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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
www.canwefeedtheworld.org #1billionhungry
