IN THE next 50 years we must produce as much food as has been consumed over our entire human history, says MEGAN CLARKE
For the first time in our history science is making predictions of how our actions will affect the world 50 and 100 years from now.
We all want a prosperous and healthy society, but we face significant challenges in securing our food, water and energy needs in a world of finite resources.
We have pressures on global systems from population growth, rapid urbanisation and climate change.
These national and global challenges are connected.
They cannot be dealt with in isolation.
Our approach to science must change if we are to help inform governments, communities and industry how choices in one area impact on another area.
Particularly in a world where water, carbon and biodiversity will have prices and markets.
You have been saturated with the fact that over the past several decades our climate has been changing.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are now at values not experienced for millions of years.
All nations are connected in this change.
One area that we have to adapt quickly is the production of food.
It is hard for me to comprehend that in the next 50 years we will need to produce as much food as has been consumed over our entire human history.
That means in the working life of my children, more grain than ever produced since the Egyptians, more fish than eaten to date, more milk than from all the cows that have ever been milked on every frosty morning humankind has ever known.
Humans have met this challenge once before.
From 1960 to 2000 world food production doubled through a combination of new technology and investment in agriculture.
But this time two things are different.
Firstly, we will need to achieve this where carbon and water have a price.
We can no longer simply clear more forest and farm even more marginal land.
Secondly, this is happening at a time when we are seeing the greatest migration of our species to urban centres.
We will see profound shifts in the trade and transport of food.
We are already seeing the impact on global seaborne trade of food.
Cereal exports, the highest volume globally traded food commodity, have risen at a rate double that of population growth. Trade volumes of milk, meat and beans have risen at even faster rates.
Australia has a strong interest in global food security.
We produce 93 per cent of all food consumed in Australia, 1 per cent of all food consumed in the world and 3 per cent of the global seaborne trade.
We feed 60 million people.
Increasing global seaborne trade of food presents an opportunity for Australia but Australian agriculture is also highly exposed to climate change: we have significant constraints on irrigation water availability.
Our agriculture is also responsible for 16 per cent of our national greenhouse gas.
Our science has potential for Australia to produce an even greater proportion of the seaborne trade.
We are making exciting scientific developments in new drought-tolerant crop varieties, high-yielding wheat, greater nitrogen use efficiency and improved grain nutrition.
Living in a world where carbon has a value and irrigation water is restricted means new choices and trade-offs.
Many of these trade-offs will be for our policy-makers.
The role of CSIRO is to provide the science and ways to bring about good decision-making.
As we adjust to a world where carbon has a value, adopting a low-carbon pathway will require Australia to look at its land and water resources in a fundamentally different way.
As your national science organisation, our strategy remains to focus on these issues.
We live in a connected world.
Science needs to work on challenges that face all nations to secure a future for humankind.
Only then can we secure a future for Australia.
- Dr Megan Clark is chief executive of CSIRO. This is an edited text of a speech to the National Press Club last week.
