BBC WORLD NEWS

Food For Thought Will the world be able to feed itself in the coming decades? This new two part series examines the issues With the global population set to rise from 6 to 9 billion within the next half century, and 15% of people already going to bed hungry, will the world be able to feed itself in the coming decades? There are serious doubts that it can. According to a statement from the agricultural ministers of the world’s 16 largest economies “the world faces a permanent food crisis and global instablility”. Food for Thought, a series of two programmes to coincide with World Food Day, explores the developments that stand the best chance of averting the threat. In Pakistan, they use drills and laser technology to boost agricultural efficiency and cut water consumption. In the Philippines, genetic engineering is put at the disposal of poor farmers. In Mozambique the fishermen have got together to negotiate exclusive access to their traditional fishing grounds, kicking out the foreign trawlers. In India, they are developing sorghum as a food crop and as a biofuel. Unlike other biofuel crops that have taken valuable farmland out of food production sorghum can be eaten, with only the residue used to produce fuel. The idea of improving food security for the developing world by seeing agriculture as an integral part of society as a whole, where access to markets, the role of women, and traditional knowledge are just as important as crop yield, forms a common thread to these stories. It’s a concept hotly debated by the interviewees, and is seen as the foundation for the best chance of averting the spectre of permanent food crisis.