‘How to feed nine billion people’ among worldwide issues outlined at SIAL Middle East 2011 Conference
Major challenges lie ahead for the global food industry according to a leading authority in agriculture and food, as increasing urbanisation shrinks rural labour forces and non-renewable resources are becoming more scarce.
Sudhakar Tomar, managing director for Hakan Agro DMCC, the UAE’s largest agribusiness trading organisation, said that for the first time 50 per cent of the world’s population lives in cities, with the overall population growth rate increasing faster than the average growth rate of food production.
“As the world’s population is expected to reach nine billion by 2050, there will be an extra 2.5 billion mouths to feed, meaning overall food production needs to be raised by 70 percent,” said Tomar, adding that reducing wastage, both in the supply chain and on the table, as well as eating smarter will go a long way to satisfying the growing appetites of the world’s population.
Tomar will be among an expert panel of speakers at the second edition of SIAL Middle East Conference, where he will highlight the various challenges of global food supply, and the measures to combat these challenges. The three-day conference runs alongside SIAL Middle East Food Exhibition, taking place from 21st-23rd November at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC).
