World Food Supply and Demand for the Next Half-Century

Some Alternative Scenarios

Text extracted from

The World Food Problem

Leathers and Foster, 2004

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Apocalypse Now?

• Famine is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse– (War, Famine, Pestilence, Death)

• What will the future be?– Will the progress of the last 30

years continue?

– Or are we on the brink of catastrophe?

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The 6 “P”s

• Major factors:

– Population– Prosperity– Productivity– Pollution

• Interplay of these will determine:

– Price of food• Humanity’s hope to influence

the future:

– Policy

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Jeffrey Sachs, Director of UN Millennium Development Project

Two Views of the Future

• Establishment view– FAO

– World Bank

– International Food Price Institute

– U.S. Department of Agriculture

• Antiestablishment View– David Pimentel, Cornell

University

– World Watch Institute

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Per Pinstrup-Anderson, International Food Price Research Institute

Establishment View

• World Agriculture production continues to grow

• World population growing more slowly

• Income/person continues to grow• Thus no catastrophic changes• Confidence in technology of the

future• Policies need to support progress• Future generations will be more

prosperoushttp://vikkianderson.com/Tarot/img/Cup10.gif

Antiestablishment View

• Possibility of environmental catastrophe– Erosion– Land degradation– Water shortage for irrigation– Rising sea levels from global warming

• Continued slow yield growth– Pessimistic about technology

• Sweeping policy changes needed– Radical economic and political restructuring

• Future generations will suffer– We are “eating the seed”– Need radical reduction in consumption

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Establishment View Scenario50 Years From Now

• Population 60% higher • Average income will double

– Calories/capita will increase by 15%– More meat

• Total food demand will increase by 108%

• Total food supply will increase by 110%– Ag land increases 13%– Yields increase 86%

• Undernutrition will decline– Incomes higher, prices lower

http://www.fmpsd.ab.ca/schools/df/Brazil/keatingfood.htm

Family meal, Brazil

If Assumptions Change

• If lower population growth:– 74% increase in food

– 72% price decline!

• If higher population growth or lower yield growth:– Demand rises faster than supply

– Prices rise substantially

– But incomes rise more than prices

– Modest increase in calories/person

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Antiestablishment View Scenario50 Years From Now

• Same increase in population (60%)• Less increase in income (28%)• Increase in per capita food demand

of 4%• Total food demand increases 70%• Total food supply will decline 6%

– 15% decrease in ag land– Small increase in yields/hectare

• Price of food rises 110%• Undernutrition increases

substantiallyhttp://www.chrf.org/popup/images/nic1.jpg

Orphanage, Nicaragua

If Assumptions Change

• If population grows more rapidly and income is stagnant– Population increases 120%

– Income growth is 0• Food prices increase 181%

• Calories/capita 2,256– Lower than Africa today

• Widespread undernutrition

• If yields grow a little more strongly– Catastrophe averted

– Slight decline in calories/personhttp://membres.lycos.fr/speedyz/billets/images/malnutrition.jpg

Policy Agreement

• Reduce population growth rate– Promote economic prosperity, health, and

education

• Invest in agricultural productivity– Research, extension, credit, markets

• Protect soil and water resources– Assign property rights

• Gives resource owners a stake in environmental protection

• Encourage economic growth among the poorest– Macroeconomic policies, competitive

markets, human capital

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Farmer, Zambia

The unfinished task

• “It is for us, the living,

to be dedicated to the

unfinished task”

– Abraham Lincoln• Gettysburg Address

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