Nutrition, animal production and the environment

With increasing demographic growth, there will be an ever increasing demand for greater food production over the turn of this century. Seen from today's productivist point of view, this is not too difficult a challenge to meet. Besides socio-economic and geopolitical considerations, it is now of the utmost importance to consider any such increase in food production from a global environmental perspective. Man-made changes to the environment are numerous, some perhaps irredeemable. The essential human activities of agriculture, animal production and fisheries also affect the environment and some quantitative data are available on such impacts. Each progress in increasing agricultural resources (reclaiming new land areas for agriculture, increase in land productivity, intensification of animal production etc.,) is not without disadvantages (deforestation, pollution of underground water through different contaminants). Intensification of land animal production, facilitated also by progress in biotechnological methods leads to increased contamination of the natural food chain and to the concentration of effluents. Aquatic production, currently undergoing tremendous progress, is also facing several such dangers: over-exploitation of natural resources; slow disappearance of natural breeding grounds; increased pollution of water through industrial, agricultural and aquacultural activities. Every such menace to the future of food production has its solution. Even the application of already available knowledge can prevent further deterioration of our land, air and aquatic environment for sustained production. But, local socioeconomic pressures and lack of concern or education often prevent us from obtaining the ideal balance between food production and environment.