From here thirty years, to feed 10 billion people on the planet will load the environment of an almost unbearable burden. That's the bad news. The good news is that, according to a study by researchers at the University of Oxford, with (not simple) measures succeed we could still do. The caveat is that you need to start now to get busy.

Warmer and less food. Food production is one of the factors that most contribute to the exploitation of the environment in terms of impact on the climate, soil depletion, water pollution.

Since the last IPCC report, the Interngovernmental Panel for Climate Change, just published shows that the crops and the availability of food may even decrease for increases considered content, and by now inevitable, temperature, such as those below 2 C .

The predictions are that for every extra degree of temperature, global wheat production will decline by 6 percent, that of maize by more than 7, rice by about 3.

Other damage may come from factors which have not been nearly even taken into account, for example insects. According to a recent study, with warm temperatures, their metabolism increases and it requires more nourishment. The losses for crops of wheat, rice and barley could go 10-25 percent, especially in temperate regions.

Survival strategies. Therefore, while food production could decline, and malnutrition on the horizon as the most serious threat to the health of climate change in this century, we will have to come to terms with the increasing population. With that expected by 2050, the impact should still burdening already calculated between 50 and 90 percent. Although there is not a single measure that can fit within the safety limits, according to the analysis of the Oxford University researchers, the combination of several strategies can make more sustainable our presence on the planet.

The study, published in the journal Nature, is the first to accurately quantify the problem and possible solutions.

In short, the recipe calls for three ingredients: a shift of the entire population to a diet that contains less meat and more vegetables, halve the loss and food waste, and innovate in agriculture and animal husbandry practices.

Become flexitariani? Experts predict that adoption globally, both by developed countries than in developing nutrition called "flexitarian" or flexible vegetarian, which provides a reduced consumption of meat, could reduce by more than half of greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce up to a quarter of other environmental problems, use of fertilizers, the overuse of land and pollution of fresh water. The production of meat, in fact, affects the environment in various ways, by the need to extend the cultivated land to monocultures such as soy and corn to raise livestock until direct emissions of methane, an important greenhouse gas, caused by intensive farming.

In addition to changes in the type of power supply, you will also need to change the agricultural practices, extending the use of technologies that in part already exist for increasing crop yields of plants, and, again, to optimize the use of water and fertilizers. This way you could get to halve the impact of crops.

Stop wastage. Finally, we must take action to reduce food waste: halving, you could globally reduce the environmental impact of agriculture and livestock for another 16 percent. To obtain the result will, however, need to work on the entire production chain, from storage to transport to the distribution and packaging of foodstuffs. All this, however, should be done without further delay. "Many of the solutions are analyzed already adopted in some parts of the world," said Marco Springmann, lead author of the study. "But it will take a strong global coordination and rapid extension to feel the effects."

From Focus