World agriculture towards 2030/2050: the 2012 revision - Fao

PROOF COPY
endowments. Since they have to depend predominantly on own production for food supplies,
it is difficult to visualize a situation whereby they raise national average per capita food
consumption to levels that ensure that no segment of their population will have per capita
food below minimum requirements for good nutrition.
As all statements about possible future states of the world, our projections are subject to
many uncertainties. Some of them, specific to food security outcomes, all referring to
downside risks, are worth listing here.
• Successive revisions of the population projections suggest that some negative aspects of
population growth may be more serious than incorporated in this study. It is not so
much that projected global population may turn out to be higher (9.3 billion in 2050 in
the 2010 release of the UN projections) than the 9.15 billion assumed in the projections
used here (from the 2008 release). The additional food required could be easily
produced globally. The problem is that all of the increment and some more (206
million) originates in upward revisions in the projected population of sub-Saharan
Africa. This does not augur well for the food security prospects of the region and the
world. The improvements projected in this study may turn out to be too optimistic if the
new population projections materialized.
• Climate change may also affect adversely the prospect of achieving the food security
improvements projected in this study. Most climate models indicate that the agricultural
potential of the developing countries may be more adversely affected than the world
average. The high dependence of several of them on agriculture makes them particularly
vulnerable in this respect. Studies that have looked into this matter provide very
disparate answers ranging from catastrophic to mildly pessimistic (see Alexandratos,
2011b for a critical evaluation of such findings as of 2009).
• Finally, the increased integration between agriculture and the energy market fostered by
the growing use of crops in biofuels production represents a potential disrupting element
in the future. Much of the biofuels production in some of the major producing countries
is currently driven by mandates and subsidies. However, should economic realities
dictate and energy prices increase significantly, biofuels may become competitive
without support policies. The option that biofuels could expand only into land not
suitable for food crop production is not tenable in an environment of laissez-faire
markets. Given the disproportionately large size of the energy markets relative to those
for food and the stronger economic position of those demanding more energy vs. those
needing more food, care must be taken to protect access to food by vulnerable
population groups in the face of rising food prices. At the same time, it must be
recognized that judiciously expanded biofuels sector has the potential of benefiting
development in countries with abundant resources suitable for the production of biofuel
feedstocks.
What’s next? Beyond 2050
Imagine you are in 2050 and the projections we have presented have come true. How should
we speculate about future developments, say to 2100? Can our conclusions for the projection
period to 2050 provide some clues as to what may be in store beyond 2050?
Looking at global magnitudes first, the slowdown in world population growth was a
major reason why we concluded that there will be lower growth in world agriculture in the
period to 2050 compared with the past. The same demographic projections employed in this
paper – 2008 release, Medium Variant – suggest that the slowdown is to accelerate beyond
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