Food and Water

Food and Water Key Points:

• “The key challenge to focus on is how we feed a population of 11 billion people by 2100 because already we've got the issue of millions of people going hungry around the world every day. But there is also significant food waste in countries like Australia, so it's going to be a major challenge 
• Obviously, food production in crops and livestock has significant environmental impacts in terms of land use, water use, soil degradation and greenhouse gas emissions. So, we can't just scale up the current food system because that's not going to be sustainable. 

• Another issue is with water supply as well because that'll be another challenge trying to manage freshwater resources and have enough freshwater resources to meet the needs of the population. 
• All our other challenges we identify are linked to humanity 's impact on Earth climate and the challenge of balancing mitigation and adaptation to changing climate. The one of the major challenges that the world is going to face as we head towards 11 billion people in 2100 and the availability of arable land on which to grow food. 
• The UNESCO Institute for water education states that approximately 15,000 liters of water go into producing one kilogram of beef in Australia. 
• Chemical Engineers can play a really big role in improving food supply and food security in two main ways. Firstly, in terms of advancements and innovation using skills that we have in things like processing techniques and knowledge of environmental systems, for example, reducing food waste by making food last longer and developing alternative to animal protein (meats) that have similar taste and consistency to encourage the uptake.  Secondly leveraging Genetically Modified Crops as an essential solution to allow us to improve the efficiencies of production but also minimize environmental impacts. GM also offers opportunities to improve the quality and reliability of food as well so for example, GMO crops can be made resistant to certain insects or viruses and food can be boosted in vitamin A which when seen as deficiency leads to blindness in developing countries, also, producing more resilient crops to manage changing weather conditions and extreme weather events.  
• Chemical Engineers are skilled in terms of water supply security such as desalinization techniques and recycling, treatment of reuse of wastewater and runoff. 
• Chemical engineers will be a major part of the future when it comes to the production of sustainable and available food, one area this has already seen a recent growth and I believe will continue in the coming decades is the production of “fake” (not animal derived) meat.  Chemical engineering will be key in ensuring that these products have the correct taste and texture and that they include the necessary nutrients that people need and can decrease the bad fats that are in animal-based meat. This needs to be achieved ensuring that we use less land, less water and emit less climate warming gasses as we produce these products.”