I received a new project yesterday entitled The Origin of Food which aims to highlight the relationship between food and sustainability. During the briefing we were lucky enough to be given a presentation by Phil Taylor who works at The Scottish Crop Research Institute. He provided us with some interesting information on crop research and also highlighted the problems regarding sustainability. (He also got added marks for giving us all a free jar of jam!)
Even though I knew that there was an explosion in the population I never thought about the problems that this could cause in regards to food. With more people to feed, where does this food come from? Most people presume that there isn't a real problem, we just plant more crops therefore we get more food. However the 'intensification of crop production has led to systematic erosion of arable biodiversity and the degradation of arable habitats in many parts of the world.'
The issue of CO2 emissions was also highlighted. A few years ago figures show that there was a switch in the population. More people now live in urban areas rather than rural areas. The problem here being the food has to be transported to these cities.
With sustainability becoming a bigger issue, in today's society, Phil's talk confirmed further that the public will have to make changes in order to save the environment from any more damage. As designers we will have to start looking at nature to find solutions. Can we take lessons from the natural world? Will people be willing to make changes? Or will scientists have to keep researching new ways to maintain sustainability?
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