Global food demand will double by 2050, according to a new projection, and the farming techniques used to meet that unprecedented(空前的) demand will significantly determine how severe the impact is on the environment, researchers said.
The study researchers warned that meeting the demand for food would clear more land, increase nitrogen(氮) use and significantly add to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.
“Agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions could double by 2050 if current trends in global food production continue,” study researcher David Tilman, of the University of Minnesota, said in a statement. “This would be a major problem, since global agriculture already accounts for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions.”
The researchers studied various ways in which the increasing food demand could be mentioned. They found that the most environmentally friendly and cost-effective approach would be for more food producers to adopt the nitrogen-efficient “intensive” farming method, which involves the heavy use of labor and the production of more crops per acre.
This approach was shown to be more effective than the “extensive” farming currently practiced by many poor nations, a method that includes clearing more new land to produce more food.
Different farming methods produce significantly different yields, the researchers found — in 2005, the crop yields for the wealthiest nations were more than 300 percent higher than what the poorest nations produced.
According to their analysis of the effects of extensive farming, if poorer nations continue using this method, by 2050 they will have cleared an area larger than the United States, about 2.5 billion acres. However, if wealthy nations help poorer nations to improve food yields by incorporating(吸收) intensive farming practices, that number could be reduced to half a billion acres.
The researchers stress that the environmental effects of meeting future food demand depend on how global agriculture expands and develops.
“Our analyses show that we can save most of the Earth’s remaining ecosystems by helping the poorer nations of the world feed themselves,” Tilman said.
【小题1】What is the best title of this passage?| A．The World Will Need Double Food by 2050 |
| B．Man Will Face the Risk of Lacking Food in the Future |
| C．Future Farmers Hold Environment’s Fate in Their Hands |
| D．Different Farming Methods Produce Significantly Different Yields |
| A．very cost-effective |
| B．to produce more crops per acre |
| C．at cost of more new land to produce more food |
| D．very environmentally friendly |
| A．poorer nations mainly use the intensive farming |
| B．wealthy nations mainly use the extensive farming |
| C．the intensive farming needs less food producers |
| D．the extensive farming has a worse effect on ecosystems |
| A．poorer nations |
| B．the effects of extensive farming |
| C．wealthy nations |
| D．future food demand |
