Jason Clay, the head of agriculture at WWF US in Washington, once famously calculated that the world’s farmers will need to produce as much food in the next forty years as they produced in the past 8,000 years. Can they do it?
The UN’s FAO believes that they can. At a world summit back in 2009 the Organisation predicted that in order to feed the world in 2050 global agricultural production would have to be 60 percent higher than it was in 2005. Although that sounds a lot, it would be a smaller increase than the agriculture sector achieved over the previous past half century.
Where will that 60% extra production come from?
The FAO expected that, in aggregate, more than 85 percent of the increase in production would come from improved yields. They projected global cereals yields would increase from 3.3 tonnes/ha in 2005 to 4.30 tonnes/ha in 2050. World average yields for other major crops were expected to follow similar patterns.
The rest would have to come from bringing more land under agricultural production. The FAO estimated that the world has a total of around 7.2 billion ha of land suitable for rain fed food production. After discounting for areas already in production, under forest cover or put to other uses – as well as land that is only marginally suitable – the world has some 1.4 billion ha of prime land that could be brought into cultivation.
Much of this, however, would have to come at the expense of pastures, and would require considerable investment. In addition, some of that spare land is not readily accessible due to lack of infrastructure and its distance from markets, making production uneconomical.
The FAO estimated that land under crops would increase by some 70 million ha by 2050. However it warned that much of the spare land is concentrated in a small number of countries, for example in Brazil. Some countries may find it difficult to increase the amount of land under food crops.
All this means that, at the global level, the FAO was optimistic that agricultural production could be increased enough to satisfy the 60 percent increase in demand projected to 2050 for both food and non-food uses.
Where are we ten years later? the World Resources Institute, a non-profit organization, still believes the challenge can be met, but only if certain “gaps” can be overcome. In a recent report entitled “Creating a Sustainable Food Future” the WRI identified three gaps. The first is the food gap, the difference between the amount of food produced in 2010 and the amount necessary to meet likely demand in 2050. They estimated this gap to be 7,400 trillion calories, or 56 percent more crop calories than were produced in 2010. (Their numbers are pretty much aligned with those of the FAO.)
The second, the land gap, is the difference between global agricultural land area in 2010 and the area required in 2050 even if crop and pasture yields continue to grow at past rates. They estimated this gap to be 593 million hectares, an area nearly twice the size of India. The third, the Green House Gas (GHG) mitigation gap, is the difference between the annual GHG emissions likely from agriculture and land-use change in 2050 compared to emissions that have been targeted under the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to below an increase of 1.5°C.
The foundation argued that closing these three gaps would be harder than often recognized. The report’s lead author said, “If we tried to produce all the food needed in 2050 with today’s production systems, the world would have to convert most of its remaining forests, and agricultural alone would produce almost twice the emissions in 2050 allowable from all humans sources.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—a global group of scientists convened by the United Nations to study climate change—is also worried about agriculture’s GHG emissions. In a report published last month, the panel warned that cutting emissions from major polluters like factories and power plants won’t be enough to keep global warming below the two degrees Celsius agreed under the Paris Climate Agreement. They concluded that land use and food systems have to change, too.
The report found that food production (including post-harvest activities like transportation) accounts for between 21 and 37 percent of greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans. The scientists emphasized the need to manage land better and recommended diversifying cropland, reducing food waste and transitioning to vegetarian or vegan diets. The report found that methane emissions are rising again after a no-growth period between 1999 and 2006. Methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas, and cows and global rice production are largely to blame.
They also warned that climate change will exacerbate food insecurity even in the best-case scenario. In fact, they say that climate change is already affecting agricultural production.
Many of the solutions outlined in the IPCC report—farming techniques that prioritize soil health, reforestation—take time. It can take years to rebuild soil that’s healthy enough to withstand a flash flood or a dust storm; a tree can’t start capturing carbon until it’s several years old. The IPCC warn that the time to act is now.
A failure to do so would lead to increased degradation of land because of intensive farming, while a rise in deforestation would accelerate climate change that would in turn make land less fertile and productive, the IPCC added.
We all agree that the way forward for agriculture, and for a sustainable food future, is through producing more food per hectare, per kilogram of fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides, and per litre of water.
Are our farmers up to the challenge? You bet!
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Good read as always. What has happened then to the need to open up and develop African agriculture? It represents the continent with the highest rate of population growth, and land should be sufficiently available to transform food security.
In all of the talk about food targets however, no mention of added water requirements seems forthcoming. Water is at risk of becoming a non renewable commodity
Great article but missing its key ingredient unfortunately. With all smart proposals and projects it misses the role africa will have to play in feeding itself (fast growing population) and the rest of the world with vast stable land available and large increase in yield of existing farmed land.
Good read indeed. It should be mentioned, however, that the amount of additional food is predicated upon a forecast of future population levels which itself can and should be questioned. Furthermore, although the absolute amount of food is important, the issue of the ability to pay for it is equally fundamental. It may be that increasing cost simply limits demand.