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With a global population predicted to hit 9 billion by 2050 companies like BASF are working to develop new technologies to make the planet’s limited supply of land produce more and more food.
“We all know the land is not growing. … With continued innovation, we continue to get more out of the land to feed the global population,” says Harald Lauke, president of biological and effect systems research at BASF. Lauke addressed a crowd of agriculture and green industry media during its recent 2012 Agricultural Solutions Media Summit in Chicago. “In many Laukecases, chemistry is the enabler.”
That chemistry – from companies like BASF – allows farmers to grow more corn and soybeans on the same acre of land. But Chris Mallett, corporate vice president of research and development, Cargill, and a guest speaker at the event, says increased productivity isn’t going to solve world hunger.
“One message I’d like to put up in neon if I can is that food security is a highly complicated area,” Mallett says.
Citing data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Mallett says 1 billion people worldwide don’t get enough to eat each day, and 38% of children in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished. To feed everyone, he says, the world needs just 30 million tons of grain
“We did produce enough calories to extinguish hunger,” he says. “Did we do it? No.”
As consumers, end users and suppliers continue to ask for sustainable products, BASF has developed AgBalance, a system to measure the ecological, society and economic impact of its products
The system started 15 years ago as a way to measure efficiency and sustainability of BASF’s operations in the automotive coatings business. By examining a couple hundred data points like soil quality, nutrient balance, biodiversity, rates of worker pay, commodity prices, and residues in feed and food, BASF can measure the sustainability of certain practices and entire businesses.
In 2011, the tool received independent assurances from three global agencies: The TÜV SÜD, DNV Business Assurance and NSF International.
“The whole purpose of the model is a snapshot of where we are today and what changes within those parameters,” says Nevin McDougall, senior vice president of BASF Crop Protection, North Amerca.
The same model has been applied in more than 400 other industries including, in late 2011, agriculture. McDougall says the tool is currently being tested in the structural pest control markets, and will eventually make its way to the turf and ornamental segment.
“It’s still a biological system we’re working in,” McDougall says, “so all the parameters still apply.”