Food Security, Agriculture and Policy Making: When Believing is Not Enough

Global population has grown from approximately one billion a hundred years ago to eight billion in 2022. To feed this rapidly expanding population has required sustained technological advances in agricultural production and food storage, transportation and processing. This technological progress is fostered by the application of science and engineering to mechanization, chemistry and genetics. While not everyone is well fed, most are. Feeding the additional two billion people expected by 2050 will require continued technological advances. Some countries, however, are in the process of eschewing the use of modern agricultural technology to return agricultural production to pre-modern methods. They do so at their peril and, in some cases, threaten the food security of their populations. The major mandated changes in production methods also have the potential to create barriers to international trade – again negatively impacting on food security. This paper reports on the results of three such experiments in Sri Lanka, Mexico and the European Union. The conclusion is that policy makers should take more care when making radical changes in agricultural policy pertaining to production methods.