Can cutting-edge advances in food technology provide the answer to the industry’s woes?

Whether you blame demographic shifts, protectionist policies, climate change or just plain old bad luck, one thing is certain: the current global food system is not working.

More than 860 million people around the world suffer from hunger, and of those, about 830 million live in developing countries. Even the developed economies of Europe and North America are feeling the pinch; where once the EU was flooded with oversupply, today the mountains of butter have gone, the grain silos stand empty and the lakes of milk have been drained. The days of over-production are well and truly over.

If the truth be told, the current crisis is probably down to a combination of all the above factors – a perfect storm of changing tastes, short-sighted decision-making and poor weather that has been amplified by current global economic pressures and helped to drive demand (and subsequently, prices) up.

And it’s not just food shortages that are causing sleepless nights for policy-makers and industry executives alike: the rising obesity epidemic and the requirement for better nutrition also need addressing. Over 145 million people in the WHO European region are obese, while 23 million are undernourished.

Is better science the answer? R&D already makes up a huge part of most food companies’ budgets, and plays a huge role in the movement towards healthier, more nutritious food. It could also help to fight the blight of global food shortages, whether breeding staple crops such as wheat, rice, maize and soy to be more pest and weed-resistant, or genetically manipulating crops to provide boons that nature cannot match. Already crops such as Bt corn, which produces its own insecticide, and Roundup Ready crops, which are resistant to commonly used herbicides, are sold on the US market (although they are banned in Europe).

The jury’s still out on such applications – but given the current crisis, surely the theory behind them is worth a second look. What do you think? Is science the answer to the food industry’s ills?