What did the ACT Director Prof. Dr ir. Pablo A. Tittonell says during his Chair inaugural lecture at Wageningen University?

What Did The ACT Director Prof. Dr Ir. Pablo A. Tittonell Says During His Chair Inaugural Lecture At Wageningen University?

This is obviously a rhetorical question; because we know that the answer is no. Producing food for such a populous with conventional agriculture will exhaust our global oil reserves in about 12 years estimated to be 1,481,526 Million barrels given the yearly needed estimated of about ca.113,000 Million barrels of oil. Reports indicated that out 870 million people suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012 the vast majority of them (852 million) live in developing countries. Yet, for the first time in human history, obesity outweighs hunger, the current number of overweight people in the world is estimated at 1300 million (WHO Global InfoBase, 2012).
Adopting contemporary sustainable agricultural systems makes it possible to harvest a crop from a degraded soil in the first year of rehabilitation. In a Pan-African project funded by the European Union and led by the Africa Conservation Tillage network, of which I am a board member, we are studying and at the same time promoting these systems among farmers in the Sahel through innovation platforms (http://abaco.act-africa.org).
I am convinced that agriculture needs knowledge-intensive management systems to increase yields and access to food and incomes in the South, and knowledge-intensive design to reduce the dependence on external (fossil fuel) inputs in the North. The model of intensification per unit area or per animal, which is deeply rooted in the mind of scientists from the green revolution generation, is now obsolete.
The private sector will never invest in process-based technologies, unless there is a product or a service that could be sold with them, but majorly on new input-based technologies. To compensate for such trends the public sector needs to invest in the development of process technologies, in integrated systems research, in holistic approaches. Our current engagement with the Farming Systems Design community, with the Scientific Society for Agro-ecology in Latin America, with the African Conservation Tillage network and with the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) opens new opportunities for continuous learning and impact.
More info : The article is available at Farming systems ecology