Redesigning Agriculture to improve efficiency Olivia Cox CPSP

Redesigning Agriculture to improve efficiency Olivia Cox CPSP 218 L Sec. 0201

Why Redesigning Agriculture Is Important: • • Need to feed growing population Lack of land left for farming Water shortages Grain for fuel turns out to cause more harm than good • Protein is being produced inefficiently

Current Issues In Agriculture: Feeding A Growing Population • World pop. = 8 billion. World pop. starving or malnourished = 1 billion (1/8 of the entire pop. !) • Reducing population would reduce demand for food • Consumption of unhealthy amounts of livestock products (esp. in US) • FIX: – Reproductive health care & birth control services

“Eating Well”-Is This What We Are Doing?

Current Issues In Agriculture: Lack Of Land Left For Farming • Lack of land leads to need to increase productivity • Acquisition of vast tracts of farmable land by foreign countries • FIX: – Invest $ in helping low-income countries develop their potential for expanding food production, enabling them to export more grain – Raise land productivity by 1. ) raising irrigation efficiency 2. ) producing largeryielding hybrid strains

Current Issues In Agriculture: Water Shortages • Need for more efficient irrigation systems • FIX: – Shift from less efficient flood or furrow systems to overhead sprinkelers or drip irrigation – Insitutional shifts—moving the responsibility for managing irrigation systems from govnt agencies to local water users associations

Current Issues In Agriculture: Inefficient Protein Production • 36% of the world grain harvest is used to produce animal protein • World meat consumption increased from 44 million tons in 1950 to 260 million tons in 2007 • Cattle: takes roughly 7 kg grain to produce a 1 kg gain in live weight • Pork: over 3 kg grain per kg of weight gain • Poultry: over 2 kg grain per kg weight gain • Herbivorous fish (carp, tilapia, & catfish): less than 2 kg grain per kg weight gain

Current Issues In Agriculture: Grain For Fuel Does More Harm Than Good • The 104 million tons of grain used to produce ethanol in 2009 in the US is the food supply for 340 million people at average world grain consumption levels • FIX: – Could focus on providing better ways of transportation, public trans etc. – Removing incentives for converting food to fuel http: //blogs. princeton. edu/chm 333/f 2006/biomass/ethanol%20 cor nheap. jpg

What We Are Doing! • College of Agriculture & Natural Resources – 5 Ag research extension centers – Center for Agricultural & Natural Resource Policy • http: //www. sustainability. umd. edu/ – National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education: deals with land use

Sources • Asimov, Isaac, Asimov's New Guide to Science, pp. 152– 153, Basic Books, Inc. : 1984. • Bhatia, B. M. (1985) Famines in India: A study in Some Aspects of the Economic History of India, Delhi: Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd. • Brown, Lester R. Plan B 4. 0 Mobilizing to Save Civilization. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. Print. • Central Intelligence Agency. 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2010. <http: //www. cia. gov>. • Country Reports. org. 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2010. <http: //www. countryreports. org/>. • "Green Agriculture. " Farm Industry News. 2010. Web. 5 Mar. 2010. <http: //farmindustrynews. com/greenagriculture/>. • "Land Reform (agricultural economics). " Encylcopedia Britannica. 2010. Web. 7 Mar. 2010. <http: //www. britannica. com/EBchecked/topic/616563/ United-States>. • Lonely Planet. 2010. Web. 7 Mar. 2010. <http: //lonelyplanet. com>. • New World Encyclopedia. 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2010. <http: //www. newworldencyclopedia. org/entry/Info: Main_Page>. • "Research Centers. " Campus Sustainability: Sustaining Our Terrapin Environment. University of Maryland, 2010. Web. 7 Mar. 2010. <http: //www. sustainability. umd. edu/content/curriculum/ research_centers. php>.