21st Century Agriculture
Humanity’s longest struggle has been the ongoing battle, waged with different weapons on different fronts, adequately to feed itself. The British scholar Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) doubted humanity’s chances. Writing in 1798, he concluded that “the period when the number of men surpass their means of subsistence has long since arrived.” The result, Malthus predicted, would [...]
Crops Will Provide 21st-Century Energy
As nations hunt for ways to meet their population’s food needs in the future, the need to identify cleaner energy sources is also urgent. In the future, agriculture will likely meet some portion of energy needs, and various nations are pursuing this potential today.
Elisa Wood specializes in energy issues, and her work is available [...]
Bioenergy: Available, Renewable, Sustainable
Bioenergy is energy derived from recently living organisms.
Bioenergy does not contribute to climate change because the carbon dioxide (CO2) it produces is derived from carbon that existed in the atmosphere in the form of another recently living thing. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, release into the atmosphere greenhouse gases that were previously encased within [...]
Water Sustains All
Centuries of experience and technological development separate today’s farmer from the first people who scraped a crop from the ground thousands of years ago, but one thing these farmers still share — the need for water. Agriculture consumes about 90 percent of the planet’s fresh water, surpassing industrial and domestic uses by far.
Reliable water supplies [...]
Fresh from Farm to Plate
If you’ve ever had soup or milk or juice from a box, then you know the work that won the World Food Prize in 2007. Aseptic (sanitary) food processing technologies allow consumers in developed nations to toss a box of juice in a picnic basket. But these methods also preserve crops, prevent spoilage, and increase [...]
Food for the World
For more than 20 years, the World Food Prize has rewarded individuals from any country who have made great strides in improving the quantity, quality or availability of food for the world.
The prize represents a dream of Dr. Norman Borlaug. Known as the father of the Green Revolution, Borlaug devoted his life to increasing agriculture [...]
The Legacy of Plant Life
The international community is engaged in a concerted effort to safeguard the genetic wealth of the plant kingdom. Seeds and plant samples — hundreds of thousands of different types — are being secured and stored so that they will not be lost to climate change, habitat depletion, or other natural or man-made disasters.
Preserving the discoveries [...]
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