Increasing the impact of science and technology to provide more people with healthier and safer food

Abstract

Ensuring adequate food availability to an increasing world population constitutes one of the biggest challenges faced by humankind. Scientific and technological advances in food production during the last century enabled agriculture to cope with the concomitant increase in food demand. For example, cereal yields have more than doubled from a global average of 1.5 metric tons per hectare in the 1960s up to 3.2 metric tons per hectare in 2018. This was made possible by the work in different research fields such as agronomy, engineering, and plant sciences, showing that an inter and multidisciplinary approach is indispensable for significant progress. This manuscript is aimed at generating reflexion and analysis about the challenges that agriculture faces at present to satisfy projected food demands, which implies a further doubling of food production by 2050, according to the latest estimates. Relevant issues related to food production (climate change, pollution of water and soils by pesticides and fertilizers, loss of germplasm and biodiversity) are discussed and potential solutions to achieve food security in quantity and quality are reviewed, mainly from the plant breeding and crop‐production perspectives, always associated with environmental health preservation and improvement. A broad transdisciplinary effort is needed to increase the impact of science and technology to provide more people with healthier and safer food, produced in a sustainable way. Nonetheless, science and technology alone will not succeed to meet those challenges. Education and knowledge transfer strategies are needed to guarantee responsible production and consumption everywhere, therefore allowing the benefits of scientific and technological progress reach the world population. Simultaneously, adequate action by regulatory authorities and governments concerted at international level, with thorough application of the Precautionary Principle, and aiming at environmental and social justice are imperatively required to meet the challenge and achieve the goal.

Vibrational disruption of feeding behaviors of a vector of plant pathogen

“…Extensive soil tilling, particularly in dry environments, such as Mediterranean olive orchards, may affect soil quality negatively, augment the risk of desertification, and reduce habitats sheltering beneficial arthropods, i.e., predators, parasitoids, and pollinators (Bodino et al 2020;Kairis et al 2013;Karamaouna et al 2019;Mesmin et al 2020;Molinatto et al 2020). Pesticides, on the other side, are not often compatible with integrated pest management techniques and have been listed among the main drivers of terrestrial biodiversity decline (Desneux et al 2007;Brühl & Zaller 2019;Chávez-Dulanto et al 2021;Sánchez-Bayo & Wyckhuys 2019). Such decline of biodiversity might ease the spread of a pathogen as X. fastidiosa, which is vectored by generalist insects like P. spumarius, as generalists are predicted to occupy the niches left by species affected by the decline (Civitello et al 2015;Sánchez-Bayo & Wyckhuys 2019).…”

Back to Nature With Fenceless Farms—Technology Opportunities to Reconnect People and Food

“…Successful food security can be considered as a function of energy or nutrient supply per unit time. Technological innovation whether through improved hunting methods or improved farming systems is typically judged against the ability to deliver safe and healthy food security (Chávez-Dulanto et al, 2021). Measures of success for any given innovation might be efficiency of energy or nutrient supply.…”

Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria as a Green Alternative for Sustainable Agriculture

“…Indiscriminate use of agrochemicals led to deterioration of soils' biotic communities, widespread environmental contamination by agrochemical residues, and significant negative impacts on public health [1,2], while combustion of fossil fuels and emissions of greenhouse gases are accelerating global climate changes [3]. Global climate change leads to the generation of abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, and temperature extremes, which directly influence plants and result in decreased productivity.…”