(July 1, 2015) Ongoing
efforts to feed a growing global population are threatened by rising
fossil-fuel energy costs and breakdowns in transportation infrastructure.
Without new ways to preserve, store, and transport food products, the
likelihood of shortages looms in the future.
In an analysis of food preservation and transportation
trends published in this week’s issue of the journal BioScience, scientists
warn that new sustainable technologies will be needed for humanity just to stay
even in the arms race against the microorganisms that can rapidly spoil the
outputs of the modern food system
“It is mostly a race between the capacity of microbe
populations to grow on human foodstuffs and evolve adaptations to changing
conditions and the capacity of humans to come up with new technologies for
preserving, storing, and transporting food,” wrote lead author Sean T. Hammond,
a postdoctoral researcher and interdisciplinary ecologist in the College of
Forestry at Oregon State University.