Feeding-10-Billion (1)
Feeding-10-Billion (1)
One of the greatest challenges facing our growing population is how we will feed the nearly 10 billion people
expected by the middle of this century. As our global family expands by 2 to 3 billion in less than 30 years, experts
anticipate food production will need to increase by at least 50 percent.1 This would be to accommodate both
the growing number of people and their changing diets across the globe. At the same time, climate change is
beginning to affect every aspect of food production, creating a lot of uncertainty about the world’s ability to meet
future food needs.
Food insecurity – the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food –
is not just a potential problem for the future. In 2020, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported
that close to 800 million people were chronically hungry and over 2 billion suffered micronutrient deficiencies
(a lack of essential vitamins and minerals required for proper growth and development).2 The reasons for food
insecurity are varied and most often tied to poverty. While there is sufficient food grown globally to feed the
current world population, it is not distributed evenly. Access to sufficient, nutritious food is a problem for people
who live in areas with civil conflicts, unstable economies or where changing weather patterns have impaired
crop production. In some parts of the world, food insecurity has reached crisis levels, as in Ethiopia, Madagascar,
South Sudan and Yemen, now at risk of famine. Food insecurity is also a fact of life for the millions of the world’s
refugees, displaced from their homelands.
The FAO estimates that healthy diets are unaffordable for 3 billion people around the world, including those
living in low-income and low-access areas in some of the world’s wealthiest countries. In Northern America (U.S.
and Canada), nearly 30 million people are considered to be food insecure, many of whom reside in food deserts,
locations with limited access to grocery stores.3 The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity in
nearly every country due to lost income and disruptions in food supply chains.
Much of the agricultural expansion we’ve seen in recent decades has been in response to changing diets around
the world, rather than in an effort to promote food security. With the increased wealth of consumers in rapidly
developing economies, like China and India, has come a greater demand for meat and dairy products. As a result,
more land is being converted for grazing livestock and for growing animal feed. In fact, over one-third of the
global grain production is fed to animals.8 Only a fraction of the calories in that animal feed actually winds up on
people’s dining tables. According to Jonathan Foley, Executive Director of Project Drawdown, “for every 100
calories of grain we feed animals, we get only about 40 new calories of milk, 22 calories of eggs, 12 calories of
chicken, 10 calories of pork, or 3 calories of beef.”9 Because of this inefficient feed-to-food conversion, more
people could be fed eating lower on the food chain (more fruits, vegetables and grains) and with smaller portions
of animal proteins. “The world’s
farmers currently produce enough
calories to feed 9 billion people a
healthy, mostly vegetarian diet,”
writes environmental journalist
Joel Bourne.10 Unfortunately, these
calories are not produced in a way to
make them accessible to our current
7.8 billion people.
In more developed countries, food waste mostly occurs at homes and at the retail level (grocery stores,
restaurants and other food services). Because food is relatively cheap in countries like the U.S., there are fewer
incentives to prevent waste. As a result, stores discard produce that is edible but not perfect (like bruised fruit),
and restaurants often serve overly large portions which encourage waste. If the food waste was composted for
fertilizer or fed animals, it could still be put to good use in the food chain. But more often, this food waste winds
up in the regular garbage, headed toward the landfill.
Losing farmland
At the same time that we look to increase crop yields and reduce food waste, we have the added challenge of
preserving valuable farmland that is being lost to urban growth and soil erosion. As global population grows by
over 80 million people each year, there is increased demand for all sorts of infrastructure that requires land –
homes, industry, commercial areas, roads, utilities, and more. The planet is rapidly urbanizing and some of this
urban growth is taking farmland out of production.
Increased irrigation, which has allowed for greater crop production in past years, is also a cause of cropland
damage. Whereas rainwater is essentially distilled, irrigation water contains salts which are left in the topsoil
upon evaporation. This process, called salinization, reduces crop yields on 50 percent of the irrigated land area
worldwide.14
Scientists are continuing to experiment with cross-breeding crop varieties to get desired traits like tolerance
to droughts, floods or pests, or to increase their nutrient value. Since the 1990s, agronomists have also been
using genetic modification (GM) to produce crops with desired traits. With GM, genes identified in one species
can be transferred directly to an unrelated species, giving it an entirely new trait, such as resistance to a pest or
higher nutritional value. For example, scientists have developed a nutrient-enhanced rice using genes from corn.
This “golden rice,” as it is known, was developed to produce beta-carotene (the vitamin found in many yellow
vegetables) to combat Vitamin A deficiency, which causes over one million deaths each year and half a million
cases of blindness in less developed countries.
Spikes in food prices disproportionately affect the poorest people, those who already live in food-insecure
regions. Regions where population is expected to rise the most this century, especially Sub-Saharan Africa,
are also the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change on food supply. “Increased hunger is likely to be
one of climate change’s most savage impacts on humanity,” cautions Oxfam International, a nongovernmental
organization that has been working to alleviate poverty and hunger around the world.18
A sustainable future
If we hope to feed present and future generations, we must commit ourselves to sustainable agricultural
practices. Sustainable agriculture means using the land in such a way as to safeguard its natural productive
capacity for generations to come. It is not enough to focus on the most efficient and profitable way to grow food
today. Ensuring that an ample amount of land will remain for tomorrow's food supply must also be our concern.
For example, destroying rainforest to create cropland provides productive land for only a few years before topsoil
erodes. Leaving the rainforests intact and harvesting renewable products, such as fruits and nuts, insures a steady
stream of produce indefinitely.
With such finite cropland, we must use this precious resource judiciously. Crop diversification, moderate
irrigation and responsible land management are just a few ways to produce food more sustainably. Eating a wide
variety of foods and not depending heavily on animal products will allow us to use land more efficiently to feed
more people. Better distribution of available food is also essential in preventing mass starvation in low-income
countries.
© 2021 POPULATION CONNECTION food and agriculture unit | FEEDING 10 BILLION 5
Among the top priorities for the UN’s Sustainable
Development Goals is “Zero Hunger by 2030”
(SDG #2). In addition to supporting sustainable
agricultural practices, the UN hopes to meet that
goal by supporting small-scale farmers and allowing
equal access to agricultural lands, new technologies
and markets. This will also require an investment in
the infrastructure that enables reliable agricultural
production, such as sustainable soil and water
management.19
And, of course, steps to meet the world’s food Photo Credit: Stefano Lubiana/flickr.com
needs are made more difficult the larger the human Example of multiple cropping: fava beans and grapes planted in alternating
population grows. Demographers now expect global rows in a vineyard in Tasmania.
population to grow to 10 to 11 billion before leveling
off sometime in the next century.20 Stabilizing population size sooner – through education and access to modern
family planning – could buy humanity more time to produce enough food for all.
1
Searchinger, T., et. al. (2019, July). Creating A Sustainable Food Future: A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050. World Resources Institute.
Retrieved from https://www.wri.org/research/creating-sustainable-food-future
2,3
FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2020. In Brief to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security,
improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all. Rome, FAO; https://doi.org/10.4060/cb5409en
4,9
Foley, J. (2014, May). A five-step plan to feed the world. National Geographic. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society.
5
Searchinger, T., Hanson, C., Ranganathan, J., Lipinski, B, Waite, R., Winterbottom, R., . . . Heimlich, R. (2013, December). Creating a sustainable food future.
World Resources Report 2013-2016. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
6
Poore, J. and Nemecek, T. (2018, June 1). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science. Vol. 360, Issue 6392, pp. 987-
992. Retrieved from https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987
7
Willer, H., Trávníček, J., Meier, C., and Schlatter, B. (eds.). (2021). The World of Organic Agriculture Statistics and Emerging Trends 2021. Research Institute of
Organic Agriculture FiBL and IFOAM – Organics International.
8
Cassidy, E.S., et. al. (2013, August 1). Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare. Environmental Research Letters. 8.
Retrieved from https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015
10
Bourne, J. K. (2016). The End of Plenty: The Race to Feed a Crowded World. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
11
Nellemann, C. (2009, February 17). The Environmental Food Crisis: The Environment’s Role in Averting Future Food Crises. Arendal, Norway: UNEP.
Milman, O. (2015, December 2). Earth has lost a third of arable land in past 40 years, scientists say. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.
12,13
theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/arable-land-soil-food-security-shortage
14
Agricultural Research Service. (2019, May 21). Frequently Asked Questions About Salinity. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Retrieved August 4, 2021 from
https://www.ars.usda.gov/pacific-west-area/riverside-ca/agricultural-water-efficiency-and-salinity-research-unit/docs/about/frequently-asked-questions-
about-salinity/
15
Folger, T. and Cutler, P. B. (2014). The Next Green Revolution. National Geographic. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/
green-revolution/
16
ISAAA. 2019. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2019. ISAAA Brief No. 55. ISAAA: Ithaca, NY.
17
Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, Toby R. Ault, Carlos M. Carrillo, Robert G. Chambers, David B. Lobell. Anthropogenic climate change has slowed global agricultural
productivity growth. Nature Climate Change, 11, 306–312 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01000-1
18
Carty, T. (2012, September). Extreme Weather, Extreme Prices: The costs of feeding a warming world. Oxfam Issue Briefing. [PDF]. Cambridge, UK: Oxfam
International.
19
United Nations Development Programme. (n.d.). The 17 Goals. United Nations Development Programme. Retrieved August 3, 2021 from https://sdgs.
un.org/goals
United Nations DESA/Population Division. (2019). World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision. Retrieved August 4, 2021 from https://population.un.org/
20
wpp/