Agriculture and Science for the Twenty-First Century

Although there is plenty of food in the world, a lot of it is in the wrong place – most of the food exists only in developed countries (like the United States). In order to feed all the people in the world, farmers have to find more efficient ways of farming.

Farming is hard work. It is also a science. Farmers benefit from the research and discoveries of scientists. Scientists, over the years, have helped farmers by breeding better livestock, improving farming equipment and machinery, creating more effective fertilizers, and crossbreeding crops in order to improve them. Scientists conduct their research in laboratories, factories, universities, and on farms. What is eaten and how farming is done in the future depends largely on science. It also depends on governments in different parts of the world.

Plant breeders are constantly finding new crops developed to suit all types of soil and climate. Research into new varieties of crops is going on all over the world. This type of science is called crossbreeding – two different crops can be combined in order to produce a new type of crop that has characteristics of both the parent crops. This process produces new types of food. It also allows the good traits from two different crops to be combined to form better and much stronger offspring. This can make crops more resistant to hot climates, cold climates, dry climates, poor soils, insects, and many other things.

As advances are made in communication, information, and transportation technologies, their effect has been to “shrink” the globe, making goods and services more readily available to everyone on a worldwide basis. The effects of this also affect food and agriculture. State-of-the-art scientific techniques now exist to study the need for nutrients over the entire human life cycle. Unravelling the human genome may spur the development methods to identify the nutritional needs of individuals. Upcoming technological advances in understanding the plant and animal genome sequences provide a way to improve not only nutritional needs, but also process-related and environmental needs. Research to identify and link at-risk populations to scientific discoveries promises advancements in reducing malnutrition and obesity.

With the advent of cutting-edge research and new technology, discoveries are being made in the production of agriculture, food safety, and nutrition. These discoveries are then passed on to farmers, ranchers, consumers, food processors, and others who can use them.