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March 07-09, 2019 | London, UK

International Conference on

Food Safety and Hygiene

Nutrition, Food Science and Technology

Joint Event

Journal of Food Technology and Preservation | Volume 3

allied

academies

The 21

Century Challenge: To feed 10 billion people safely, securely and sustainably

Malcolm Elliott

The Norman Borlaug Institute for Global Food Security, UK

n 1970, when Norman Borlaug, “The Man Who Fed the

World”, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he observed that

“Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and

menace of ‘the population monster’. If the world’s population

continues to increase at the estimated present rate of two per

cent a year it will reach 6.5 billion by the year 2,000 unless

man becomes more realistic about his impending doom”. He

observed that “it is time that the tide of the battle against

hunger was changed for the better - but ebb tide could soon

set in if we become complacent”. The harsh reality of this

warning was recognized in 2008 when the price of wheat and

maize doubled and that of rice tripled, leading to food riots in

twenty countries. The rate of increase of the world’s population

has not been reduced and in October 2011 it reached 7 Billion

of whom some 948 million were chronically malnourished. As

the global population continues to rise, we must confront the

question “how will we feed 10 billion people safely, securely

and sustainably”. We will need to growmore food on less land,

using less water, less labour and fewer agrochemicals while

we confront global climate change and avoid further dramatic

reductions of biodiversity. Norman Borlaug was in no doubt

that the problems could be resolved so long as the whole range

of scientific advances is deployed at the earliest opportunity.

Borlaug was particularly concerned that the campaigns of “anti-

science zealots” are causing the potential benefits of molecular

approaches to crop and animal improvement to be missed.

The regulations that are applied to food safety will be discussed

with emphasis on these issues.

J Food Technol Pres, Volume 3

DOI: 10.4066/2591-796X-C1-006