor benefited

• Passed Africa by

Pesticides in rice fields

Brown planthoppers caused $300 million in damage up to

late 1970s

Popular-science.net

www.htysite.com

R.C. Saxena IRRI

Fertiliser Pollution

Widespread 30-60% overuse of nitrogen fertiliser in China

N inputs by main river catchments

Chronic Undernourishment has persisted in Africa

Where we are today: Global Hunger Index (2010)

The Global Crises

Financial Civil Strife

Energy

Environmental Services

Climate Change

Water ‘A Perfect

Storm’

Food security

Challenges to food security

Increasing

and

more volatile

food prices

About 1 billion people are chronically hungry

In Africa 40% of children under 5 are malnourished

We have to increase food production by 70 – 100% by 2050

Demand

Population Growth

Changing Diets

Biofuel Demand

Supply

Rising Fuel and Fertiliser prices

Climate Change

Land and Water Scarcity

Population Growth to 2050

World Africa

Roughly half of the extra people will be in Sub-Saharan Africa

Rise in Meat Consumption

Meat consumption rises with per capita

income

World Bank, 2010. World Development Indicators

FAO, 2009

More meat requires more feed

Changing Climate: Increasing Stress

Length of Growing Period Changes to length of Growing Period to 2050

Source: ILRI, 2006, Mapping climate vulnerability and poverty.

Changing Climate: Extreme Events

Russia • Severe heat wave in 2010 • 30% of grain crops lost to

burning

Pakistan • Worst floods in 80 years • Submerged 14% of cultivated

land

Land and Water Scarcity

• Physical scarcity

• Overuse

• Degradation

• Pollution

• Salinisation

We must produce more with less!

• More food and other agricultural products

• More nutritious foods

• Higher farm incomes

• Greater diversity of production

On the same amount of land or less

With the same amount or less of water

We must Intensify

Wheat Yields

Plateauing Globally?

…and in Europe

Intensification must be Sustainable

• With efficient and prudent use of inputs

• Minimising emissions of Greenhouse Gases

• While increasing natural capital and environmental services

• Reducing environmental impact

• Strengthening resilience

Precision Farming in the UK

Tractor with GPS system

Phosphorus Deficiency

http://www.willingtoncropservices.co.uk/

Precision Farming in Africa

Microdosing in Niger

Wheat and Greenhouse Gases: Gorgan, Iran

GHG Emissions Kg eq-CO2 per ha

Innovation for Sustainable Intensification

• Focuses on multiple benefits

• Engages with multiple partners

• Utilises multiple approaches

• Works at multiple scales

Multiple Approaches

Agro-ecology

Socio-economics

Genetics

Sustainable Ecological Intensification

Use ecological principles to design agricultural practices:

• Agroforestry

• Integrated Pest Management

• Conservation Farming

• Organic Farming

Emphasis on Greater Biodiversity

Agroforestry and Wheat in France

Wheat and Walnuts

Wheat and Poplar

No-till Wheat Production

UK Kazakhstan

Rice-Wheat Systems in Asia

26 mHa

Sustainable Genetic Intensification

Conventional Breeding

Selection

Hybridization

Biotechnology

Tissue Culture

Marker Aided Selection

Recombinant DNA

Developing plants with a combination of traits promoting sustainable yield increases

Rothamsted’s 20:20 Challenge

Increasing wheat productivity to yield 20 tonnes per hectare in 20 years

Gene sequencing in wheat

About 95,000 genes

Wheat Rusts

Drought Tolerant Maize: Chaperone Genes

• Genes from bacterial RNA that

help to repair misfolded RNA

molecules resulting from stress

• Plants rapidly recover

• DroughtGard maize released in

2013

• African field trials in progress

• A Resilience Gene

Nitrogen Fixation

Sustainable Socio-economic Intensification

Strengthening the links between farmers and between farmers and markets

Input Markets

Output Markets

Farmer Associations

Cooperatives

Contract Farms

Outgrowers

Ethiopian Commodity Exchange

Multiple Scales

• Region

• Country

• Landscape

• District

• Community

• Farm

Wheat Landscapes – Sussex c. 1250 BC

Wheat Landscapes – Sussex 2014

Thank You

www.ag4impact.org

t: @ag4Impact

e: g.conway@imperial.ac.uk

www.canwefeedtheworld.org #1billionhungry