Food and Energy Security

Given the rise in human population and the inevitable consequences of climate change, the challenges of achieving secure and sustainable supplies of both food and energy are Herculean. With the launch of this open access, multidisciplinary journal, our intention is to offer a forum for the discussion of the most important advances in this field and to promote an integrative approach of scientific disciplines.

One of the recurrent themes in the debate around how to ensure global food security concerns the capacity of the planet to support its growing population. Neo-Malthusian thinking suggests that we are in a situation in which further expansion of the population cannot be supported and that the population checks, with their dismal consequences envisaged by Malthus, will lead to a new era of stagnant incomes and population. More sophisticated attempts at exploring the link between population and income are less gloomy however. They see population growth as an integral component of the economic growth which is necessary to ensure that the poorest achieve food security. An undue focus on the difficulties of meeting the demands of the increasing population risks damaging this growth. Instead, attention should be focused on ensuring that the conditions to ensure that economic growth accompanies population growth are in place.

A review of the genetically modified crop varieties and traits that have been launched in the last 18 years, the issues of regulation and consumer acceptance that still have to be overcome, and the prospects for the future development of plant biotechnology.

Three indicators to assess water use at the farm scale are introduced: farm water productivity, degree of water utilization and specific inflow of technical water. They can assist farmers in understanding the water flows on their farms and in optimizing water use by adapting agronomic measures and farm management. Factors that mainly effect these indicators and general approaches to optimize water use in farms are discussed as well as the further research required.

There is clear evidence that the consumption of either wholegrain cereals or components present in these (notably dietary fibre) have beneficial effects in reducing the risk of the metabolic syndrome and associated diseases. The article therefore reviews the major groups of bioactive components present in the wheat grain and discusses strategies for manipulating their amounts and compositions to increase the health benefits of both wholegrain and white flour products.

We identified a serine carboxypeptidase in Arabidopsis. When it is overexpressed, the transgenic plants have more carpels and increased seed production. This discovery opens a new route to explore food production and security.

The market for caffeine has increased continuously over the last years while the production of decaf coffee, the main source of natural caffeine, has been almost steady. Synthetic caffeine might replace natural caffeine, but the market for natural and health products demands the latter.