Redesigning Agriculture to improve efficiency

1. Redesigning Agricultureto improve efficiency Olivia Cox CPSP218L Sec. 0201

2. 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

3. 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 • US eat lower on food chain

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

5. 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 larger-yielding hybrid strains

6. 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

7. 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 7kg grain to produce a 1kg gain in live weight • Pork: over 3kg grain per kg of weight gain • Poultry: over 2kg grain per kg weight gain • Herbivorous fish (carp, tilapia, & catfish): less than 2kg grain per kg weight gain • FIX- • Soybeans as a protein source, switching to fish, eating less meat

8. 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/chm333/f2006/biomass/ethanol%20cornheap.jpg

9. 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

10. 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>.