*SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS*

CORNELL UNIVERSITY Professor Dr. Syed SH Rizvi on Wednesday highlighted major threats and challenges to the worlds food security and sustainability, stressing that-

*Mankind's future depends upon developing sustainable food systems which use less land and water*.

In his key note address at the inaugural session of the third international conference of biosciences, Dr Rizvi who is a professor of food process engineering, said the agricultural productivity was not rising fast enough to sustainably feed the world in 2050.

The session which was also attended by thirteen eminent foreign scientists from Canada, USA, UK, Turkey, Malaysia, Iran and China.

The Cornell University professor said the world's food demand was estimated to be increased by  70 to 100 percent in the next three decades-

50 percent of the increase would be due to population growth to 9 billion, while other 50 percent would be due to changing dietary choices.

He said that another challenge to the food security was decreasing cultivable land which would decrease down for 0.45 hectares per capital in 1996 to 0.15 hectares in 2050-

When 70 percent of the world's population would be urban.

Talking about the nutrition and health issues, Professor Rizvi said that out of a world population of 7 billion-

About 2 billion people were suffering micronutrient malnutrition which he called the *hidden hunger* while-

800 million suffer from from calorie deficiency.

He added that out of 667 million children under the age of five world-wide, about 159 million were too short for their age and about 50 millions didn't weight enough for their height.

!WOW! thanks author Arsalan Haider.