The first social Skype meeting and online discussion of the Environmental Working Group (EnWG) in 2013 was about sustainable food production. Now you are wondering perhaps, what exactly is sustainability? We used the following definition of this term: sustainability is development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This definition is given by the Brundtland report and is generally known as the classic definition of sustainability. The question we wanted to try to answer during our meeting was: How are we going to feed the world in 2050?
This question is very important nowadays, because the world population is still growing and the most likely scenario is that we will end up with around 9,1 billion people by 2050 (according to a report from the UN). Thereby, the climate is changing and this makes the wet areas in the world wetter and the dry areas in the world drier. Of course, this is the simple explanation of the effect of climate change. Nevertheless, it leads to the loss of land suitable for agriculture and the way soil is used in parts of developing countries for example.
The conclusion of our discussion were the following points:
– Eat less meat. The transposition from the forage of animals into meat is not efficient. One could use the land to grow vegetables rather than having cows in terms of efficient energy conversion.
– The waste of food has to be decreased. This point does not need an explanation, so think twice before you throw your food away!
– Farmers have to have their own land. Especially in developing countries, because of the establishment of big agricultural companies.
– It would help a lot if governments in certain countries were not corrupt and if they would take care of their people, but that is something we cannot contribute so much to.
We also discussed the use of GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) food. We came to the conclusion that GMO food is in general something that was not supported by most of the participants of the social meeting, especially when it came to such food “improving” the taste or the flavour of a product. Opinions were very dispersed regarding this topic, so we do not really have a conclusion about the use of GMO food.
In my opinion, one of the most interesting things about the EnWG social Skype meetings about a certain topic is that you have a discussion with students of different backgrounds and nationalities. It can be very refreshing when an EnWG member with another perspective looks at topics in a different way than you do. So it is not only about discussing the topic from certain points of views, but also that sometimes you can ask yourself if your own thinking frame is still up to date or if perhaps it never was. We are looking forward to the next social Skype meeting!
Written by Iris Hordijk, AEGEE-Utrecht and Speaker of the EnWG