include stopping waste and increasing trade between countries that have a food surplus and countries that don’ t have enough food. 8“ Nine hundred million people already go hungry and two billion people are malnourished although per-capita food production continues to increase,” they said.“ Seventy per cent of all water is used in agriculture, and growing more food to feed an extra two billion people by 2050 will place greater pressure on water and land.” 9 The report is being released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where 2,500 politicians, UN groups, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries meet to discuss global water supply problems. 10 Competition for water between food production and other uses will increase pressure on essential resources, the scientists said.“ The UN predicts that we must increase food production by 70 % by mid-century. This will put additional pressure on our water resources, which are already stressed, at a time when we also need more water to satisfy global energy demand and to create electricity for the 1.3 billion people who are without it,” said the report. 11 Overeating, malnourishment and waste are all increasing.“ We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future,” said the report’ s editor, Anders Jägerskog.
© Guardian News and Media 2012
First published in The Guardian, 26 / 08 / 12
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