Role of Prospective Technologies for Food Security in Iran and the World

It has been estimated that the population of Iran in 2025 and 2050 will reach to 90 and 115 millions¡ respectively. World population in the same years will be about 7.7 and 9 billions. Agronomists agree that¡ using today’s tools of production¡ food shortage in the world in 2050 will be about one third of the needs of that time. Thus¡ suitable technologies must be used to confront food shortage for the increasing population. Such technologies include: reducing food wastes¡ change in people’s feeding habit¡ appropriate population growth¡ increase in production of agricultural lands by using high yielding seeds and better soil and water management methods¡ meat and milk yields increase in unit of area using sustainable management procedures¡ increase in sea fish population sources¡ and using aquaculture production techniques. All of these must be done in a manner to increase yield per hectare¡ and decrease their negative impacts on climate and ecosystems. In this way¡ crop producers will be urged to reduce agricultural input and meanwhile to make more effort to reach sustainability by increasing water and fertilization efficiency¡ soil quality in terms of carbon and nutrient¡ reducing insect pests and pathogens damages and greenhouse gas control. Procedures and policies to be considered in this way are environmental¡ climatic and natural resources conservation¡ confronting negative impacts of flood¡ drought and frost¡ soil and water preservation measures¡ precision agriculture and use of special tools and machinery¡ photosynthetic and net conversion efficiency to intercept solar energy into more biomass¡ increasing plant-environment ecological relations¡ use of agricultural biotechnology and genetic engineering¡ biodiversity control¡ and breeding for higher yield and biofortification.