University of Arizona Professor Peter Troch said that by the year 2050, the world population is expected to grow by 2.5 billion, and, at the same time, it is not cultivating enough soil each year to grow crops.
That is a challenge for scientists, Troch said.
“The amount of soil per person over the next decade is going to continue to decrease, so that means what we are left over with is a limited resource to produce enough food to feed 10 billion people,” Troch said.
Through the Biosphere-2 center in Tucson, UA is spending $7.5 million to study how soil forms from rock.
An ideal outcome from the study would be to find new technology that can speed up production of new soil, he said.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was corrected to represent the number that the world population is expected to grow.
