Food for the future

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• Friday 30 December 2005
• Lecturers: Prof Sir John Krebs

Fifth lecture in the 2005 Christmas Lecture series 'The truth about food'.

Most of us get enough to eat, but roughly 800million people in the world go hungry every day. The world's population is set to increase from about six billion today to nearly ten billion by 2050. Will more people inevitably go hungry? Is the earth capable of producing enough food for the future? In the 20th century the green revolution produced a lot more food for the world's rapidly expanding population, through a mixture of better crops, more fertilisers and pesticides and more efficient machinery. Is the same solution going to work in the 21st century? What will be the impacts on the environment? Many people rely on fish for their survival, but already the world's oceans are over exploited. What will happen to fish stocks in years to come? In this glimpse of the future, John will ask whether new farming methods such as genetically modified crops will be the solution, or whether we will all have to become vegetarians. Science is also blurring the boundaries between food, medicines and drugs. Will the future bring us the chocolate bar that treats heart disease or the mood-enhancing potato crisp?