Preventing Hunger After 2050

One of the most effective ways to deal with the world's looming food crisis is also the simplest to understand: The world needs to stop wasting food. According to the United Nations Food Agency, every year about 2.8 trillion pounds of food (1.3 billion metric tons) is thrown away. That is 400 pounds (about 180 kilos) of food for every adult and child on the planet, over a pound (over 450 grams) of edible food every day.

Hundreds of millions of tons of fruit and vegetables are trashed because of imperfections, insect bites, or irregular size. Hundreds of millions of tons of grain are destroyed by exposure to heat, humidity, bugs, and rats. Hundreds of millions of tons of food spoil neglected in the refrigerator or forgotten on the cupboard. 

Simply stopping waste would seem to be a great way to fight future world hunger. However, even in 2050, food distribution systems are not likely to be perfect, so to ensure future food security, several more changes are possible on a regional, national, or even international level. Here are some possibilities:

• There are still rain forests to be cut down. Bulldoze them and plant crops in fields that will wear out and dry out in 5 to 10 years.

• There are still possibilities for genetically modified organisms. As patents for products like Roundup expire, companies like Monsanto will have to create new genetically modified crops that require newly patented agricultural chemicals anyway. We could hope that chemicals save the day.

• Desalination. Vast new oil and gas fields have been opened up by "fracking" (more properly termed fracing). We could rely on energy-intensive technologies to produce more water for more fields for more crops.

• Soylent. This chemical food substitute contains all the chemical nutrients identified in human nutrition. The chemicals are cheap because they are mostly made from petroleum products.

• Insects. People all over the world have eaten ants, grasshoppers, scorpions, and beetle larvae for thousands of years. They are high in protein, if usually also high in fat, although it's hard to catch enough for a meal.

Or we could just resolve it's too bad, let the 3 billion people yet to arrive on the planet fend for themselves. But to this writer, food conservation in combination with the farmland and agricultural technologies we have now seems like the optimal approach to providing for the next two generations.