IT'S time for world leaders to see agricultural and food research as defence spending, with fears a massive decline in agricultural research is one of the main drivers of food insecurity.
Professor Julian Cribb, from the University of Technology Sydney, yesterday told delegates at the National Farmers Federation congress in Brisbane that world food supply and demand were precariously balanced.
And he said that despite the growth in factors leading to massive food shortages, the world's research response was severely lacking.
Professor Cribb said the demand for food is forecast to grow by 110 per cent by the middle of this century.
Yet producing enough food for all those people would be hard to achieve because of the reduced availability of land and water to support food production for that booming population.
He said that for the first time in history city demand for water is outpacing farm demand throughout the world, and by 2050 urban demands might exceed the total amount of water currently used in irrigation.
Meanwhile, the world is also currently losing about one per cent of its productive land each year because of degradation and the spread of the world's urban area, which now covers half the area of China or the United States.
By 2050 the world's urban area will be larger than either of those great countries.
Yet despite these factors, international funding for agricultural research has been stagnant in real terms, Professor Cribb said, since the early 1970s – when the population of the world was less than half what it is today.
"In leading agricultural countries, like the US, Germany, Australia, Britain and China, agricultural research is actually shrinking," Professor Cribb said.
"We've actually witnessed here the axing of our own national Land and Water research agency – a national disgrace, I volunteer – and ongoing cuts in CSIRO and in various State agricultural departments means the knowledge you need to farm better and more sustainably is starting to dry up.
"At present we're spending about $30 billion a year on agricultural research (worldwide) to raise the world food supply.
"It is chicken feed compared to the $1.3 trillion that we spend every year on weapons."
Professor Cribb said world leaders have lost sight of the fact that the world's 1.9 billion farmers, fishers and foresters manage two-third's of the world's land area, three-quarters of its water and much of its biodiversity and a third of the atmosphere.
"You are the most important people on the planet," he said.
"It is time we see agriculture and food research as defence spending – despite the climate, the outlook for Australian agriculture and trade over the coming decades is bright, however our greatest opportunity and responsibility is to export our science, technology and skills to a world that desperately needs it."
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