Future of Food
Amidst climate change, a growing population, and people consuming more of less sustainable food, how will we feed our future world? The answer may not be increasing resources–land, water, and employees–but rather improving production efficiency to create more sustainable farming of crops. The key question: How do we increase the amount of food we produce while using the same or fewer resources? The Sustainable Development Roadmap from an Unexpected Superpower: When it comes to scaling agricultural production sustainably, one small country has a very large impact. Bolstered by a national commitment to produce twice the amount of food with half the resources, the Netherlands has become the world’s #2 produce exporter. The close collaboration between the government, science organizations and the food industry have driven impressive innovation and an efficiency that’s unmatched anywhere else in the world. On a normal open-field tomato farm, one could expect 4 kilograms of yield per square meter. In a high-tech greenhouse in the Netherlands, that number shoots up to 80 kilograms of yield per square meter, with 4X less water. That’s a 20X improvement on output! And it’s not just tomatoes–the Dutch are #1 in the world on producing chilis, green peppers, and cucumbers (measured by yield per square mile). With conservation and sustainable food as two of the most important global issues, could other countries copy their approach to help save the earth?
Credit Freethinlk
