Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030 (2019) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 17-36
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. Today's farmers produce food for far more people using less land than in previous generations due to yield gains from advances in plant and animal breeding, mechanization, agricultural chemicals, and irrigation, among other improvements to agricultural production (Clancy et al., 2016)
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This report from the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities identifies grand challenges and "pathways" in meeting food security challenges and recom mends actions to meet global food needs by 2050. Themes include increasing yields while maintaining profitability and environmental sustainability; decreasing food waste; ensuring equitable food systems; and addressing the dual burdens of undernutrition and obesity.
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Grand Challenges (ASAS, 2015) Predicting that increases in efficiency of animal production will need to be greater during the next 40 years in order to meet the increased global demand for animal-based products, the ASAS put out five Grand Challenges in animal science.
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food and agricultural system, this report explores the availability of relatively new scientific tools emerging across all disciplines that could benefit the food and agricultural disciplines. This report identifies the most promising scientific breakthroughs with the potential to have the greatest impact on food and agriculture and that are possible to achieve in the next decade.
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Refrigeration is considered one of the most important historical breakthroughs in agriculture because it reduces food spoilage and waste and it enhances food safety. However, further innovation to reduce and repurpose food waste is needed because the United States wastes approximately $278 billion annually, which is enough to feed nearly 260 million people (Buzby et al., 2014; Bellemare et al., 2017)
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2.5 Changing Consumer Needs Domestically, consumer food preferences are changing. Consumers are more acutely aware of food choices impacting their health and the environment, and large retailers are responding by distinguishing their products in the marketplace and emphasizing values such as sustainability, animal welfare, and treatment of labor in their supply chains.
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Private research and development spending has leveraged the public research and focused on areas of commercially useful technologies that are easy to patent and protect with intellectual property protection and offer greater profit opportunities for investors. Sectors with relatively high private investment in research include food and feed manufacturing, plant systems and crop protection (especially genetically modified crops, agricultural chemicals)
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. The trend of declining public research funding is concerning because it has negative implications for generating foundational research that is critical for science breakthroughs.
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. Food and agricultural research advances will need to integrate innovations to simultaneously address water scarcity, soil health, food waste, pests and diseases, climate variability, and overall system sustainability.
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With decadal surveys being instrumental to fields such as space studies in prioritizing research needs for the next 10 years, the intent is that a study such as this would be useful in informing strategic planning and discussions on food and agricultural research.
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The collective expertise of the committee allowed it to address plants, animals, microbes, food science, food safety, human nutrition, soil, water, climate, ecology, pests, and pathogens, as well as landscape and/or watershed systems, agricultural economics, transdisciplinary fields (sustainability, biodiversity) , and emerging technological applications at the frontiers of agriculture (nanotechnology, biotechnology, remote sensing, data mining, machine learning, modeling, robotics)
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This report is not intended to provide a roadmap to span the entire spectrum of food and agricultural research, but rather to suggest a strategy to capitalize on several key potential science breakthroughs for transformational change. By identifying the most challenging issues in food and agriculture, the committee delineated boundaries for the study and determined that certain areas were outside the scope of consideration for science breakthroughs.
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The most challenging issues were derived from the common nature of important research challenges identified by food and agricultural scientists and reiterated by the committee, and include the following: • increasing nutrient use efficiency in crop production systems; • reducing soil loss and degradation; • mobilizing genetic diversity for crop improvement; • optimizing water use in agriculture; • improving food animal genetics; • developing precision livestock production systems;
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-- The postharvest food sector ensures that raw agricultural products are converted to a safe, nutritious, sustainable, and affordable food supply that is readily available to all. This chapter examines issues related to protecting and enhancing food quality, safety, and appeal while simultaneously reducing food loss and waste.
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public agricultural research. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 93(5)
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2014. The Estimated Amount, Value, and Calories of Postharvest Food Losses at the Retail and Consumer Levels in the United States.
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2015. Redesigning photosynthesis to sustainably meet global food and bioen ergy demand.
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agricultural productivity growth: Dynamic and long-run relationships. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 95(5)
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:e0116430. Available at http:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116430 (accessed June 20, 2018)
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