World Food Consumption

The world uses about one-half of the land area potentially available for crop production, but most of the additional land lies outside densely populated countries. This could mean that increased food production will come from continuing and strengthening research, development, and extension programs to provide increasing yields. Table 1.3 shows the approximate world food consumption broken down into developing and developed countries. Farmers produce food no matter where they are located. 

It is obvious to you and me that allelopathy has an enormous impact on the composition of the world food consumption. Can we make the case for allelopathy in each of our countries I hope that we can ... 

Capacity, Production, and Consumption. Ammonia production has worldwide significance about 85% of the ammonia produced is used for nitrogen fertilizers. As the primary source of fertilizer nitrogen, it is key to solving world food production requkements. The remaining 15% goes into various industrial products such as fibers, animal feeds, explosives, etc. 

Plant nutrient sulfur has been growing in importance worldwide as food production trends increase while overall incidental sulfur inputs diminish. Increasing crop production, reduced sulfur dioxide emissions, and shifts in fertilizer sources have led to a global increase of crop nutritional sulfur deficiencies. Despite the vital role of sulfur in crop nutrition, most of the growth in world fertilizer consumption has been in sulfiir-free nitrogen and phosphoms fertilizers (see Fertilizers). 

Over the past 30 years, the world food production has grown faster than the population, the major basis of consumption. The world food production increased at an annual rate of 2.4% (grain production increased at 2.7%), while the world population increase is now less than 2% (9). Research and improved technologies have contributed to an increase in food availability, which will continue if an appropriate political, social, and economic environment exists. The world population, now at 5.5 billion, is predicted to be 10 billion in the last quarter of the next century (9) and will place greater demands on the production and processing of food. 

Figure 4.20 World-wide consumption and collection of PET food bottles, excluding Africa and the Middle East (source-PCI Packaging, Resin and Recycling Ltd, 30 March 2001)...

Potatoes are uniquely positioned to be a valuable source of dietary vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients because oftheir per capita consumption. In most of the developed world, potatoes are by far the most eaten vegetable (Figure 14.1). Because of this high consumption the vitamin and phytonutrient content of potato will have much more dietary relevance and impact than foods eaten in sparse quantities. Moreover, in the developing world, potato consumption is increasing at about 5% a year and in 2005 the developing world for the first time produced more potatoes than the developed world. China and India produce about one third of the world s potatoes. 

Mollusks along with the crustaceans are also widely sought to participate in the world s consumption of marine food. Fermented marine food sauces such as blue mussel sauce and oyster sauce possess bioactive peptides which play a major role as Angiotensin I converting enzyme inhibitors that indirectly suppress hypertension (Wijesekara and Kim, 2010). Hence, the mollusk-derived proteins and other macromolecules are highly valuable to indicate these organisms as medicinally valuable food sources. 

The ocean covers 71% of the planet s surface and is the source of a substantial amount of foodstuffs consumed by humans (around 1 % of total food consumption), the remaining 99% of food is obtained from cultivated land. At the same time, the total amount of organic matter produced in the ocean is approximately equal to that produced by land vegetation. By rough estimates, the total biomass of nekton constitutes 5.3 1091. The catch of fish and other species from the World Ocean is estimated at 70 106 t/yr, which constitutes 20% of the protein consumed by humans. The catch of traditional species is close to the limit for their sustainability ( 90 106 t/yr-100 106 t/yr). However, it is not a limit to the industrial ability of ocean ecosystems in general, since the supplies of krill and other biological objects are still used little. 

Cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a major world food crop. Only wheat surpasses rice with regard to production and food use. About 90% of the world s rice is produced and consumed in Asia.1 The production and consumption of rice in the United States, while not a staple food, increased more than 40% during the period from 1980 to 19952 and an additional 25% from 1995 to 2005.3 The price of rice in... 

FAO/WHO (1997). Food Consumption and Exposure Assessment of Chemicals, Report of an FAO/WHO Consultation, WHO/FSF/FOS/97.5, February 10-14, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. 

Global food consumption will double in the next 25 years. The reasons are the increase of the world population and a higher consumption of every single person. The area of arable land, however, will remain constant. Consequently, the available agricultural land area per person... 

World Health Organization. Fish and Fishery Products. World apparent Consumption Based on Food Balance Sheets (1961-1993). Italy WHO, Rome, 1996. 

As the human population of the earth continues to grow and the resulting crisis in world food supplies becomes more critical, utilization of wood cellulose and cellulosic waste materials as sources of food for animals or even for human consumption may become imperative. Food processors already are experimenting with fermentation methods and treatments with cellulolytic enzymes as means to increase the nutritive value of wood and other refractory food materials or waste products. It is conceivable that cellulolytic enzymes produced in microbiological cultures could be ingested by man or other animals together with foods... 

I,aurenti G (comp.) (2007). 1961-2003 Fish and Fishery Products World Apparent Consumption Statistics Based on Food Balance Sheets. FAO Fisheries Circular 821, rev. 8. FAO, Rome. 

The new descriptions of the 13 GEMS/Food Consumption Cluster Diets (World Flealth Crganization, 2006) and the actual AFL levels in foods moving in international trade considered in this assessment together provide a refinement of dietary exposure assessments for tree nuts and the relative contribution of other food sources to overall dietary exposure to AFL, which makes the diets and ML scenarios more relevant than those used for the previous evaluation by the Committee. 

World Health Organization (2006) GEMS/Food Consumption Cluster Diets. Geneva, Department of Food Safety, Zoonoses and Foodborne Diseases, Revision August. Yazdanpanah, H., MohammadI, T., Abouhossain, G.A. Cheraghall, M. (2005) Effect of roasting on degradation of aflatoxins In contaminated pistachio nuts. Food Chem. Toxicol. 43, 1135-1139. 

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