Can We Feed the Future World Population? Population Reference Bureau Food demand will escalate as the total world population climbs past 6 billion and as people in developing countries add more meat and dairy products to their diets. A new report published by the Population Reference Bureau, Population, Food, and Nutrition, examines whether the world's farmers will be able to keep pace. Authors William Bender and Margaret Smith report that agricultural production has grown at an extraordinary pace over the last few decades, which allowed per capita food supply to increase despite unprecedented population growth. But Dr. Bender, a food security expert, and Dr. Smith, an agronomist, state that producing enough food for the future population will require concerted effort by both the public and private sectors to increase agricultural yields while avoiding damage to the environment. Poverty is the major cause of hunger throughout the world. Food is not distributed equally throughout the world, within countries, or even within households. The unequal distribution of food within and among countries means that 840 million people worldwide, including 200 million children, will go hungry today. Poverty, natural disasters, political violence, and geopolitical factors prevent at least one-seventh of the world from getting enough to eat. Although the number and the share of people suffering from malnourishment have fallen over the past few decades, the task of ending world hunger remains formidable. Earth produces enough food for the nearly 6 billion people alive today. In fact, if everyone adopted a vegetarian diet and no food were wasted, current production would theoretically feed 10 billion people, more than the projected population for the year 2050. Food and population are out of balance. Many low-income countries do not grow enough food to feed their residents, and cannot afford to import enough food to make up the difference. Some 43 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa and 22 percent of the population in South Asia are malnourished, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Millions more consume the minimum number of calories, but fail to get the necessary protein and essential vitamins and minerals to lead a healthy life. Increased food production and rising incomes have reduced the incidence of malnutrition worldwide. In 1969-1970,more than one-third of the developing-world population&emdash;about 918 million people&emdash;were classified as "food-energy deficient." By 1990, the number had fallen to 840 million, or one in five people in the developing world. However, both the absolute number and percentage of people suffering from severe malnutrition increased in sub-Saharan Africa. Prospects for meeting future food needs Population growth is the single largest determinant of future food needs. The projected populations of countries and regions span a fairly wide band, which makes specific forecasts of food demand uncertain. However, it is clear that the world's poorest regions will need to produce enough food to feed double the current population by the middle of the 21st century. Whether this will be possible depends in part on the following factors: Increasing yields: Biotechnology holds promise for improving yields, but may not be available to poor regions because of the expense of developing new plant breeds. Agronomists have estimated maximum potential rice yields to be twice that of recent record-high yields Combating land degradation: Desertification, deforestation, salinization, alkalization, acidification, waterlogging, and soil compaction are potential threats to the livelihood of rural populations and to the future food supply. Slowing erosion: Erosion can have devastating impacts on the environment and agricultural productivity, and can cost farmers millions of dollars. The U.S. Soil Conservation Service estimates that almost half of U.S. arable land is excessively eroded. Maintaining adequate irrigation: Currently, over 270 million hectares of cultivated land are irrigated worldwide, accounting for one-sixth of the world's cropland and one-third of the world's harvests. Population growth, industrialization, water pollution, and the depletion of groundwater supplies will all reduce the amount of water available for agriculture. By 2020, 35 countries are expected to be classified as "water-scarce"&emdash;up from 20 in the mid-1990s. Improving fertilizer use: As of 1993, developing countries (excluding China) were using about 37 million tons of fertilizers a year, a four-fold increase over the amount used 20 years ago. Fertilizers will play a crucial role in increasing future food supplies, but barriers to their use and the environmental impact of their misuse must be addressed. Funding research: Much of the needed food increase is expected to come from agricultural research and new technology. However, public-sector agricultural research spending in low-income countries has been less than 0.5 percent of the agricultural GDP in the 1990s, similar to research expenditures in the 1960s. Private and public support will be crucial for continued expansion of the world's food supply. Enacting progressive agricultural policies: Government policy can affect agricultural production and the food supply through price subsidies, trade policy, government food procurement, official exchange rates, and investments in agricultural research. "The lives of half of the world's population are directly affected by agriculture," say Bender and Smith. "They will profit or lose depending upon the actions adopted by governments and international agencies to further agricultural development." From: Population Reference Bureau, Washington, DC. Copyright 1997. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission.

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