FOOD 2050

Fresh water is a renewable resource, but our supply of clean fresh water is decreasing – a problem aggravated by a steadily increasing demand for food as the worlds population grows.

French activists MDRGF (Movement for Rights and Respect for Future Generations) are preparing for their annual ‘Week without pesticides’ (20th-30th March). Since its debut in 2006, this event has seen some growth in popularity across France and a handful of other European countries.

Actually they don’t, and probably never did. This wonderful question is the result of a German to English Google translation of an article posted at presseportal.de. The story is of Dutch tomato growers who claim their tomatoes taste more like tomatoes when they are grown with biological methods – favouring natural predators to combat pests, over the use of pesticides. The original article can be read here, and the Google translation can be braved here.

At the Forum for the Future of Agriculture, organised jointly by Syngenta and the European Landowners’ Organization(ELO) last week, we spoke to Alexander Sarris, Director in the Commodities and Trade Division at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).