American Chemical Society launches Sustainable Food toolkit.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 2013 — As the world’s population swells beyond 10 billion people later this century, what can we do to sustain the farmland, energy and water supplies needed to keep everyone fed? That’s the challenging question that Sustainable Food, a web-based toolkit, addresses with an anchor video and dozens of resources. The toolkit is a project of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.
“We basically have to double the amount of food we produce over the next 50 to 60 years,” says John Floros, Ph.D, in the anchor video, called Feeding the World. “The question is, can we do that, and how should we do it?”
Floros, dean of the College of Agriculture at Kansas State University, explains that several issues must be addressed to provide the world with enough food. Farmers must adapt to a changing environment. Food is wasted because it spoils during transport or people buy too much. Science and technology can help, but educating the public about these issues is also important.
The website’s resources include links to ACS press releases; congressional briefings; news articles published in Chemical & Engineering News, the ACS’ weekly newsmagazine; videos; podcasts; and social media posts on Twitter and blogs.
Sustainable Food is one of five such toolkits now available online. Journalists covering some of the great global challenges of the 21st century and federal funding of research and development (R&D) can find videos and scores of other resources on websites that the ACS has prepared on those topics:
The other toolkits address global climate science, sustainable sources of energy, the quest for a sustainable supply of fresh water and federal R&D funding.
