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Page added on February 9, 2012
Nestle CEO: Feeding the World Will Be More Difficult
Chief Executive Officer Paul Bulckesaid feeding a swelling world population will be made more difficult by slowing crop-yield growth and scarce resources.
Following are comments Bulcke made at the “Feeding the World” meeting organized by Economist Conferences in Geneva yesterday. Nestle’s products include KitKat chocolate bars and Nescafe instant coffee.
“In the next 40 years, we’re going to have to feed 2.3 billion additional people in the world, and they’ll be increasingly affluent. Meeting this future challenge of food is not going to be as easy as it was in the past. In the last 20 years, the growth per hectare has been much slower than the growth in population.”
Crop and food losses in developing countries are linked to harvesting, transportation and storage, while “in the developed world, it is lost in the kitchen, and that is a very different loss,” Bulcke said.
Water scarcity is “a serious problem,” with lakes drying up and some rivers not reaching seas, according to the Nestle CEO. “Already today there is serious overdraft,” Bulcke said. “It’s said we’re going to run out of water much faster than we’re going to run out of fuel.”
“The discussion on biofuels should take place as soon as possible. The amount of food going into the wrong biofuels is enormous and is a major source of stress” and price swings, according to the CEO. He said that while Nestle is “not against biofuels,” the focus should be on so-called second- and third- generation biofuels that use crop waste and non-food materials.
Nestle is working to improve crops’ disease resistance, yields and water efficiency and also providing improved plants to farmers as well as training them in “the self-interest of the company,” the CEO said.
“Coffee and cocoa are very important ingredients for us,” Bulcke said. “We give them to the farmers. We need good-quality ingredients, we give them that.”
The CEO said the company is also addressing the “major issue” of child labor in cocoa production, “a much bigger issue than Nestle alone,” he said.
“We’re investing quite heavily and increasingly in the developing world, where the growth is. Food is local, and as a food company you should be close to the consumer.”
5 Comments on "Nestle CEO: Feeding the World Will Be More Difficult"
DC on Thu, 9th Feb 2012 2:24 pm
How can a world with increasing # of poor people be affluent at the same time as there not being adequetely fed? Id like to know how that works. Make no mistake, there will be more people, that they will all, or a majority will be ‘affluent’ is pure supposition, ie wishful thinking. Ironic that a Nestle dude talks about water scarcity when people in the US have been fighting his very corporation for privatizing water supplies so they do what with it?
Yea bottle it and sell it @ huge markups in suburban warehouse stores. All the while contributeing to the very problem he pretends to express such concern over.
For just small sample
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/rural_communities_exploited_by_nestl_for_your_bottled_water
http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0625-05.htm
Think bloomberg will run any articles like these in its various media?
BillT on Thu, 9th Feb 2012 2:47 pm
Hopefully, Nestle will soon be put out of business by the world wide economic collapse. We have too many corporate food controllers in the world that think that profits are the reason food was invented and they have a right to control all of it for ‘our’ benefit.
Kenz300 on Thu, 9th Feb 2012 3:22 pm
Quote — ” Water scarcity is “a serious problem,” with lakes drying up and some rivers not reaching seas, according to the Nestle CEO. “Already today there is serious overdraft,” Bulcke said. “It’s said we’re going to run out of water much faster than we’re going to run out of fuel.”
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The ever expanding world population is reaching the limits of resources. WE have a food crisis, a water crisis, an oil crisis, a climate change crisis, a financial crisis and a jobs crisis. The ever expanding world population is not sustainable.
Harquebus on Fri, 10th Feb 2012 1:35 am
I can see it now, miles of kiddies carrying sacks of coffee and cocoa.
BillT on Fri, 10th Feb 2012 3:30 am
I was drinking Nescafe instant coffee imported into the Philippines until it hit the equivalent of $24 US per pound. That is an outrageous price for a pound of coffee beans. I have since switched to a coffee grown locally at 1/10 the cost. I feel sorry for all who do not have that option and are addicted to caffeine and are chained to Big Ag for their daily ‘fix’ like oil junkies are addicted to their gasoline/diesel from Big Petro.