Food for Thought: A Review of the Role of Energy in Current and Evolving Agriculture

Abstract

World malnutrition is a serious problem. Food security for the poor depends on an adequate supply of food and/or the ability to purchase food. The World Health Organization reports that more than 3.7 billion people worldwide are malnourished because of shortages of calories, protein, several vitamins, iron, and iodine. People can die because of shortages of any one or a combination of these nutrients. In the world today there are more than 6.8 billion humans. Based on current rates of increase, the world population is projected to double to more than 13 billion in about 58 years. At a time when the world population continues to expand at a rate of 1.2% per year, adding more than a quarter million people daily, providing adequate food becomes an increasingly difficult problem. The need to increase and make more rational food production, to conserve natural resources, and to reduce food (crop) losses to pests is critical. Also critical is a need to reduce human population numbers. Cropland, water and energy resources are inadquate to support the current 6.8 billion people on earth.

Keywords:

• conservation
• diet
• ecological agriculture
• energy
• sustainable agriculture
• malnutrition
• natural resources
• nutrients

Acknowledgments

Referee: Albert A. Bartlett, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA.