THE PROBLEM
THE WORLD DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH LAND TO GROW ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED 10 BILLION PEOPLE
The UN says that unless we address the issue of declining soil, the World has just 60 growing seasons left.
We need to increase the amount of land available to grow more food as the global population heads towards 10 billion people by 2050.
THE GLOBAL WATER CRISIS
As the World’s population increases and the global demand for land-based farm produce (such as meat and grain) grows too – usable land for cultivating food is barely increasing. And there is a global water crisis – the UN says global water use has grown at more than twice the rate of the global population over the past ten years.
THE SOLUTION
THE SOLUTION IS TO CREATE MORE LAND TO GROW MORE FOOD BY TURNING MILLIONS OF ACRES OF UNDER-PERFORMING, DROUGHT AND SALINITY STRICKEN MARGINAL LAND INTO PRODUCTIVE FARMLAND.
Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world with 70% of its landscape either arid or semi-arid land, receiving 250 mm to 350 mm of rainfall a year – or less.
About 81% of Australia is broadly defined as rangelands, known as ‘The Outback’ which is the natural home for many of Australia’s Indigenous peoples and culturally, an important place for most Australians.
Greening the Earth has researched and trialled certain species at universities and land sites all over the World to identify plants that grow and flourish in the harshest climatic conditions imaginable.
These species herald a raft of additional benefits in the form of commercial, environmental, social, cultural, health and emotional values that lessen the national reliance on social welfare and provide job opportunities for Indigenous and rural communities in locations where jobs are scarce and opportunity is scant.
Most importantly, it introduces new and marginal, under-performing land instead of appropriating existing fertile agricultural farmland that already supports the global food chain.
UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
The value of Greening the Earth is acknowledged by the United Nations in its recently published book “A Better World” – Volume 4.
There have been four such volumes published to date. They are:
- SDG 15 Life on Land (Read online);
- SDG 6 Water and Sanitation (Read online);
- SDG 16 Institutions (Read online) and
- SDG 5 Gender and the Empowerment of Women (Read online).
Our chapter was released at the 73rd General Assembly in New York in September 2018 and is entitled “Are the outcomes that are vital for the survival of mankind achievable in an era of global warming?”
This is the only chapter contributed to from Australia relating to all four editions published to date.
