This article is discussing the problem of “How to Feed the World in 2050.” There are many problems that go along with this. The world’s population is growing exponentially and it is believed that by the year 2050 the population will consist of 9.1 billion people. When the population gets that high, the overall demand for food will be 70% higher than it is now. In order to satisfy this demand, more land must be cleared for agriculture. Over the past ten years, about 8 million acres have been cleared for agricultural use. But the amount of new land that is cleared for agriculture is a lot higher, because each year some of the existing farmland is lost to degradation and expanding human settlement. The FAO predicts that the amount of farmland will increase by 170 million acres by 2050, but because farmland will be lost in developed countries, the amount of farmland will increase by 300 million acres in developing countries. The expansion of agriculture threatens rainforests which are valuable natural resources that provide things like provision of fresh water, climate regulation, and medicines.
In order to prevent such a huge spread of agricultural land, we will need to take advantage of things like genetically modified crops. There are varieties of crops that are more resistant to salts in the soil. And when these crops are planted not only do they grow well but they remove the salts in the soil so that the lands can be used again for other crops.
--Steve Miller
