The Coming Food Crisis
MISSION 2014
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/26/the_coming_food_crisis?page=0,1
MISSION 2014 TEAMS
Team 1: Economics: Should speculation in
food commodities be more tightly controlled?
Permitted? Value of international Megafarms?
Finance and risk management - insurance and
disaster relief, micro-financing
MISSION 2014 TEAMS
Team 2:
Data gathering and mining: How do we monitor
global agriculture? Development of an international
monitoring system for agriculture, food distribution,
and nutrition
Supply chains - infrastructure, distribution,
efficiency and reliability
MISSION 2014 TEAM
TEAM 3:
Case studies I:
India and Africa: lack of food production,
distribution infrastructure and poverty are huge
problems—how to best quantify and solve
MISSION 2014 TEAMS
Team 4:
Case Studies II: China—has a very large and
growing population and is facing strong
demand for increased output from less and
less land—water issues, fertilizer and pesticide
issues---what are solutions?
MISSION 2014 TEAMS
Team 5:
Fisheries – Global fisheries are collapsing from
over fishing, aquaculture short term (?) solution,
large managed marine preserves, impact of
climate change. Projections-- How do we
manage this global resource?
MISSION 2014 TEAMS
• Team 6:
Agriculture I: Food and Energy---biofuels and bioenergy vs
food production, energy requirements for food production/cost
Agriculture II. Food and water – Crop choices, irrigation and
long term water supplies impact of climate change on
availability of water
Agriculture III. Food and land use – Monocultures vs biodiversity
and habitat preservation, Biotechnology - genetic engineering
(transgenic and non-transgenic), forest to cropland conversion
MISSION 2014 TEAMS
Team 7:
International policy and implementation- trade,
aid, poverty and hunger (Millennium
Development Goals and beyond).
United Nations? Compliance?
MISSION 2014 TEAMS
• Plan for next 100 years--be bold!
• Interact with other teams
MISSION 2014 Class Meeting Monday
September 13 32-123
Each team gets five minutes to introduce
themselves and make a statement about their
topic:
Could be a few factoids or statement of major
issues and/or possible links with other teams:
Each team should appoint a temporary
leader and 1-3 powerpoint slides should
be sent to Seth before 2 PM on Monday.
sburgess@mit.edu