To feed the growing world population, farmers will have to produce more food in the next 40 years than they have in the last 10,000, according to an op-ed piece published in the Modesto Bee and written by Barbara Allen-Diaz, vice president of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Don Bransford, chair of the UC President's Advisory Commission on Agriculture and Natural Resources and a partner in Bransford Farms in Colusa.

The article was written to bring attention to the fact that, despite the need to produce so much food in coming years, funds for agricultural research are being cut.

In December, President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recommended that the United States increase its investment in agricultural research by $700 million per year. Instead, the sequester resulted in cuts of approximately 7.6 percent.

"This is simply not sustainable," the op-ed authors note.

Read the article in the Modesto Bee.