UP Barnaby Joyce has given an impassioned speech to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations urging the adoption of genetic modification (GM).
Mr Joyce called for GM adoption “now” to help resolve the demanding global food task equation, warning people will die otherwise.
The Agriculture and Water Resources Minister’s rousing talk, given during a trip to Europe to hold talks on a trade deal with the EU and UK, also underlined the need for freer trade in farm products, to resolve the globe’s future food crisis.
“It’s really quite simple – in the next 50 years, the world will have to produce as much food as it has in humanity to this point – that’s pretty awesome,” Mr Joyce said.
“The result of course if you fail in that task is people are going to starve to death – you might not see them – you might not know them (but) they’ll exist.”
Mr Joyce said the FAO’s basic equation is that the planet is now heading towards 10 billion people by 2050 who are also getting richer meaning the quality of food they’re buying and consuming is increasing.
He said not only does the planet need to produce more food in future, but it must be produced at a higher quality and that’s an “exponential drain on global food capacity”.
“In the next 50 years, we have to produce as much food as humanity has consumed to this point and that’s a huge task,” he said.
“And to do that, we’re going to have to have very fluid trade in agricultural product and we’re also going to have to be mindful that we need to be at the cutting edge of agronomy.”
Mr Joyce’s FAO speech outlined four core points to resolve the crisis – firstly that farmers won’t produce anything unless they get a fair return for effort.
“They have to be paid a decent wage and a decent return for the things they produce – it is item number one,” he said.
Mr Joyce said freer trade was second on the agenda to meet future global food demand.
“You’ve got to trade,” he said.