Marc Sadler, an advisor to the World Bank on agriculture risk and markets, told an Agrimoney conference that global agriculture needs “transformational change” to meet rising demand for food at the same time there is concern about controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture is a major source of the gases.
At the conference in London, Sadler said food demand was on the rise due to population growth and to increased affluence, which allows people to eat more meat and less grain. Sadler said he expects meat consumption in the world to rise by 75 percent from early this century to 2050. “It takes a large amount of crop-based calories to produce a relatively small amount of meat based calories,” he said.
Farmers traditionally adjust their operations as climate conditions change. Sadler says “the speed of change is going much faster than the ability of farmers to adapt.” There are bound to be regulatory impacts from the concern about climate change and greenhouse gas production, he said, which is why he said transformational change is needed. “It requires technology, a different way of thinking about what it produces,” said Sadler.
Meanwhile, 200 experts in fields from nutrition to animal welfare “are calling on the World Health Organization to take a more serious look at the impact of industrial livestock production on human health and the climate,” said Inside Climate News. In a letter, the group asked WHO “to reduce the size and number of factory farms.”