Solutions for a cultivated planet

Publication review

Feeding the nine billion people anticipated to live on Earth in 2050 without exhausting the Earth's natural resources is possible, provided that we adopt a more sustainable food production approach.

This is the conclusion from a paper just published in Nature by an international team of scientists. The study concludes that we can feed the increasing amount of people on this planet without exhausting the world's resources if we successfully pursue sustainable food production on five key fronts: halt farmland expansion, improve crop production, more strategic use of water and nutrients, reduce food waste and dedicate croplands to direct human food production.

Information

Link to centre authors: Rockström, Johan
Publication info: Jonathan A. Foley, Navin Ramankutty, Kate A. Brauman, Emily S. Cassidy, James S. Gerber, Matt Johnston, Nathaniel D. Mueller, Christine O’Connell, Deepak K. Ray, Paul C. West, Christian Balzer, Elena M. Bennett, Stephen R. Carpenter, Jason Hill, Chad Monfreda, Stephen Polasky, Johan Rockström, John Sheehan, Stefan Siebert, David Tilman & David P. M. Zaks. (2011) Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature10452

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