na slávnostnej promócii pri príležitosti odovzdávania čestného titulu doctor honoris causa.
Honourable Rector, Members of the Scientific Boards of the Faculties, Ladies and Gentlemen I would like to thank you very sincerely for this honour that you bestow upon me. Having been involved with the graduation many honorary degrees during my career in Great Britain; it is very rare that a Doctor Honoris Causa is awarded to an academic and especially an agricultural engineer. It would not be appropriate for me to deliver a very long speech - but really to applaud the University for keeping its roots well founded in agriculture as those skills, enhanced by current and developing research programmes are critical, I will however take a short time to explain my reasons.
The developed world after a period of sustained economic growth has taken food production and availability for granted. This was also the case in the 1920's and 30's in Britain and it took Adolf Hitler to change the thinking for a period of 2 generations. However, a generation of plenty, mobilised by financiers, soon forgets the problems faced by their grandparents, and a number of issues should now shake the population and the politicians, into reassessing this lasse faire policy. These are as follows:
* Firstly an increase in world population of 50% and potential changes in diet in primarily Asia, as people living standards rise, result in an anticipated demand for a 100% increase in food production by 2050.
* Secondly the demands for fuel production for both bio-mass for power generation and for processing into bio-ethanol. This is exemplified by the fact that currently 18% of the US maize production accounts for 60% of all of the international maize trade. When however all the proposed ethanol plants in the Mid West of the United States are operating an estimated 40% of the maize harvest will be consumed in the production of 140 billion litres of fuel per year for domestic consumption!
* Thirdly the issues of climate change will have an impact, and I believe no one currently knows the effect of this. It will be true that there will be shifts in incoming radiation levels, temperature and rainfall distribution and so we will see a re-distribution of crop type and varieties to accommodate these changes. And sadly for an island nation like Britain we will see significant coastal margins lost to the sea, but thankfully for Slovakia that will not be a problem - or if it is the world has a real problem!
* The former 3 issues all impact upon water or the shortage of water. Hence improved storage and distribution methods need to be adopted, alongside novel application and control procedures. I learnt last month that in order to make 0.2 litre cup of tea it takes 35 litres of water. On the other hand we can design a fairly efficient system such as that in Britain where that 1% of the water extracted from the rivers, irrigates 4% of the crop area and produces 20% of the crop value and as a result 1000 farmers in Eastern England supply 1/3 of the potatoes and 1 of the fruit and vegetables consumed in Britain. The world has a right to be worried about the problems of water, the cowboys in the USA would say that - "whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over!" Let us hope that they are wrong but many say that currently the issues surrounding water are more immediately critical than those of food.
* That then brings me to the last point, namely the pressure on fertilizer resources, if we turn the clock back 100 years there were key agronomists and politicians who were suggesting that there would be insufficient food to feed the world in a further 20 years, however, that was before the Harber-Bosch process became available to fix nitrogen. The problem here is that the Harber- Bosch process requires very significant energy inputs and the production and cost of nitrogen fertilizer is linked to the availability and price of gas. Currently it is estimated that 55% of the nitrogen in the system comes from this process and in so doing has saved about 25% of the world population from starvation and prevented war. The other macro nutrients are mined and as such are a fixed resource and are in increasingly shorter supply.
All of the above issues mean that we need to continue to develop novel methods to feed and fuel the world. Last month, I was asked to address the Royal Academy of Engineering on this topic and concluded that with a coordinated initiative we could meet the challenge of 50% increase in food production over a twenty year time frame. That was without including the major advances that could come from the acceptance of genetically modified crops, which should be developed to produce a similar if not higher yield with greater efficiency in their use of water and fertilizer.
I was suggesting that this improvement could come from:
* Improved soil management, the reduction in compaction through controlled traffic and other methods for reducing vehicle contact pressure with the soil.
* Improved land drainage and salinity control.
* The utilisation of less fertile land and land not currently operating at full capacity. * The use of precision farming methods to redistribute and save fertiliser and water, the application of the concept of spatially variable inputs to irrigation is still in its infancy.
* The reduction of post harvest losses from in some regions of the world of about 40% from improvements in crop storage and handling systems.
* The extension and further development of proven practices to developing regions.
In summary this means that we need to double the yield on 12% of the worlds land mass, using less water, less energy and low emissions. Hence we need good agronomists, soils and livestock specialists and agricultural engineers to design new systems for agriculture and to ensure that the messages are delivered to the farmers with appropriate extension methods.
In the west we have been fortunate that over the past 20 years we could focus on environmental issues - almost at the cost of production - as there was an adequate supply of food. Thankfully we can take these results and integrate them into our future progress, so that we can produce food in an environmentally sustainable manner.
It is important that we get this message across to the politicians as many still think we just buy food from Tesco's and they source it from the cheapest location, that free trade will prevail and we will all be rich enough to purchase our needs on the international market. There are about 5 major international locations where environmental conditions are appropriate for the production of the major crops, without dependence upon irrigation. Thankfully greater Europe (east, central and west) is one of them, and as such Europe must play its part and continue to develop its agriculture.
It has been my life's work to teach and train young people in agriculture from soil management through mechanisation and engineering to precision farming, and in so doing bring new ideas to the industry as a product of our research. The furtherance of this is a major role for a University such as the Slovak University of Agriculture, and I stress the importance of developing the minds and abilities of the next generation of professionals with a sound knowledge base and the ability to think laterally to seek the new methods for the years 2020 and beyond. Recent history has shown a clear link between investment in research and development and the continued improvement in crop yield and also the rate at which it occurs.
It has been a great pleasure over the past 4 years to work with the Slovak University of Agriculture in both developing programmes for and helping to supervise your postgraduate students, where they have undertaken joint degrees with Cranfield University at Silsoe. You can be very proud of their achievements. The "double" Master and Doctor of Philosophy degrees awarded to Dr Jana Havrankova in Precision Farming proved a very success flagship and should be the model for future Anglo-Slovak collaboration. I hope that I can help further develop relationships between the Slovak University of Agriculture with both Cranfield University at Silsoe, from where I retired last December, and at Harper Adams University College, where I help in the further development of their agricultural research programmes.
The translation from the Latin for the heraldic shield for Silsoe was - "From nature with ingenuity comes abundance" - this clearly signifies the value of the work that we do in applying engineering and technology to food production and the environment.
I once again thank you for this honour and wish you and your students a prosperous future.
