Presentation delivered by Sir Gordon Conway (Imperial College London, UK) at Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security. March 25 - 28, 2014, Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. http://www.borlaug100.org

1. Borlaug 100
Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico
March 26, 2014
Sir Gordon Conway

2. The Green Revolution
• Yield ceilings of staple crops increased dramatically
• Especially in well favoured, well irrigated lands
• Production grew faster than population
• The real price of staple foods decreased

3. Wheat Yields in Mexico, India and
Pakistan
FAO. 2010. FAOSTAT

4. Real Food Prices

5. Teething Problems
“India had produced so much grain over the next few
years that there weren’t enough people to harvest the
crop!
There weren’t even enough bullock carts to haul the
wheat to threshing floors.
There weren’t enough jute bags, trucks, rail cars or grain
storage facilities.
Some towns closed schools temporarily to house the
grain.”

6. The Limitations
• Focused on ‘ideal’ environments
• Heavy reliance on synthetic pesticides and
fertilizers
• Not all the poor benefited
• Passed Africa by

7. Pesticides in rice fields
Brown planthoppers caused
$300 million in damage up to
late 1970s
Popular-science.net
www.htysite.com
R.C. Saxena IRRI

8. Fertiliser Pollution
Widespread 30-60% overuse of nitrogen
fertiliser in China
N inputs by
main river
catchments

9. Chronic Undernourishment has persisted
in Africa

10. Where we are today:
Global Hunger Index (2010)

11. The Global Crises
Financial Civil Strife
Energy
Environmental
Services
Climate Change
Water
‘A Perfect
Storm’
Food security

12. Challenges to food security
Increasing
and
more volatile
food prices

13. About 1 billion people are chronically
hungry
In Africa 40%
of children
under 5 are
malnourished

14. We have to increase food production by
70 – 100% by 2050
Demand
Population Growth
Changing Diets
Biofuel Demand
Supply
Rising Fuel and Fertiliser
prices
Climate Change
Land and Water Scarcity

15. Population Growth to 2050
World Africa
Roughly half of the extra people will be in Sub-Saharan Africa

16. Rise in Meat Consumption
Meat consumption
rises with per capita
income
World Bank, 2010. World Development Indicators
FAO, 2009
More meat requires
more feed

17. Changing Climate: Increasing Stress
Length of Growing Period Changes to length of Growing
Period to 2050
Source: ILRI, 2006, Mapping climate vulnerability and poverty.

18. Changing Climate: Extreme Events
Russia
• Severe heat wave in 2010
• 30% of grain crops lost to
burning
Pakistan
• Worst floods in 80 years
• Submerged 14% of cultivated
land

19. Land and Water Scarcity
• Physical scarcity
• Overuse
• Degradation
• Pollution
• Salinisation

20. We must produce more with less!
• More food and other
agricultural products
• More nutritious foods
• Higher farm incomes
• Greater diversity of
production
On the same amount of
land or less
With the same amount or
less of water

21. We must Intensify

22. Wheat Yields
Plateauing Globally?
…and in Europe

23. Intensification must be Sustainable
• With efficient and prudent use of inputs
• Minimising emissions of Greenhouse Gases
• While increasing natural capital and environmental
services
• Reducing environmental impact
• Strengthening resilience

24. Precision Farming in the UK
Tractor with GPS system
Phosphorus Deficiency
http://www.willingtoncropservices.co.uk/

25. Precision Farming in Africa
Microdosing in Niger

26. Wheat and Greenhouse Gases: Gorgan,
Iran
GHG Emissions Kg eq-CO2 per ha

27. Innovation for Sustainable Intensification
• Focuses on multiple benefits
• Engages with multiple partners
• Utilises multiple approaches
• Works at multiple scales

28. Multiple Approaches
Agro-
ecology
Socio-
economics
Genetics

29. Sustainable Ecological Intensification
Use ecological principles to design agricultural
practices:
• Agroforestry
• Integrated Pest Management
• Conservation Farming
• Organic Farming
Emphasis on Greater Biodiversity

30. Agroforestry and Wheat in France
Wheat and Walnuts
Wheat and Poplar

31. No-till Wheat Production
UK Kazakhstan

32. Rice-Wheat Systems in Asia
26 mHa

33. Sustainable Genetic Intensification
Conventional Breeding
Selection
Hybridization
Biotechnology
Tissue Culture
Marker Aided Selection
Recombinant DNA
Developing plants with a combination of traits
promoting sustainable yield increases

34. Rothamsted’s 20:20 Challenge
Increasing
wheat
productivity to
yield 20 tonnes
per hectare in
20 years

35. Gene sequencing in wheat
About 95,000
genes

36. Wheat Rusts

37. Drought Tolerant Maize: Chaperone Genes
• Genes from bacterial RNA that
help to repair misfolded RNA
molecules resulting from stress
• Plants rapidly recover
• DroughtGard maize released in
2013
• African field trials in progress
• A Resilience Gene

38. Nitrogen Fixation

39. Sustainable Socio-economic
Intensification
Strengthening the links between farmers and
between farmers and markets

40. Input Markets

41. Output Markets
Farmer
Associations
Cooperatives
Contract Farms
Outgrowers

42. Ethiopian Commodity Exchange

43. Multiple Scales
• Region
• Country
• Landscape
• District
• Community
• Farm

44. Wheat Landscapes – Sussex c. 1250 BC

45. Wheat Landscapes – Sussex 2014

46. Thank You
www.ag4impact.org
t: @ag4Impact
e: g.conway@imperial.ac.uk
www.canwefeedtheworld.org
#1billionhungry