How the United Nations, Monsanto and microbes can help improve global nutrition
Europe
April 18, 2016
On 1 April 2016, the United Nations General Assembly in New York, proclaimed a ‘UN Decade of Action on Nutrition’ to run from 2016 to 2025. This initiative by the UN is an approach which recognises the importance of tackling the fight against world hunger and malnutrition by working with the private sector.
It will be led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO), in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The fundamental role of the business community was already highlighted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during the United Nations forum in September 2015. The UN Secretary-General said, “Now is the time to mobilise the global business community as never before.”
We welcome the UN putting nutrition at the top of the agenda. They are clearly stating that nutrition and food security are essential to sustainable development globally and that public-private partnerships are part of the solution.
Contrary to what some activists and sceptics might have you believe, nutrition and facilitating abundant access to nutritious food are at the heart of what we actually do at Monsanto. As a seed and agricultural technology company we work alongside farmers, researchers and other experts to help produce food sustainably and help more people afford more balanced meals.
Monsanto is already working with like-minded companies, including Novozymes in Denmark. In this example we harness nature’s own microbes to improve crop yields and reduce fertilisers.
Around the world we are constantly identifying new partnerships that will improve soil health and increase crop yields. In our partnership with Novozymes, known as the BioAg Alliance, we have created the biggest field-test trial in the world of microbes. Microbes are the most abundant life form on the planet. We use bacteria and fungi naturally found in nature but replicated in Novozymes’ cutting-edge manufacturing processes to boost crop yields, improve water usage and reduce the use of fertilisers.
The first test results – carried out with more than 2,000 microbial strains across 500,000 field trial plots from Louisiana to Montana in the US – have shown that maize yields increased by four bushels per acre and soybean yields increased by 1.5 bushels per acre. This means more food can be produced from the same amount of land and water, whilst using less resources and having a smaller impact on the environment.
The FAO expects that farmers will have to produce 70% more food by 2050 in order to feed the world’s fast growing global population. These kinds of innovations and results matter and we look forward to identifying ways of working together with the UN over the next 10 years.
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