Global suicide 2020: We can’t feed 10 billion

Welcome, you’re now on the new “Innovation Saves the World” team. We’re working together, searching for positive solutions. If you’d rather complain about what’s wrong, stop reading. Otherwise, imagine you’re now a member of a “skunk works” research team at a secret Pentagon think tank with unlimited funds.

In fact, let’s also assume the best solution will be awarded $10 million, call it the “10X-Prize,” to finance and build a new company on our proposed solution and achieve our goals.

So if you’re with us, imagine this is as deadly urgent as if NASA predicted a huge asteroid will hit Earth by 2020, destroying billions. Do nothing? Game over. We must act now.

Our team is tasked to solve this problem: “How to feed the 7 billion people already on Earth today plus another 3 billion by 2050?” Feed 10 billion. And we can’t wait till 2050 to start. The clock’s ticking. We’re already at the tipping point. We must start planning now.

In fact, the Pentagon has already warned our team that by 2020, the planet’s “carrying capacity” will be so drastically compromised that they are already preparing military defense systems for the coming “all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies.”

World’s biggest survival task is food: Earth cannot feed 10 billion

First, a crucial research paper from a leading consultant, Jeremy Grantham, whose firm manages $100 billion. He predicted the 2008 meltdown a couple years in advance. Now looking ahead to 2050, he reinforces the Pentagon’s worst fears, warning of an “inevitable mismatch between finite resources and exponential population growth” with a “bubble-like explosion of prices for raw materials” and commodity shortages that will become a huge “threat to the long-term viability of our species when we reach a population level of 10 billion,” making “it impossible to feed the 10 billion people.”

Yes, the planet’s “carrying capacity” cannot feed 10 billion people. So that’s a constraint on known research solutions. Grantham concludes, “as the population continues to grow, we will be stressed by recurrent shortages of hydrocarbons, metals, water, and, especially, fertilizer. Our global agriculture, though, will clearly bear the greatest stresses.”

Get it? Agriculture is the world’s biggest commodity problem. Agri-business has the “responsibility for feeding an extra two billion to three billion mouths, an increase of 30% to 40% in just 40 years. The availability of the highest quality land will almost certainly continue to shrink slowly and the quality of typical arable soil will continue to slowly decline globally due to erosion, despite increased efforts to prevent it. This puts a huge burden on increasing productivity.”

An impossible equation … but we must solve it.

Agriculture will decide the Earth’s fate in 2050, not ‘Peak Oil’

Grantham’s an optimist, believes “humans have the brains and the means to reach real planetary sustainability. The problem is with us and our focus on short-term growth.” Our “human ingenuity” can even solve the energy problem, even shortages of metals and fresh water.

But agriculture is facing a huge loss of non-renewable resources. That’s why agriculture in the world’s No. 1 time bomb. And why you must deal with these five constraints in developing a solution to our “Innovation Saves the World” research task:

• We’re running out completely of potassium (potash) and phosphorus (phosphates) and eroding our soils … Their total or nearly total depletion would make it impossible to feed the 10 billion people …
• Potassium and phosphorus are necessary for all life; they cannot be manufactured and cannot be substituted for …
• Globally, soil is eroding at a rate that is several times that of the natural replacement rate …
• Poor countries found mostly in Africa and Asia will almost certainly suffer from increasing malnutrition and starvation. The possibility of foreign assistance on the scale required seems remote.
• Many stresses on agriculture will be exacerbated … by increasing temperatures … increased weather instability … frequent and severe droughts and floods.

Grantham doubts solutions based on the usual short-term thinking will work in the future: “Capitalism, despite its magnificent virtues in the short term — above all, its ability to adjust to changing conditions — has several weaknesses” Capitalism “cannot deal with the tragedy of the commons, e.g., overfishing, collective soil erosion, and air contamination.”

The “finiteness of natural resources is simply ignored, and pricing is based entirely on short-term supply and demand.” In short, a solution to our new “Innovation Saves the World” project will challenge a fundamental tenet of capitalism: That the public good is best served by the “invisible hand” of competing individuals, acting solely in their own separate special interests. No cooperation, no global solution, dead end for everyone.

First, you must pick team partners and target positive solutions

Now start adding team players from these six resource groups. Or just select a few. You may also decide that a strong team needs different perspectives even if that creates internal conflicts. Why? Because out of the tension, energy and anger between differing views a timely consensus is more likely to emerge regarding hot-button issues now ignored, such as population stabilization.

So tell us what kind of experts, advisers and decision-makers you trust most in working with you on your team. Comment on their biases, and anticipate their likely solutions in this first round of brainstorming:

1. Government policy makers, politicians, agency experts

In addition to the major political, regulatory and monetary agencies, you may consider experts from the World Bank, IMF and other organizations that already focus on natural-resource development, the environment, globalization, privatization, taxation, subsidies, direct investments. Examples: World Fish Center; Canadian Wheat Board; Svalbard Global Seed Vault; Food & Drug Agency; UN Food & Agriculture Organization.

But above all, trust your own judgment and experience. Who can help your skunk-works team make the best plans, get into action in time? Remember, the clock’s ticking. We must start planning now, get programs into action before 2020. Task: Feed ten billion in 2050.

2. Tough-minded business and investment professionals

Maybe you want to minimize government involvement. Maybe you believe capitalism, despite its flaws, is the best tool. Maybe the best minds are driven by the profit motive. Examples: Monsanto’s seed rival Syngenta. Unilever researchers. Hedge fund operators like Ceres Partners who own 60 Midwest farms. Maybe make a bold move, invite China’s state-owned seed-breeder Sinochem.

You decide. Remember, a billion poor in emerging nations will suffer most from commodity prices in coming decades. The clock’s ticking.

3. Risk-taking entrepreneurs, inventors, innovators

These cutting-edge thinkers are pushing the technology envelope, searching for positive solutions, identifying opportunities that answer the challenges in the 12 crucial sectors in the “Innovation Saves The World” challenge. They are already committed to changing the world, building a sustainable planet, supporting global prosperity for all economic classes and creating population stabilization.

Examples: Social entrepreneurs like the Global Impact Investors Network, the TED Network, Acumen Fund, Grass Roots Business Fund, Sequoia Capital, X-Prize, Omidyar Network and maybe even Shell Oil’s GameChanger R&D. Yes, think outside the box. Boldly go where no one has gone before.

4. Brilliant minds in science and advanced research

There are so many organizations and experts already working on public-policy decisions, legislation and private investments on similar issues. You know that most experts have biases and agendas so pick wisely, keeping in mind that you’re balancing essential expertise with predictably biased decision-makers.

Examples: World Resources Institute; Jeffrey Sachs; Columbia’s Earth Institute; Don Tapscott, innovator and author of “Macrowikinomics”; Daniel Yerkin, author “The Quest: Energy, Security and Remaking of the Modern World”; Rand Corporation, a long-time Pentagon consultant.

5. Billionaires, philanthropists, charitable organizations

While there’s some overlap here with funding experts and other organizations, many billionaires and wealthy celebrities are already investing substantial personal funds in research to solve major global problems that directly and indirectly relate to the goal of feeding billions.

Keep in mind that they have a longer view and are more willing to take higher risks than businesses motivated by a short-term profit motive and stock-market cycles.

Examples: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Worldwatch Institute, Matt Damon’s Water.org, Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room, Grameen Bank microfunding, Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative.

6. Passionate activists, individuals and organizations

And finally, some of your best information will come from the most challenging and passionate sources, activists who may be experts or concerned citizens trying to wake up the world before it’s too late. You may think they focus too much on the worst-case scenario. And they may believe that most people are sleep-walking, ignoring long-term consequences.

Yet, given time constraints, their ideas may prove invaluable. You may not agree with their tactics, but activists want to make a difference, are socially conscious, motivated to create equality and a sustainable planet for future generations.

Examples: Bill McKibben’s 350.org, Friends of the Earth, OccupyWallStreet.org, Greenpeace, DeSmogBlog.com, Global Climate Network.

Remember, this task is urgent. The clock’s ticking. Remember, in order to find a solution to this “Innovation Saves the World” challenge, you must solve the No. 1 problem facing the world: “Feed 10 billion in 2050.” And we cannot wait till 2050 to devise the solution. Waiting is suicidal. 2020 will be too late. It’s already late. Start planning now.

So tell us, who’s on your team? What’s your gut telling you is the newest innovative solution to start researching first? And why must we pursue this seemingly impossible task?

Remember, we did get to the moon in a decade. So let’s boldly go where no one has gone before. Let’s “Innovate and Save the World.” Let’s do the impossible: Let’s create a “New Global Agriculture” that can and will feed 10 billion in 2050.

MarketWatch