- Food security requires ecosystem restoration.
- Food production must account for its environmental costs.
- Managing rising food demand will be essential to sustainable food systems.
Addressing the industry during his keynote speech at the Asia Pacific Agri Food Summit in Singapore on 27 October, Verghese said the world faces the challenge of producing 56% more food by 2050.
If current trends persist, global crop yields could fall by as much as 35% over the next two decades, he said.
However, while improving yield is important, Verghese said that the sector can no longer pursue production growth at the expense of natural ecosystems.
“We can produce all the food we need, and we have, over the course of history, always met the challenge of producing the food that we need. But in that bargain, we have always destroyed many aspects of the planet.”
Restoring nature
A healthy ecosystem forms the foundation of food production, and Verghese stressed that biodiversity underpins agricultural productivity.
Drawing on the company’s almond operations, Verghese referred to Olam’s investment in around 4.81 billion bees annually.
“We spend between 13 and 17 million dollars a year buying bees. These bees are tiny, fragile, finicky creatures… The cost of developing a hectare of almond orchards incurs significant capital cost, and that entire capital investment is dependent on the whims of this tiny creature.”
Verghese added that large-scale ecosystem restoration must become a central component of future food security strategies.
To have any realistic chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, he said, we would need to restore peatlands and degraded land in addition to reducing emissions.
“We have to restore another 580 million hectares of land if we want to have any chance of getting to limiting global warming to under 1.5 degrees.”
‘Nature’s invoices are real’
Verghese also challenged the food sector to better account for the environmental costs associated with food production.
Many of the impacts linked to agriculture, including greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss and water use, are treated as externalities rather than incorporated into the true cost of production, he said.
“Just because nature’s back office is not set up for issuing invoices doesn’t mean those costs don’t exist. Those costs are real; they exist.”
He argued that current systems frequently allow businesses and consumers to enjoy the benefits of food production while society absorbs the environmental costs.
“It is socialising our losses and privatising our profits.”
The issue is particularly relevant as global demand for meat continues to rise.
“We consumed 45 million tonnes of meat in 1970. Last year, we consumed 375 million tonnes of meat, and in 2050, we expect to consume about 500 million tonnes.”
Verghese noted that producing one kilogramme of poultry requires roughly two kilogrammes of feed grain, while pork requires four kilogrammes and beef eight kilogrammes.
He acknowledged that encouraging people to reduce meat consumption or accept higher prices would be difficult but stressed the urgency of managing demand for meat.
“We will not solve this problem unless we can manage the demand for food... We cannot say it’s not possible to manage demand. If you cannot manage demand, you cannot solve for this problem sustainably and holistically over the long term .”
Innovation for sustainable production
Despite the scale of the challenge, Verghese believes that there are opportunities to improve productivity, such as narrowing yield gaps.
He highlighted the major gaps in corn production to illustrate his point.
“Ireland produces 11.5 tonnes of corn per hectare. The global average is six tonnes. Between the highest and the global average, there is a difference of 92%. Between the highest and the lowest, there is a difference of 450%. The basic challenge for all of us is how we close that yield gap.”
Closing those gaps would require investment in research, technology and new farming systems.
“We have a huge investment gap in terms of the quantum of investment that we need to finance the next wave of productivity breakthroughs,” Verghese said.
Verghese also highlighted aquaculture as one of the most promising opportunities to meet future protein demand without placing the same pressure on land resources as traditional livestock systems.
“Fish protein is the most sustainable and cheapest form of protein… We have dramatically grown fish production but there’s still a lot of scope to grow aquaculture.”
