Rising urban population will put huge pressure on food production: expert

Chennai:

The exploding urban population and climate change will put a huge pressure to increase food production by at least 50 per cent by 2030, according to an expert.

Delivering a lecture on ‘India 2050 – Feeding the 1.6 billion’, organized by Southern India Chamber of commerce and Industry here on Tuesday, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Lancaster University Prof Bill Davies said there is an urgent need to find new genotypes of crops which are drought resistant.

He also said that the yield growth has declined while the population is growing. He said food production in each year is getting less due to global warming while stressing on the need for going for new crop variety.

He said while the effects of expanding constraints on food supplies will be felt by all, the impact will inevitably fall on those countries in the developing world with fewest resources.

He also highlighted water shortage will be a critical factor facing food producers as the world strives to double food production over the next 40 years.

Davies also called for knowledge exchange between scientists, technologists and farmers which will lead to development of new understanding of the complexity of agriculture eco-systems.

SICCI president Jawahar Vadivelu, Lancaster University Management School chairman Prof Paul Devadoss and director of Madras School of Economics K R Shanmugam were present on the occasion.