Nutrition Enhancement, Population Drive Need for Increased Yield

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Today, I wanted to share with you a few comments from a Monsanto presentation given this past fall at Farm Progress Show in Illinois, USA. Rob Fraley, Monsanto's chief technology officer, reminded farmers of the statistics we've all been hearing concerning global population and food demand - we have ~7 billion people now and our global population will continue to increase dramatically.

The interesting thing he pointed out was the part of the equation that economists missed - how much world wealth has increased. There are 200 million middle-class consumers in India, 300+ million in China, plus many millions more in the US. As our global middle-class upgrades their diet to include more meat and calories, the demand for nutrition enhancement is as great as the demand from population growth.

Most say grain quantities will have to double over the next 20 to 30 years to meet the food demand of an expected 9 billion people.

Fraley expects a little bit more land will go into production in Brazil and the Black Sea, but when you cut out farmland lost to global urbanization, the amount of land we will have to farm in the future is the same as we have today.

Fraley said the key for Monsanto is to invest in technology that will develop seed with higher yield potential because seed will play a major role in supporting global demand and feeding our rapidly increasing population.