According to FAO, by 2050 the world will need 70 percent more food

Feeding the Future World

By Center for Consumer Freedom
Saturday, September 26, 2009

In case you missed it, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced important news yesterday. According to FAO, by 2050 the world will need 70 percent more food (compared to what we produce today) in order to feed an expected population of 9.1 billion. This projection serves as a reminder that in order to feed the growing human race, some agricultural systems are simply more workable than others.

We haven’t seen any Chicken Little reactions (yet), but they could be similar to ones in the past. Doomsday writer Paul Ehrlich wrongly predicted back in the 1970s (in The Population Bomb) that a global famine was forthcoming because the number of people was growing faster than food production. Norman Borlaug later helped prove Ehrlich and other naysayers wrong, through the creation and propagation of genetically modified (GM) food in Third World countries. Borlaug was credited with saving the lives of over 1 billion people through his efforts.

Producing 70 percent more food will inevitably require more advances in biotechnology, along with wider use of existing GM foods. And the global food prescription favored by some ideologically driven foodies, like author Michael Pollan, would take us backward in food production.

According to Pollan, we should eat more “localâ€