Scientist warns on world food needs

SMALL-SCALE, organic farming is not a viable option for meeting the world's rapidly growing world food needs, a leading Irish scientist has warned.

Dr E. P. Cunningham, professor of animal genetics at Trinity College, Dublin, says it is a myth to believe that world food security can best he assured by a return to production methods that are "closer to nature".

Although there is room to substitute knowledge for chemicals in much modern agriculture, he says it is an illusion to think that the yields required can be sustained without using fertilisers, pest and weed control.

"Likewise, the aspiration for a return to family-scale food product ion and self-sufficiency can be fulfilled only by a minority in a world where most of humanity will be urban dwellers."

Prof Cunningham was speaking in Dublin last night after receiving the Boyle Medal for scientific research of exceptional merit from the Royal Dublin Society.

The interaction between science and agriculture was more critical than ever, he said.

"The provisioning of mankind through the next, and probably last, doubling of human population presents the greatest challenge, yet faced by the human race."

He predicted the next generation would live through the greatest period of crisis in the history of the human race.

The world's population was growing by about 80 million a year, but this kind of increase could not go on forever.

The relationship between food production and consumption was changing.

The planet could probably feed a population twice the present level of six billion, but world society was going to live in a more precarious balance with its food supply as more people moved to the cities.

Prof Cunningham said it was an illusion to think that the food surpluses of the West could sustain the growing needs of the developing world.

"Nothing inhibits the development of agricultural production more than the presence of local markets of lower cost, often subsidised, imports.

"The reality is that the doubling of world food production must largely occur in the areas where the doubling of population will take place," he said.