Redesigning Agricultureto improve efficiency

Olivia Cox

CPSP218L

Sec. 0201

Why Redesigning Agriculture Is Important:

• Need to feed growing population• Lack of land left for farming• Water shortages• Grain for fuel turns out to cause more

harm than good• Protein is being produced inefficiently

Current Issues In Agriculture:Feeding A Growing Population

• World pop. = 8 billion. World pop. starving or malnourished = 1 billion (1/8 of the entire pop.!)

• Reducing population would reduce demand for food

• Consumption of unhealthy amounts of livestock products (esp. in US)

• FIX:– Reproductive health care & birth control services– US eat lower on food chain

“Eating Well”-Is This What We Are Doing?

Current Issues In Agriculture:Lack Of Land Left For Farming

• Lack of land leads to need to increase productivity

• Acquisition of vast tracts of farmable land by foreign countries

• FIX:– Invest $ in helping low-income countries

develop their potential for expanding food production, enabling them to export more grain

– Raise land productivity by 1.) raising irrigation efficiency 2.) producing larger-yielding hybrid strains

Current Issues In Agriculture:Water Shortages

• Need for more efficient irrigation systems

• FIX:– Shift from less efficient flood or furrow systems to

overhead sprinkelers or drip irrigation– Insitutional shifts—moving the responsibility for

managing irrigation systems from govnt agencies to local water users associations

Current Issues In Agriculture:Inefficient Protein Production• 36% of the world grain harvest is used to

produce animal protein• World meat consumption increased from 44

million tons in 1950 to 260 million tons in 2007• Cattle: takes roughly 7kg grain to produce a

1kg gain in live weight• Pork: over 3kg grain per kg of weight gain• Poultry: over 2kg grain per kg weight gain• Herbivorous fish (carp, tilapia, & catfish): less

than 2kg grain per kg weight gain

• FIX-• Soybeans as a protein source, switching to fish, eating less

meat

Current Issues In Agriculture:Grain For Fuel Does More Harm Than Good

• The 104 million tons of grain used to produce ethanol in 2009 in the US is the food supply for 340 million people at average world grain consumption levels

• FIX:– Could focus on providing better ways of

transportation, public trans etc.– Removing incentives for converting food to

fuel

http://blogs.princeton.edu/chm333/f2006/biomass/ethanol%20cornheap.jpg

What We Are Doing!• College of Agriculture & Natural

Resources– 5 Ag research extension centers– Center for Agricultural & Natural

Resource Policy

• http://www.sustainability.umd.edu/– National Center for Smart Growth

Research and Education: deals with land use

Sources• Asimov, Isaac, Asimov's New Guide to Science, pp. 152–153, Basic Books, Inc. : 1984.

• Bhatia, B.M. (1985) Famines in India: A study in Some Aspects of the Economic History of India, Delhi: Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd.

• Brown, Lester R. Plan B 4.0 Mobilizing to Save Civilization. New York: W. W.      Norton & Company, 2009. Print.

• Central Intelligence Agency. 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2010.

     <http://www.cia.gov>.

• Country Reports.org. 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2010.      <http://www.countryreports.org/>.

• "Green Agriculture." Farm Industry News. 2010. Web. 5 Mar. 2010.      <http://farmindustrynews.com/greenagriculture/>.

• "Land Reform (agricultural economics)." Encylcopedia Britannica. 2010.      Web. 7 Mar. 2010. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/616563/      United-States>.

• Lonely Planet. 2010. Web. 7 Mar. 2010. <http://lonelyplanet.com>.

• New World Encyclopedia. 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2010.      <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Info:Main_Page>.

• "Research Centers." Campus Sustainability: Sustaining Our Terrapin Environment.      University of Maryland, 2010. Web. 7 Mar. 2010.      <http://www.sustainability.umd.edu/content/curriculum/      research_centers.php>.