Tag: food security

Would you like termites with that?

Lauren Hoskin is a recent graduate in microbiology. She is interested in a career in science communication and writes for her own blog, Science Says as well as for the Student Hubs blog. Many problems faced by humans do not have simple answers, especially in the area of food security. How will we feed nine billion people in 2050? How do we make sure food is distributed equally? The list goes on. But there is one solution to the ever-growing problem of meat production which could help to reduce carbon emissions. PROteINSECT, launched in early 2013, is a Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA)-led project which has started to look at the idea of insects as animal feed. Rearing fly larvae on a range of organic waste and using them as a source of cheap and nutritious protein for animals would help to use waste effectively and improve land efficiency….

No single answer – messages from PlantSci

This week I’m lucky enough to be at UK PlantSci 2013 in Dundee – the 2nd conference of the UK Plant Sciences Federation. The conference opened this morning with a keynote talk from Professor Charles Godfray, who spoke very convincingly about the need for food production to become radically more sustainable. At the moment, our food production system is compromising our future capacity to grow food. Professor Godfray, who is Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food at the University of Oxford, explained that we have to address the challenges of feeding 10 billion people in a new way. Not only will we have more people to feed, but also they will be richer. They will expect more varied diets, which require more resources to produce. Population growth and changing diets were a focus of his talk and he believes that these are both important…