How to feed the World in 2050
“How to feed the World in 2050”
The outlook for food and agriculture in a
dynamically changing economic and
demographic environment
Josef Schmidhuber
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Session 1
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
The key challenges
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Feed 9.2 billion by 2050, feed them better and
provide more nutritious food
Produce feedstocks for a potentially huge
bioenergy market
Contribute to overall development and poverty
reduction
Cope with scarce resources and shift to more
sustainable production methods
Adapt to the agro-ecological conditions of
climate change and help reduce GHG
emissions
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
The dynamically changing environment
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Population growth:
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Income growth:
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+2.3 bn to 2050 after +3.3 bn over the last 40 years
Highest growth in poorest region: SSA +114%
Lowest growth in richest region: E and SE Asia +14%
+2.7 bn in urban areas, massive urbanization
Overall a richer world by 2050
+2.9% growth p.a. for the world as a whole, higher in
DCs lower in ICs
Convergence, less inequality (country basis)
Less poverty, but low poverty line of $1.25
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
12.0
0.9
0.8
Total population
(billions)
9.0
0.7
0.6
6.0
0.5
0.4
0.3
3.0
0.2
0.1
0.0
1750 1800
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Annual increments (billions)
Population growth to continue, but at a slower pace
0
1850 1900 1950 2000 2050
Source: UN, World Population Assessment 2006
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
The food outlook
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Food production: slow down in growth
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Food trade: rapid expansion overall
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DC net imports cereal: 125 million t  300 million t
DC net exports oilseeds: 8 million t  25 million t
DC net exports sugar: 10 million t  20 million t
Food prices
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+70% between 2005/07 and 2050
+1,000 million t of cereals (from 2,200 million t today)
+200 million t of meats (from 270 million t today)
+300 million t of soybeans (from 215 million t today)
Secular downward trend in real prices to discontinue?
Energy price link to become more important
Bioenergy demand: wildcard for production, trade and prices
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
Nutrition, hunger & malnutrition
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Higher calorie availability
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Lower levels and incidence of hunger
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From 823 m (16.3%) in 2003/05 to 370 m in 2050 (4.8%)
WFS target of halving the absolute numbers only in the 2040s!
Progress in reducing hunger, but insufficient
Higher levels of overweight and obesity
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World: 2770  3050 kcal/p/d
DCs: 2680  2970 kcal/p/d
More NCDs (diabetes 2, coronary heart disease, etc.)
Growing double burden of malnutrition, from “food poverty” to
“health poverty”
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
Is there enough crop land?
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huge potential: 4.2 billion ha
1.60 billion ha in use today, increase to 1.67
billion ha by 2050
But land reserves unevenly distributed:
ample in SSA and LA, exhausted in NENA
and SASIA
and: 800 mha covered by forests, 200 mha
in protected areas, 60 mha in settlements
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
Is there enough yield potential?
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Sources of growth: predominantly through higher
productivity (as in the past)
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77% yields, 14% CI, 9% area
71% yields, 8% CI, 21% area
Yield growth: considerable slow down: 0.8% p.a. in
the future compared to 1.7% in the past Yield
potentials
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World:
DCs:
Still considerable untapped/bridgeable yield potentials
Intensification possible to narrow yield gaps
Technology potential to raise yield ceilings
but: R&D needed for crops that are important for the poor
(millet, sorghum, R&T, pulses, plantains)
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
Is there enough water?
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Area equipped with irrigation
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Water withdrawals: “only” +11%
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World: +31 mha to 318 mha
DCs: +32 mha to 251 mha
AH under irrigation: +17%
Higher water use efficiency
Decline of irrigated rice area
Resource “pressure”: withdrawals as share of
renewable water resources relatively low for the
world as a whole, but very high in NENA (58->62%)
and high and rising in SASIA (36->39%)
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
Agricultural transformation
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Vibrant agricultural sector needed for a
successful economic transformation
Low food prices and labour surplus stimulated
economic growth in developed countries,
absorption of rural labour, pull effect
For developing countries to enter into a
similarly successful transformation, more
investment in agriculture is crucial (infrastructure,
institutions, R&D, extension, food safety nets,
productive safety nets, resource conservation)
Session 1
Rome, 12 October 2009
How to feed the World in 2050
Conclusions
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The world has the resources (land, water,
genetics and know-how) to feed 9.2 billion
people by 2050
Food security is a predominantly a poverty
problem; but no success in poverty/hunger
reduction without improvements in agriculture
The poor depend on agriculture and they are
disproportionately more affected by CC, higher
food and energy prices
Agriculture is the Poor's (and the world’s) best
hope: Investments in agriculture are key to
reducing poverty, hunger, adapting to and
mitigating climate change
Rome, 12 October 2009