Technology options for feeding 10 billion people : Plant breeding and innovative agriculture

In the frame of the STOA project “Technology options for feeding 10 billion people”, this report analyse how farming management concepts, practices and technologies, including plant breeding, could enable sustainable intensification of crop production, with the aim to increase food production and support food supply. The aim of sustainable intensification is to produce more food from the same area of land while reducing the environmental impacts, under social and economic beneficial conditions. The study addresses agriculture in developing countries as well as in industrialized countries (Europe), small-scale and large-scale farming, extensive and intensive agricultural production systems, and low and high tech production practices. The main topics are: - Reducing yield gaps – sustainable intensification and improving crop management; - Increasing yield potentials – plant breeding; - Reducing crop losses – improving harvest and postharvest procedures. For these topics, options for action are identified and discussed.