Can we feed 9 billion people by 2050 or will we starve?

The question of food security in the world, on account of galloping population growth, seemed to be one of the most pressing concerns at the recently concluded ESOF 2012 (Euroscience Open Forum) in Dublin.

By 2050 the global population is expected to reach 9 billion with the majority of this increase in our part of the developing world ? in Asia. In order to feed this massive number of mouths, speakers at the forum indicated that a huge rise in food production of about 50% was required. The question in everyone?s mind was, if we cant feed the starving 1 billion today how can we ramp up for the increased numbers in 2050?

Speaking to Prof Jonathan Jones FRS of Sainsbury Lab, Norwich UK, one of the foremost experts involved in the study of meeting the challenge of tackling global hunger, he said that researchers have identified many simple methods of matching the demand for food as it must match the supply, and soon the world will face the ?perfect storm? of food insecurity if we do not tackle the situation sensibly.

?Improved agronomy could make a big contribution. Increasing population and consumption are placing unprecedented demands on agriculture and natural resources. Today, approximately a billion people are chronically malnourished while our agricultural systems are concurrently degrading land, water, biodiversity and climate on a global scale. To meet the world?s future food security and sustainability needs, food production must grow substantially while, at the same time, agriculture?s environmental footprint must shrink dramatically.? He shared his study which analysed solutions to this dilemma, by showing that tremendous progress could be made by halting agricultural expansion, closing ?yield gaps? on underperforming lands, increasing cropping efficiency, shifting diets and most of all, reducing waste. ?Together, these strategies could double food production while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture,? explained Jones.

Photo: Hema Radha

Contemporary agriculture faces enormous challenges today, reveals Jones. Even with recent productivity gains, roughly one in seven people lack access to food or are chronically malnourished, stemming from unabated poverty and mounting food prices. Unfortunately, the situation may worsen as food prices are the result of market speculation, bioenergy crop expansion and climatic disturbances. Even if we solve these food access challenges, much more crop production will probably be needed to guarantee future food security. Recent studies suggest that production would need to roughly double to keep pace with projected demands from population growth, dietary changes,especially with changes in meat consumption, and increasing bio-energy use, unless there are dramatic changes in agricultural consumption patterns.

Compounding this challenge, agriculture must also address tremendous environmental concerns. ?Agriculture is now a dominant force behind many environmental threats,? said Jones, ?including climate change, biodiversity loss and degradation of land and freshwater?. In fact, agriculture is a major force driving the environment beyond the ??planetary boundaries??. Looking forward, we face one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century: meeting society?s growing food needs while simultaneously reducing agriculture?s environmental harm of the planet.

Using new geospatial data and models, Jones has evaluated how new approaches to agriculture could benefit both food production and environmental sustainability. ?Our analysis focuses on the agronomic and environmental aspects of these challenges, and leaves a richer discussion of associated social, economic and cultural issues to future work,? he said.

Until recently, the scientific community could not measure, monitor and analyse the agriculture, food, environment system?s complex linkages at the global scale, says Jones.

?Today, however, we have new data that characterize worldwide patterns and trends in agriculture and the environment. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, croplands cover 1.53 billion hectares (about 12% of Earth?s ice-free land), while pastures cover another 3.38 billion hectares (about 26% of Earth?s ice-free land). Altogether, agriculture occupies about 38% of Earth?s terrestrial surface?the largest use of land on the planet. These areas comprise the land best suited for farming: much of the rest is covered by deserts, mountains, tundra, cities, ecological reserves and other lands unsuitable for agriculture.?

Studies show that between 1985 and 2005 the world?s fields and pastures expanded by 154 million hectares (about 3%). But this slow net increase includes significant expansion in the tropics, as well as little change or a decrease in the temperate zone. The result is a net redistribution of agricultural land towards the tropics, with implications for food production, food security and the environment.

Crop production across the world has increased substantially in recent decades. Looking at the figures of common crop groups, which include cereals, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables, it has been noticed that crop production has increased by 47% between 1985 and 2005. However, considering all 174 crops tracked by the UN FAO, researchers found that global crop production increased by only 28% during that time.

This 28% gain in production occurred as cropland area increased marginally by 2.4%, suggesting a 25%increase in yield. However, cropland area that was harvested increased by about 7% between 1985 and 2005?nearly three times the change in cropland area, owing to increased multiple cropping, fewer crop failures, and less land left fallow. Accounting for the increase in harvested land, average global crop yields increased by only 20% between 1985 and 2005, substantially less than the often-cited 47% production increase for selected crop groups, indicating that yields are not rising as quickly as before.

It was also found that measuring by aggregate did not reveal trends in individual crops or crop groups. For example, cereal crops decreased in harvested area by 3.6% between 1985 and 2005, yet their total production increased by 29%, reflecting a 34% increase in yields per hectare. Oil crops, on the other hand, showed large increases in both harvested area (43%) and yield (57%), resulting in a 125% increase in total production. While most crops increased production between 1985 and 2005, fodder crops did not: on average, they saw an 18% production drop as a 26% loss in harvested area overrode an 11% increase in yields.

Another important point noted was that the allocation of crops to non-food uses, including animal feed, seed, bio-energy and other industrial products, affects the amount of food available to the world. Globally, only 62% of crop is allocated to human food, versus 35% to animal feed,which produces human food indirectly, as meat and dairy products and 3% for bio-energy, seed and other industrial products.

It was also found that a striking disparity exists between regions that primarily grow crops for direct human consumption and those that produce crops for other uses. North America and Europe devote only about 40% of their croplands to direct food production, whereas Africa and Asia allocate typically over 80% of their cropland to food crops. Extremes range from the Upper Midwestern USA with less than 25% to South Asia with over 90%.

?So,? Jones said, ?as we face the twin challenges of feeding a growing world, while charting a more environmentally sustainable path, the amount of land and other resources, devoted to animal-based agriculture, merits critical evaluation?. For example, adding croplands devoted to animal feed (about 350 million hectares) to pasture and grazing lands (3.38 billion hectares), we find the land devoted to raising animals totals 3.73 billion hectareswhich is,75% of the world?s agricultural land.

The study also noted that, meat and dairy production can either add to or subtract from the world?s food supply. Grazing systems, especially on pastures unsuitable for other food production, and mixed crop?livestock systems can add calories and protein to the world and improve economic conditions and food security in many regions. However, using highly productive croplands to produce animal feed, no matter how efficiently, represents a net drain on the world?s potential food supply.

So according to Jones, the environmental impacts of agriculture included those caused by expansion,when croplands and pastures extend into new areas, replacing natural ecosystems and those caused by intensification, often through the use of irrigation, fertilizers, biocides and mechanization. Agricultural expansion has had tremendous impacts on habitats, biodiversity, carbon storage and soil conditions. In fact, worldwide agriculture had already cleared or converted 70% of the grassland, 50% of the savanna, 45% of the temperate deciduous forest, and 27% of the tropical forest biome.

?Today? said Jones, ?agriculture is mainly expanding in the tropics, where it is estimated that about 80% of new croplands are replacing forests?. This expansion is worrisome, given that tropical forests are rich reservoirs of biodiversity and key ecosystem services. Clearing tropical forests is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and is estimated to release around 1.131015 grams of carbon per year, or about 12% of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions28. Slowing or halting expansion of agriculture in the tropics, will reduce carbon emissions as well as losses of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Photo: Neil Mathew

Agricultural intensification has dramatically increased in recent decades, outstripping rates of agricultural expansion, and has been responsible for most of the yield increases of the past few decades. In the past 50 years, the world?s irrigated cropland area roughly doubled, while global fertilizer use increased by 500%, with over 800% for nitrogen alone. Intensification has also caused water degradation, increased energy consumption, and widespread pollution.

Of particular concern is that some 70% of global freshwater are devoted to irrigation. Furthermore, rain-fed agriculture is the world?s largest user of water13,38. In addition, fertilizer use, manure application, and leguminous crops,which fix nitrogen in the soil, have dramatically disrupted global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, with associated impacts on water quality, aquatic ecosystems and marine fisheries. Both agricultural expansion and intensification are also major contributors to climate change. Agriculture is responsible for 30?35% of global greenhouse gas emissions, largely from tropical deforestation, methane emissions from livestock and rice cultivation, and nitrous oxide emissions from fertilized soils.

Today, humans are farming more of the planet than ever, with higher resource intensity and staggering environmental impacts, while diverting an increasing fraction of crops to animals, bio-fuels and other non-food uses. Meanwhile, almost a billion people are chronically hungry. The requirements of current and future generations demand that we transform agriculture to meet the twin challenges of food security and environmental sustainability.

Prof. Jones neatly summed up his analysis which demonstrates that four core strategies can meet future food production needs and environmental challenges if deployed simultaneously. Adding them together, they increase global food availability by 100?180%, meeting projected demands while lowering greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity losses, water use and water pollution. However, all four strategies are needed to meet our global food production and environmental goals; no single strategy is sufficient.

Specific land use, agricultural and food system tactics must be developed and deployed. Fortunately, many such tactics already exist, including precision agriculture, drip irrigation, organic soil remedies, buffer strips and wetland restoration, new crop varieties that reduce needs for water and fertilizer, perennial grains and tree-cropping systems, and paying farmers for environmental services. However, deploying these tactics effectively around the world requires numerous economic and governance challenges to be overcome. For example, reforming global trade policies, including eliminating price-distorting subsidies and tariffs, will be vital to achieving the goals.

Finally to develop improved land use and agricultural practices, Jones suggested the following guidelines:

(1) Solutions should focus on critical biophysical and economic ?leverage points? in agricultural systems, where major improvements in food production or environmental performance may be achieved with the least effort and cost.

(2) New practices must also increase the resilience of the food system. High-efficiency, industrialized agriculture has many benefits, but it is vulnerable to disasters, including climatic disturbances, new diseases and economic calamities.

(3) Agricultural activities have many costs and benefits, but methods of evaluating the trade-offs are still poorly developed. We need better data and decision support tools to improve management decisions, productivity and environmental stewardship.

(4) The search for agricultural solutions should remain technology neutral.
There are multiple paths to improving the production, food security and environmental performance of agriculture, and we should not be locked into a single approach.

The challenges facing agriculture today said Jones are quite unlike anything we have experienced before, and they require revolutionary approaches to solving food production and sustainability problems.

In short, new agricultural systems must deliver more human value, to those who need it most, with the least environmental harm. That way we can ensure the 9 billion of us do not starve in 2050.

* The above article cites and paraphrases material from an analysis written and published by JA Foley et al.

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The writer attended ESOF2012 in Dublin as a Robert Bosch Stiftung Fellow

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