West leads fight to beat food shortages

Farmers and scientists are joining forces to avert the threat of world shortages. They will work together under a programme launched by the Wiltshire-based Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, as experts warn the world is just a whisker away from a major food crisis.

Scientists at the Government-funded BBSRC have now convened a top-level meeting of policy-makers, farmers, food manufacturers and retailers to identify the challenges to delivering sustainable food security – and the science required to meet them.

It will result in the council drawing up an initial priority list of the scientific advances which will have to be made if world food production is to keep pace with growing demand.

The initiative is being launched against the background of an inexorably growing population at a time when global harvests are threatened by climate change. Meat production is also increasingly vulnerable to disease, and the global economic downturn is disrupting the flow of trade.

And BBSRC director of research Professor Janet Allen says no one should underestimate how real those threats are. "One serious shock to the global harvest, such as a major failure in Australia or Canada, could create serious food shortages," she said. "We believe that the point has been reached where the threat to global sustainable food security requires action.

"The scientific challenges in ensuring secure harvests and adequate food supplies are considerable but the outcome of our meeting will be a detailed list of how experts in this field believe we should go about tackling them."

Various centres across the country are already carrying out studies into food security and the BBSRC is aiming to coordinate the research.

O ne of the priorities will by grain production. Experts say grain stores across the world must be built up to protect against wild price volatility and speculation – particularly in some poorer countries.

Worryingly, global stores fell to their lowest level since 1948 in 2007, thanks to a poor harvest. Elsewhere plants and animals will be closely studied to see how they offer the potential for food production increases. But this will require the identification of where gains are most readily and sustainably achievable.

National Farmers; Union chief science and regulatory affairs adviser Dr Helen Ferrier praised the Swindon-based BBSRC for taking the initiative.

"We believe it is vital that farming is underpinned by excellent science, and that this can be translated into impact on the ground, to enable the industry to deliver solutions to the challenges of food security," she said.