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

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the two factors that make for increases in the average –the positive income elasticities of the
demand for potatoes and the potential offered for Africa by productivity increases in the other
roots (cassava, yams)– will continue to operate. It will be possible for more countries in sub-
Saharan Africa to replicate the experiences of those that achieved higher food consumption
levels based on improvements in the roots and tubers sector. Thus, the recent upturn in per
capita consumption of the developing countries is projected to continue (Table 2.5), while the
declining trend in sub-Saharan Africa (Table 2.6) may be reversed.
Concerning non-food uses, cassava has the potential of becoming an important
feedstock for the production of biofuels. As noted, China is moving in that direction (Jansson
et al, 2009) and so are some other countries, including Thailand. In the present projections
under the “limited biofuels scenario”, such use of cassava is projected to increase from 1
million tonnes to 8 million tonnes in 2019. However, the numbers could be much larger if
China’s data, after verification, are revised to recognise that much of the imported cassava
goes to biofuels, not to fodder.
3.6 Sugar
Consumption has been growing fast in the developing countries, which now account for
73 percent of world consumption, up from 58 percent in the early 1980s, including the sugar
equivalent of sugar crops used in non-food industrial uses 62 This is mainly Brazil’s sugar cane
used in ethanol production. The developing countries’ consumption doubled, while that of the
developed countries as a whole stagnated (Figure 3.10, 3.11). An important factor in the
stagnation of sugar consumption in the developed countries has been the rapid expansion of
corn-based sweeteners in the United States of America, where they now account for just over
50 percent of all caloric sweetener consumption, up from only 13 percent in 1970 63 . The fall
in sugar consumption in the former centrally planned economies of Europe in the 1990s
contributed to this trend. Sugar has been produced under heavy protection in many developed
countries, with the exception of the traditional exporters among them (Australia, South Africa
– OECD, 2002). Their aggregate production kept growing up to the early 1990s, while
consumption did not. The result was that their net imports shrank from about 10 million
tonnes in the early 1970s to almost zero in the late 1980s. The reforms in the former centrally
planned economies of Europe interrupted this process in the early 1990s as their production
and consumption declined, though both recovered later on in the decade. Policy reforms in the
European Union led to declining production and turned the group into a net importer again in
the second half of the 2010s, a status it had in the past until the late 1970s when it turned into
a net exporter.
62 From 56 percent to 69 percent if only food consumption of sugar is taken into account.
63 Data (loss-adjusted food availability in terms of calories) in
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FoodConsumption/FoodGuideSpreadsheets.htm.
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