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- Season 0 1998-12-27
- Season 1 1970-01-01
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- Season 6 1970-01-01
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- Season 27 1970-01-01
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- Season 38 2003-12-26
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- Season 40 2005-12-25
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- Season 42 2007-12-23
- Season 43 2008-12-28
- Season 44 2009-12-21
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- Season 47 2012-12-26
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- Season 55 2020-12-28
- Season 56 2021-12-28
- Season 57 2022-12-26
- Season 58 2023-12-26
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures - Season 40 Episode 5 The Truth About Food: Food for the Future
5.10 60 minutes Most of us get enough to eat, but roughly 800 million people in the world go hungry every day. The world's population is set to increase from about six billion today to nearly ten billion by 2050. Will more people inevitably go hungry? Is the earth capable of producing enough food for the future? In the 20th century the green revolution produced a lot more food for the world's rapidly expanding population, through a mixture of better crops, more fertilisers and pesticides and more efficient machinery. Is the same solution going to work in the 21st century? What will be the impacts on the environment? Many people rely on fish for their survival, but already the world's oceans are over-exploited. What will happen to fish stocks in years to come? In this glimpse of the future, John asks whether new farming methods such as genetically modified crops will be the solution, or whether we will all have to become vegetarians. Science is also blurring the boundaries between food, medicines and drugs. Will the future bring us the chocolate bar that treats heart disease or the mood-enhancing potato crisp?
