Towards food security by 2050

Abstract

Keywords Foodsecurity .Policy .RisksThe hungry poor shall weep no more,for the food they can never earn;There are tables spread, ev’ry mouth be fed,for the world is about to turn.Rory Cooney, Canticle of the TurningIntroductionSince the food price spike of 2008 there have been multiplereportsonthechallengesoffeedingmorethan9billionpeopleby 2050. The low end of the projected increase in food sup-plies needed to ‘feed the world’ is about 60 % (Alexandratosand Bruinsma 2012), but it could be greater, depending onassumptions about population, incomes and diets.The key drivers of increased food demand are humanpopulation increase, urbanisation and a rise in per capitaincomes. Increased incomes, in particular, bring changesin diet and the types of food consumed. The conclusion ofmany, but not all, of the existing food supply projectionsis that, given sufficient farm inputs and investment inresearch and development, the additional 2.4 billion peo-ple needing to be fed in 35 years time can be accommo-dated with the resources available. It will, however,require on-going increases in farm yields (Grafton et al.this volume) and strong growth in total factor productivity(output per unit of all productive, measured inputs) inagriculture (Hertel this volume). While technology(Grafton and Yule this volume) and plant genomics(Rivers et al. this volume) offer exciting production pos-sibilities, the food supply benefits will not arise withoutsuitable investment in research (Hertel this volume)andbiosecurity (Kompas et al.this volume). Such investmentis needed because of the large impacts of plant diseasesand other epidemics on farm production and livelihoods(Avelino et al. this volume).Asbigasthechallengeistofeedmorethan9billionpeopleby 2050, increasing food availability is not sufficient becausefoodneeds tobeproducedinwaysthatallow for its sustainedsupply,donotdegradeourabilitytoproducefoodinthefutureand do not seriously compromise critically important ecosys-tem services. It is also not possible for the levels of consump-tioninfoodandmaterialgoodsenjoyedbythewealthyinrichcountries to be enjoyed by all without grave, and possiblycatastrophic, risks to the global environment in terms of bio-diversity loss, water scarcity and climate change (McKenzieand Williams this volume). While reductions in food wasteand changes to less meat-intensive diets would reduce green-house gas emissions and reduce the need for land clearing(Tilman and Clark 2014), wishing this were the case is verydifferent from making it happen.The proportion of chronically undernourished people hasdeclined substantially since the world food crisis of 1973, butthereisnoassurancethatthiswillcontinue,especiallyassomecountries experienced a reduction in per capita food supplyover parts of this period. Indeed, food prices increased byabout 80 % between 2004 and 2008 mostly due to higher oilprices and support for first-generation biofuels. This foodprice surge was the major contributing factor to the additionof more than 100 million people globally to the chronically