Louise Fresco on feeding the whole world

http://www.ted.com Louise Fresco argues that a smart approach to large-scale, industrial farming and food production will feed our planet's incoming population of nine billion. Only foods like (the scorned) supermarket white bread, she says, will nourish on a global scale.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

• Category

  News & Politics

[gukonni]

All we really need to do is stop feeding all of our grains to cattle. Most of our food is fed to animals that we breed for milk and meat. Those animals also consume vast amounts of water and land. We feed more animals than humans. The waste from these animals farms is just as bad. We're running out of topsoil. We have to make wise choices. We've got to reduce our intake of meat and dairy, and find a way to supplement our diet with b12 and other nutrients that we've historically got from animals.

[witalian1]

You are completly missing the point.

[BelleDiamond]

PS. Before we "feed the world" - first we have to stop exploiting it!

[BelleDiamond]

What is your logic behind that? Have you actually given it any thought, or is it just easier to throw it out the window, because it's more comfortable to think that the system is just fine the way it is. Change is in your hands in the small daily choices you make, and the philosophy you propagate. It's everyone's responsibility - there is no running away.

[BelleDiamond]

Agreed!

[BelleDiamond]

Does the ethical treatment of animals, the health effects of pesticides and genetically engineered food come into play? What about the destruction of the Earth's ecology? We don't need more of the same, there are plenty of resources and wealth - it simply has to be fairly distributed. we don't need a new set of clothes every season, we don't need a new technology gadget every year. Instead, that money should be spent on ethically grown food with the future of the world in mind.

[Cyanidal187]

The scientific developments such as the genetical modification of plant and animal species give us very valid reasons to distrust modern science.

GMO is opening up Pandora's box since we have no idea what the long term effects are but recent studies are revealing eminent dangers.

[Cyanidal187]

This woman is a puppet for corporations such as Monsanto who use bio engeneering to genetically modify plant species with disastrous long term effects.

Proclaiming that 1% of the american population working in agriculture is a great development is ridiculous.

You do not want your societies food production to be dependant on such a tiny margin of the population.

[David Golladay]

We live in a time when people distrust science, and base their decisions on how it makes them feel, or the warm, fuzzy feelings they get from it. No thought about the people involved making it happen, and their lives. Most would never trade their lifestyle for the farmers.

[Rhuddlan]

Nonsense. "Close to nature" here is code for "daily back-breaking physical labour for barely subsistence production." Just because you took a vacation to some village and thought it looked pretty doesn't mean you know anything about rural life. My family spent generations crawling out of a hole like that Bangladesh village you describe, and we'd never go back.

Technology has no inherent "toll on spiritual development." That's rubbish. Spiritual and non-spiritual people exist with and without it.