Solutions to world food problems as climate change progresses

Whitefish meal
Whitefish meal

Veikko J. Pyhtilä, August 31, 2018

Around a billion people in the world suffer from malnutrition, and there is a need to optimize nutrition for a healthier, more economical, greener and more diverse diet.

Reduce food loss at all stages: cultivation, harvesting, transportation, storage, shops, households. Waste and really spoiled food for energy production.

Increasing emergency food storage in the event of disasters and disappearances.

Diversification of crops, edible organisms and a more diversified and healthier diet. Plants that are successful even in extreme weather conditions are bred and cultivated. Microbial production of food is possibly produced and studied.

Overweight to control by reducing excess food consumption. Eating nutritious foods with less calories. Foods that are rich in health-promoting substances are produced. Eat more fresh food because cooking will destroy useful nutrients, although hygiene has to be taken into account and sometimes cooking helps the absorption of nutrients into the body.

Other fast-growing, carbon-binding plants must be used to replace the food crop currently grown for bioenergy.

All wastelands for cultivation. Let’s try to get deserts back to forests and farmland. And in the deserts, solar energy-taking and storage systems for energy shortage. Increase in hobby farming, part-time farming, urban farming, local production and use of local food.

The sun’s energy is stored in the summer so that it can be used in winter for greenhouses that can be increased.

Arrangements are being made to control heavy rains, to quickly remove water from cultivated areas and to prevent the destruction of too much water to the crops. Store water in pools for drought as irrigation water.

Close to watercourse beaches vegetation zones that prevent nutrients from entering the watercourse and thus prevent water system pollution and eutrophication.

It can be investigated whether aquatic plants can be grown in water. How to provide fish and aquatic animals with a varied diet. How to increase the efficiency of natural and farmed fish production.

It is good to have meat production in areas where cereals are not doing well, but where grasses, shrubs and forests are growing well. Grass-fed combined meat and milk production is more environmentally friendly and meat, cheese is healthier for the circulatory system because it contains vitamins K1, K2 (Vitamin K2 prevents hardening of blood vessels, removes calcification from blood vessels, but this needs more research to ensure) than meat produced from soya or other feeds. However, leavened soy beans provide a high level of vitamin K2. Meat production, fish farming and nutritional use in poultry, sheep, wild game can be increased. The cultivation of mushrooms in nature could also be promoted as food. More vegetarian food and reducing too much meat consumption.

Bio-intensive agriculture and its further development can lead to more environmentally friendly, healthier food production, and produce more food from a smaller area. Compost and other means make the soil quality healthy and productive for plants. Crop rotation. Nitrogen binding plants. Pests and weeds are killed and prevented by organic methods.

Climate change, biodiversity, prevention of both bio- and chemical pollution, healthy, high-quality food are taken into account in farming solutions.

Cultivation skills need to be increased for both professionals and hobbyists. Knowledge, artificial intelligence and other arrangements optimize the food chain in production, transportation, storage, shelf life, marketing, consumption. Knowledge, know-how and opportunities to make smart choices in consumption need to be increased for everyone.

Technology, industry are good tools for agriculture, animal husbandry, forest management and, in general, bioeconomy and nature conservation. In chemical industry by green chemistry, environmentally friendly fertilizers, plant protection products could be produced and biotechnology could be advance plant and animal breeding even in the long term, taking into account the risks.

Farmers must be guaranteed a decent living, while at the same time keeping food prices affordable for the poor. More and better ways to tackle poverty and unemployment can help people afford adequate nutrition while tackling health and other problems.

We need to get more people involved in interacting and working together to solve all the acute and future problems in the world. Much more information and knowledge could be gained from this. Similarly, people, the unemployed and people with disabilities can be put to further research and development to identify problems and come up with solutions. Let everyone make a dime! Similarly, people and communities can evaluate the quality and suitability of solutions from many different angles.

Suggest more solutions and more details, so I’ll add this to the list below!

Veikko J. Pyhtilä, August 31, 2018