The problem is compounded when considering that a drought not only requires groundwater to be pumped but also that the lack of seasonal rains means that water tables are not replenished during a wet season, thus fueling an even larger year-on-year deficit. Feeding the Population by 2050 Labor shortages, environmental impacts, resource constraints and more extreme weather conditions are already threatening global food security. Photo by Roberto Destarac. The 9 billion people projected to inhabit the Earth by 2050 need not starve in order to preserve the environment, says a major report on sustainability out this week. Many growers apply customized blends of fertilizer tailored to their exact soil conditions, which helps minimize the runoff of chemicals into nearby waterways. Our ability to continue putting food on the table in 20, 30, or 50 years depends on a healthy and sustainable global agricultural system that not only maintains but significantly increases our current levels of food production with limited resources. [6] http://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/miga/chart-globally-70-freshwater-used-agriculture That’s a lot of mouths to feed, especially when you consider the vast hunger issues the world faces today. Feeding 9 billion by 2050. Feeding 9 billion people by 2050 doesn’t necessarily mean a revolution in agricultural productivity. Specifically we will look at rising incomes, urbanization, food waste, agricultural productivity, international trade and hunger. There is one sector of our agricultural production which deserves extra attention and that is animal livestock production. The increase in population will put pressure on the finite resources of arable land, fresh water and sources of energy throughout the food production chain. [21] https://www.impossiblefoods.com/ To conclude, I reiterate that we are in pretty deep trouble and must make significant changes in order to build a sustainable food production system. If these trends continue, the double whammy of population growth and richer diets will require us to roughly double the amount of crops we grow by 2050. Filling 9 Billion Bowls from Thomson Reuters tells the story of a diverse group of scientists, students, analysts and inventors who are using Big Data and leading edge technologies to face the challenge of feeding 9 billion people in 2050, and revolutionise the way we produce and deliver food. Simply stopping waste in the food chain will get us … The land that we are living on and farming is rapidly being degraded. After analyzing reams of data on agriculture and the environment, we proposed five steps that could solve the world’s food dilemma. With the global population expected to peak at nine billion by 2050 and with so many more of those people being the aspiring middle classes, finding a sustainable way in which to feed ourselves really is the key issue for the 21st century.” [19] https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7mrrt3/global_pet_food?w=4 Without significant change and investment in innovative solutions, we will not achieve sustainable productivity. There are three prominent approaches to meat alternatives: plant-based substitutes; lab-grown options; and insect protein. [15] http://climate.org/deforestation-and-climate-change/ We will also have to harvest, store, and transport the food to hungry mouths. But the truth is, our need for food poses one of the biggest dangers to the planet. The arguments can be fierce, and like our politics, we seem to be getting more divided rather than finding common ground. We’ve already cleared an area roughly the size of South America to grow crops. [11] https://news.stanford.edu/news/2006/november8/ocean-110806.html This month I will discuss additional issues. The projections show that feeding a world population of 9.1 billion people in 2050 would require raising overall food production by some 70 percent between 2005/07 and 2050. Meryl Williams Lightening the impact of animal agriculture involves developing nutritious and desirable alternatives to traditional meat and finding more efficient sources of feed for the livestock and fish that we do raise. Focusing on innovation, markets, people, and political leadership is necessary to ensure a food supply that can feed the population, Gordon Conway says. It requires a bare fraction of the water used to irrigate field crops and zero pesticides. Insects such as crickets are much more efficient to produce than livestock animals, requiring a fraction of the space and water. Yet people love eating meat. With 33% of the crops grown already heading to animal feedlots, there is little room to grow, and it would be much better to divert some of that cropland back to human food. The latter is an organization brings together a litany of industry and academic leaders for one week each year to tackle the problem of feeding 9 billion people by 2050. So what is the future of food? Fortunately, there are exciting, high-impact solutions that are shaping the future of food. In short, the challenges are vast, and there are thousands of researchers, policymakers, innovators, and entrepreneurs around the world developing and implementing solutions across the value chain moving us toward a sustainable future. Even with high-quality feed, livestock must eat several times their own body weight during growth. [9] http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5555e.pdf The green revolution relied on the intensive—and unsustainable—use of water and fossil-fuel-based chemicals. Dr. But sheer population growth isn’t the only reason we’ll need more food. To meet the needs of that many people, humans will have to produce as much food in the next 40 years as they have in the last 8,000, says Jason Clay, senior vice president of market transformation for the World Wildlife Fund. Improving nutrient and water supplies where yields are lowest could result in a 58 percent increase in global food production. No Fear. He has been a thought leader in sustainable food systems and insect protein production since 2012, regularly speaking on the topic. We must also increase the efficiency of producing feed for the livestock that we do raise. By 2050, we will need to double our current yields to feed two billion more people—a monumental challenge complicated by a changing climate. Wilson, a contestant on a celebrity edition of the Food Network show Chopped, had just been challenged to create an appetizer with salmon, avocados, sweet tea—and flour made of ground-up crickets. In times like these, we must rely on human ingenuity and look for technology solutions, inventions, and discoveries to deal with current and expected challenges. Researchers believe that we will need to produce around 70% more food by 2050 to keep up with growing demand and production in developing countries [1]. Step Three: Use Resources More Efficiently. Production in the developing countries would need to almost double. Feeding 9 Bln People by 2050 While Preserving Environment, A challenge for Global Agriculture. See more; Food Security (2015) 7(2) 261-274 New CRISPR gene-editing tools offer the potential to quickly and easily develop whole lines of designer crops, optimized for resilience in shifting environments, higher yields, and resistance to pests and blights. Meanwhile proponents of local and organic farms counter that the world’s small farmers could increase yields plenty—and help themselves out of poverty—by adopting techniques that improve fertility without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. [17] http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/ar591e/ar591e.pdf However, the situation is far more serious than the glossy headlines indicate. We can achieve this by reducing waste, improving baseline efficiencies, and closing the nutrient loop in the production system. The world population is expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, according to a report by the United Nations.The same report sounds a dire warning that the current methods of producing, distributing and consuming food will not be sustainable nor effective to feed everyone in the future and that the threat of a food shortage is imminent. There is an opportunity to replace billions of kilograms of meat and fish in pet-food products, freeing significant quantities of resources for human food production. Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress. Simply stopping waste in the food chain will get us a good way towards where we need to be. Through this lens, the future of food looks bright. Trading tropical forest for farmland is one of the most destructive things we do to the environment, and it is rarely done to benefit the 850 million people in the world who are still hungry. Indoor agriculture can be practiced in cities, is extremely productive, and impervious to weather. This implies significant … Why? We have the technology and resources to deploy high-impact solutions that can shift the global food system onto a sustainable track. By 2050 the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion, 34 percent higher than today. Developing alternatives to meat follows simple logic and thus has received significant attention and investment. This raises serious questions regarding how billions of people will continue to grow their food in coming decades. Climate change is a significant contributing and compounding factor in desertification, groundwater depletion, and fishery collapse. March 2015; Food Security 7(2) DOI: 10.1007/s12571-015-0427-z. Resources for Applicants and Participants, Asian Economy and Productivity Measurement, http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/expert_paper/How_to_Feed_the_World_in_2050.pdf, http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/food/, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.K2?end=2015&start=1961&view=chart, https://phys.org/news/2018-06-world-atlas-desertification-unprecedented-pressure.html, http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/verso2/, http://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/miga/chart-globally-70-freshwater-used-agriculture, https://www.circleofblue.org/2015/world/groundwater-depletion-stresses-majority-of-worlds-largest-aquifers/, http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/248479/icode/, https://news.stanford.edu/news/2006/november8/ocean-110806.html, https://www.nature.com/news/crop-pests-advancing-with-global-warming-1.13644, https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.4319/lo.2012.57.3.0698, http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/ar591e/ar591e.pdf, http://climate.org/deforestation-and-climate-change/, http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html, https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7mrrt3/global_pet_food?w=4, APO-Certified Productivity Practitioners Scheme. Livestock production is the most resource intensive of all our agricultural practices and the least efficient. Learn about key strategies that can help prevent a food … Feeding 9 billion by 2050 – Putting fish back on the menu. Organic farming can also greatly reduce the use of water and chemicals—by incorporating cover crops, mulches, and compost to improve soil quality, conserve water, and build up nutrients. Specifically we will look at rising incomes, urbanization, food waste, agricultural productivity, international trade and hunger. Twenty-six percent of ice-free land on the planet is used to graze livestock, and another 33% of all our croplands grow feed for animals [17]. Nearly all new food production in the next 25 years will have to come from existing agricultural land. Feeding 9 Billion — View Story. By the year 2050 it is estimated that world population will increase from 7 to 9 billion people, and with the rapidly increasing wealth in China and Latin America we will have to double the global food supply. The Earth’s population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion over the next 33 years. Feeding 9 Billion. With the world's population predicted to reach 9 billion people by the year 2050, issues related to global food security have taken on a growing urgency. [14] http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/ar591e/ar591e.pdf This is particularly important to support the booming aquaculture sector that relies heavily on fishmeal. Fisheries are now collapsing at an alarming rate and in unexpected patterns due to overfishing [10], threatening both livelihoods and entire marine ecosystems. [26] https://finlessfoods.com/. By the year 2050, experts predict the world population will rise to 9 billion. [23] https://www.newwavefoods.com/ Seventy percent of all freshwater on earth is used for agriculture according to the World Bank [6], and many key aquifers around the world are starting to dry up [7]. A quick scan of news headlines and investor reports indicates that in the near future we will be served by robot chefs dishing out personalized meals on demand with fresh salads from indoor vertical farms along with our choice of lab-grown meat, crunchy crickets, and plant-based burgers. [10] http://www.pnas.org/content/108/20/8317 We work to offer objective, evidence-based information in an accessible manner for all. The EU has found that 75% of the earth’s land is already degraded, which could exceed 90% by 2050 [4]. Both approaches offer badly needed solutions; neither one alone gets us there. The meat cultures still need to be “fed” but have significantly higher growth efficiencies than raising whole animals. He described the challenge of feeding the world as immense, with need for rapid increases in global food, feed and biofuel production to feed a global population of 9 billion people by 2050. Insect protein, already a common food in many cultures around the world, is now being used to offset traditional meat in pet food. This op-ed was first published by embassynews.ca on … Feeding 9 billion by 2050: where does fish stand? Feeding 9 Billion. Feeding 9-billion people by 2050Subscribe to eNCA for latest news. At the same time, many countries have growing middle classes, which means more money to spend on food, especially meat. Third, growing food on land is only part of the equation. Today, only 55% of the world's crop calories are fed to people directly. For most of our history we have been blinded by the overzealous imperative of more, more, more in agriculture—clearing more land, growing more crops, using more resources. The world’s population will grow from almost 7 billion now to over 9 billion in 2050. Unfortunately, agriculture is also a top contributor to climate change, with 7% of global greenhouse gases produced by livestock [14], while deforestation for grazing and crop production results in another 25% of greenhouse gas emissions at the same time as it destroys one of the most important carbon sinks, according the Climate Institute [15]. If we have something to eat besides traditional protein sources, we can eat less meat and thus ease the burden on the planet. [22] https://justforall.com/ This issue contains papers (with one exception) presented at an OECD meeting on the challenge of feeding the world population by 2050. There is also a huge opportunity to replace the meat used in pet food with insect protein. GM Rice: Prospects and Challenges. Generally, it is not economical to grow staple cereal crops indoors, so most operations produce high-value vegetables, berries, and herbs. Feeding nine billion by 2050. I was asked to talk about that at the recent Asian Productivity Organization (APO) Sustainable Productivity Summit 2018 in Tokyo. With the world's population predicted to reach 9 billion people by the year 2050, issues related to global food security have taken on a growing urgency. Feeding 9 Billion by promoting meat free daysBy Samantha Aiken Why target the meat industry?tHE MEAT INDUSTRY AND High meat dietsRuin the environmentWaste food that could be given to those in needDamage human health123So How Do We Fix This?By Starting a Movement That Encourages People To Have At Least One Meat Free Day A WeekBy Making a small change in your diet you can...Help to … Pet food is one of our primary target markets for the cricket protein we produce at Tiny Farms. For every 100 calories of grain we feed animals, we get only about 40 new calories of milk, 22 calories of eggs, 12 of chicken, 10 of pork, or 3 of beef. I could easily spend my whole hour talking about the impacts of desertification, but suffice it to say that it is a serious problem because once land has been degraded and the topsoil has been lost, it is no longer usable as farmland. Food Security, 2015. Nearly all of this population increase will occur in developing countries. The goal is to develop impactful ideas through multispectral thinking and exchange of culture. Using high-tech, precision farming systems, as well as approaches borrowed from organic farming, we could boost yields in these places several times over. A report to be published later today by the Government's foresight unit will attempt to provide solutions to this important question. Agriculture is among the greatest contributors to global warming, emitting more greenhouse gases than all our cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes combined—largely from methane released by cattle and rice farms, nitrous oxide from fertilized fields, and carbon dioxide from the cutting of rain forests to grow crops or raise livestock. [8] http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/248479/icode/ Conventional farming methods that involve tilling are key contributors to soil erosion and land degradation, a vicious cycle in which the very practice of farming destroys its own essential medium [5]. About 36% are fed to live stock or turned into biofuels, while the remaining (about 9%) are being used for industrial products. In the USA alone, dogs and cats eat around 15 billion kg of meat every year. The Earth’s population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion over the next 33 years. These issues are addressed in turn below. As incomes rise, people will increasingly consume more resource-intensive, animal-based foods. Step Four: Shift Diets It would be far easier to feed nine billion people by 2050 if more of the crops we grew ended up in human stomachs. For most of history, whenever we’ve needed to produce more food, we’ve simply cut down forests or plowed grasslands to make more farms. Starting in the 1960s, the green revolution increased yields in Asia and Latin America using better crop varieties and more fertilizer, irrigation, and machines—but with major environmental costs. To raise livestock, we’ve taken over even more land, an area roughly the size of Africa. The same report sounds a dire warning that the current methods of producing, distributing and consuming food will not be sustainable nor effective to feed everyone in the future and that the threat of a food shortage is imminent. The third big solution for crop production is improved genetics. These solutions require a big shift in thinking. But commercial farming has started to make huge strides, finding innovative ways to better target the application of fertilizers and pesticides by using computerized tractors equipped with advanced sensors and GPS. We are actually losing arable land at an alarming rate and maintaining this amount of active farmland has come at the cost of over 1 million km2 of forest. The world population is expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, according to a report by the United Nations. Feeding 9+ Billion by 2050? Feeding 9 billion people by 2050 doesn't necessarily mean a revolution in agricultural productivity. This, he added, includes 800 million with chronic hunger, two billion with micronutrient deficiency and 150 million children under-five years suffering from stunting. Sitemap | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Intranet | FAQsCopyright © 2019 Asian Productivity Organization. Taken together, these five steps could more than double the world’s food supplies and dramatically cut the environmental impact of agriculture worldwide. Production in the developing countries would need to almost double. The world faces the looming challenge of feeding an expanding population that is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, from just over 7 billion today, while climate change increases uncertainty. It will take a lot of hard work, significant investment, and the dedication of business leaders, policymakers, and innovators working together to achieve sustainable, bountiful food product for the future. The world can now turn its attention to increasing yields on less productive farmlands—especially in Africa, Latin America, and eastern Europe—where there are “yield gaps” between current production levels and those possible with improved farming practices. Have painted here is not just people eating meat, dairy, and like our politics, we will at. 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