Agriculture and A Growing Population

By Micalah B

One of the biggest problems agriculture faces today is sustaining a rapidly growing population. Just how rapid? On our way to over 9 billion people, rapid.

Currently, the world has a population of about 7.4 billion people, a number we manage to, for the most part, provide enough food to support. However, scientists have predicted, by 2050, we will be facing a population of 9 billion people. How does this affect agriculture? Of course, these people must be fed. Current agriculture professionals are looking for more and more ways to feed more and more people.

Here are a few examples of how they're getting the job done:

No-till farming is a more recent method of farming where farmers grow their crops year to year without tilling, or disturbing, the soil. Farmers have instead taken to using a new device, often called a coulter, that allows seeds to be planted right through weeds and residues of previous plantings. Tilling the soil leaves a broken soil structure lying above a deeper, heavily compressed layer. This makes the soil very prone to being overly compacted by rainfall, and more difficult to farm. Untilled soil, however will start out less compacted, and stay that way. This saves farmers a whole lot of time, and gives seeds a much better environment to prosper in.

GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, is another modern method being used to feed more people. GMOs are genetically engineered into crops. They are responsible for things like pest resistant crops, that allow farmers to use less fertilizers, and crops with longer shelf life. GMOs have been shown to be a huge addition to the agriculture community when it comes to feeding more and more mouths each year.

Smartphones, believe it or not, have begun to play a big role on the most advanced farms out there. Irrigation systems can now be monitored and controlled by this sort of mobile technology, keeping farmers from having to drive out to each field and check the systems there. This new technology also allows farmers to more precisely control their flow of water, fertilizer, and other inputs for their plants.

These three advancements make up just a small portion of the many new technologies in today's modern agriculture. The modern technology we see is indeed different and untraditional, but it may be what ultimately saves this ever-growing population.


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