The current forecast for the world’s population is that we will have nine billion people on this earth in 2050. Feeding the nine billion was the theme of an invitation-only lecture in the City of London organized by the seven City Livery Companies whose roots are in the UK food industry – namely the Worshipful Companies of Bakers, Butchers, Cooks, Farmers, Fishmongers, Fruiterers and Poulters. Six hundred guests from the food industry were at London's Guildhall on January 19th to hear Sir David King – the UK Government’s former Chief Scientific Advisor - deliver the annual City Food Lecture. His title was, Managing the Earth's Resources to Deliver Food for Nine Billion.

The lecture, and Sir David king, ranged over all the usual suspects; the USA’s policy on biofuels, commodity price rises, genetically modified crops, climate change and the drive for more and more meat protein to feed the world’s population. Sir David King made no apologies for suggesting that science had a big role to play in feeding the world. He was quite clear about the need for genetic modification to be allowed to help in this and could not see any difference between altering crops by selective breeding over a long period and genetic modification via gene splicing in a short period.

You can hear the lecture via a BBC podcast or video on line. You can see the lecture and the panel discussion afterwards at http://www.cityfoodlecture.com/ 

You can also hear a BBC podcast on the lecture at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00q0dc0