A Sustainable Approach To Feeding The World By 2050

There is a large shortfall between the amount of food being produced in the world today and the quantity needed to feed an expected 10 billion people by 2050. A World Resources Institute report suggests it is possible to produce enough food sustainably to cater for the rapid increase in demand, but achieving this will require major changes to the way we grow and consume food.

- Denene Erasmus

As the global population grows from seven billion in 2010 to a projected 9,8 billion in 2050, and incomes grow across the developing world, overall food demand is on course to increase by more than 50%, and demand for animal-based foods by nearly 70%. Yet today, hundreds of millions of people remain hungry, agriculture already uses almost half of the world’s vegetated land, and agriculture and related land-use change generate a quarter of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the publication ‘World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future’, researchers propose several options for a sustainable food future by avoiding deforestation, and reforesting or restoring abandoned and unproductive land. The report sets out how this can be achieved in ways that will also help stabilise the climate, promote economic development, and reduce poverty.

CLOSING THE GAPS

Achieving these goals requires closing three great ‘gaps’ by 2050. The first of these is the so-called food gap, which refers to the difference between the amount of food produced in 2010 and the amount necessary to meet likely demand in 2050. According to the report, this gap is estimated to be 31 000 trillion kilojoules, or 56% more crop energy than produced in 2010.

The second is the land gap, which refers to 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. This gap is estimated to be 593 million hectares, an area nearly twice the size of India.