SHIPSHEWANA, Ind. — With the world’s population projected to reach nine billion by 2050, we’ll need to do more than just farm additional land in order to keep everyone fed, a representative from Elanco said recently.

To feed the increased population, there will be a need for twice as much food by the middle of the century, said Pam Boocher, senior marketing associate with Elanco. Putting more land into farming would only get us 20 percent closer to the goal, she noted.

“There’s not room (on the planet) for additional water, land and resources,” she explained. “The solution is to use technology practices, products and genetics.”

The use of efficiency-improving technology would get us 70 percent closer to the goal, she said. Boocher was the keynote speaker Feb. 29, on the first day of the two-day Midwest Women in Agriculture conference in Shipshewana.

Technology has made vast improvements in the production efficiency of several products, including milk and beef, she noted. Today, a gallon of milk requires 65 percent less water and 90 percent less land than it would have in 1944.

Manure production is 76 percent less per gallon of milk today, and today’s milk has a 63 percent smaller carbon footprint, she added. Each pound of ground beef produced today requires 14 percent less water and 34 percent less land than it would have in 1977, with 20 percent less manure production today and an 18 percent smaller carbon footprint.

The notion that consumers aren’t interested in foods produced with safe, modern technology isn’t borne out by several studies, Boocher stated. According to the International Consumer Attitudes Study, which looked at more than 25 studies from 2001-10, 95 percent of consumers are food buyers who purchase based on taste, cost and nutrition, she said.

Four percent are considered lifestyle buyers who purchase food based on such factors as ethnicity, vegetarianism or to support local suppliers, Boocher added.

“People just want safe products they can trust, that they can rely on,” she said. “They want food that’s good for their families and that’s economical.”

Agriculture should be ready to support that 99 percent, she noted. “Everybody has a right to eat and has a right to go into a grocery store and buy the products they want to buy.”

The remaining 1 percent are considered to be on the fringe, and are those who not only care about what they eat, but care about what we all consume, Boocher said. People in this group are those who would push for bans or restrictions on some technologies, she added.

Hunger is the No. 1 killer in the world, with an estimated 25,000 deaths a day owing to the problem, Boocher said. In the United States, 10-15 percent of a person’s income may go to food, but in some countries, that number could be as high as 80 percent.

“We don’t necessarily think about these things because we have enough food to eat and our neighbors do, too,” she explained. “It’s something we don’t often hear about, but it’s something that happens every day. It’s very real and very true.”

Studies have found that one in five children in the United States don’t know where their next meal is coming from, Boocher noted. In inner London, United Kingdom, the number is two in five children. In France, it’s one in eight children, and in Japan, one in seven.

“We have to make sure everyone has access to safe, affordable, abundant food,” Boocher said. “Farmers can look at their operations and see what they can do in those operations to improve what they’re currently doing.”