West must change its food habits so the world can be fed

“The population has trebled over the past 200 years but food production has increased by 600 per cent in that time and the world has continued to feed itself,” Lord Haskins told a Nottingham conference organised by international pig breeding company, JSR Genetics.

Wheat yields had doubled since 1960 during a period when population growth had escalated. This had been achieved by the application of science and technology in the western world which had not been available to 90 per cent of farmers in other parts of the world, he said.

“Farmers in the developed world will have to be given the means of adopting similar technology to help them feed themselves in the future,” said Lord Haskins, who is also a former chairman of Northern Foods.

The West would also have to play its part by reducing food wastage, which accounted for 40 per cent of all food, and changing eating habits.

Africa, India and China were likely to be the economic powerhouses of the future but faced huge challenges in the short term similar to the UK in the 19th century, with the vast movement of population from the countryside to towns and cities.

He said the shortage of food in many parts of the world would not be solved by the adoption of organic farming, and, whether we liked it or not, the growing affluence of developing nations would increase demand for meat as western diets were adopted over the next 20 years.

Land and water would be the limiting factors in increasing food production, but the likely effect of climate change was unknown and, despite popular opinion to the contrary, it could be 100 years before the world runs out of fossil fuels.

He did not rule out the potential for global conflict if the world failed to meet the challenge of increasing food production and suggested that the current uprisings in the Middle East were being triggered by food inflation.

“The UK faced food rationing twice in the last century and it could happen again,” he warned.