Cape Town — Food scientists should follow the lead of climate scientists and petition the United Nations (UN) to safeguard the environment so the world can produce enough food to feed its rapidly growing population, the UK's former chief scientific adviser Sir David King told delegates to the 15th world congress of food science and technology yesterday.

The world's population, which stands at 6,86-billion according to the US Census Bureau, is projected to reach 9-billion by 2050.

The five-day conference, arranged by the International Union of Food Science & Technology (IUFoST), is the world's leading food science conference, and has attracted top researchers, policy makers, and food companies from 79 countries to discuss the latest developments in producing and storing food.

"This international body (the IUFoST) needs to be acting in the way the International Panel on Climate Change did and go to the UN and say we need action to conserve the ecosystem services that the world produces," said Sir David, who is now d irector of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford.

Ecosystem services is a term used to describe the benefits we get from ecosystems such as grazing land and fresh water.

Global demand for food is expected to increase 50% by 2050, driven by population growth and a better standard of living for more people in emerging economies such as SA, Brazil, China and Mexico, said Sir David. "We can manage it, provided society understands how," he said, warning that the ecosystem challenges facing the world could not be dealt with in isolation.

The challenge of increasing food production would take place amidst global warming and greater water scarcity, particularly in Africa, he said. "Food production per litre of water is going to have to increase. "

Genetically modified crops would play an increasing important role in Africa as demand for drought-resistant and disease-tolerant strains increased, he said.

"What we mustn't do is tie the hands of scientists who can deliver solutions," he said, arguing that European consumers' fears about genetically modified crops had delayed the availability of new strains of rice that could tolerate floods, with devastating consequences for Chinese farmers in the 2007-08 growing season.

"That negative (European) attitude may have cost millions of lives in malnutrition," he said.

Ethiopian scientist Dr Gebisa Ejeta, who won the 2009 World Food Prize for his work on sorghum, echoed Sir David's sentiments on genetically modified crops. Increasing Africa's food productivity would require "increasing the genetic potential of crops, animals and fish," he said.

He urged African governments to spend more on agricultural research as reliance on foreign donors meant the research agenda was set outside Africa.

Earlier, Deputy Science and Technology Minister Derek Hanekom said the challenges of meeting global demand for safe, nutritious food were immense. "Our present trajectory is simply not sustainable, not only in the growing numbers of people who are undernourished, but in what we are doing to our natural resources," he said.