Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People
12 Feb 2010-Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science)-Vol. 327, Iss: 5967, pp 812-818
TL;DR: A multifaceted and linked global strategy is needed to ensure sustainable and equitable food security, different components of which are explored here.
Abstract: Continuing population and consumption growth will mean that the global demand for food will increase for at least another 40 years. Growing competition for land, water, and energy, in addition to the overexploitation of fisheries, will affect our ability to produce food, as will the urgent requirement to reduce the impact of the food system on the environment. The effects of climate change are a further threat. But the world can produce more food and can ensure that it is used more efficiently and equitably. A multifaceted and linked global strategy is needed to ensure sustainable and equitable food security, different components of which are explored here.
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28 Jul 2005
TL;DR: PfPMP1）与感染红细胞、树突状组胞以及胎盘的单个或多个受体作用，在黏附及免疫逃避中起关键的作�ly.
Abstract: 抗原变异可使得多种致病微生物易于逃避宿主免疫应答。表达在感染红细胞表面的恶性疟原虫红细胞表面蛋白1（PfPMP1）与感染红细胞、内皮细胞、树突状细胞以及胎盘的单个或多个受体作用，在黏附及免疫逃避中起关键的作用。每个单倍体基因组var基因家族编码约60种成员，通过启动转录不同的var基因变异体为抗原变异提供了分子基础。
18,940 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that tremendous progress could be made by halting agricultural expansion, closing ‘yield gaps’ on underperforming lands, increasing cropping efficiency, shifting diets and reducing waste, which could double food production while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture.
Abstract: Increasing population and consumption are placing unprecedented demands on agriculture and natural resources. Today, approximately a billion people are chronically malnourished while our agricultural systems are concurrently degrading land, water, biodiversity and climate on a global scale. To meet the world's future food security and sustainability needs, food production must grow substantially while, at the same time, agriculture's environmental footprint must shrink dramatically. Here we analyse solutions to this dilemma, showing that tremendous progress could be made by halting agricultural expansion, closing 'yield gaps' on underperforming lands, increasing cropping efficiency, shifting diets and reducing waste. Together, these strategies could double food production while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture.
5,954 citations
TL;DR: Per capita demand for crops, when measured as caloric or protein content of all crops combined, has been a similarly increasing function of per capita real income since 1960 and forecasts a 100–110% increase in global crop demand from 2005 to 2050.
Abstract: Global food demand is increasing rapidly, as are the environmental impacts of agricultural expansion. Here, we project global demand for crop production in 2050 and evaluate the environmental impacts of alternative ways that this demand might be met. We find that per capita demand for crops, when measured as caloric or protein content of all crops combined, has been a similarly increasing function of per capita real income since 1960. This relationship forecasts a 100–110% increase in global crop demand from 2005 to 2050. Quantitative assessments show that the environmental impacts of meeting this demand depend on how global agriculture expands. If current trends of greater agricultural intensification in richer nations and greater land clearing (extensification) in poorer nations were to continue, ∼1 billion ha of land would be cleared globally by 2050, with CO2-C equivalent greenhouse gas emissions reaching ∼3 Gt y−1 and N use ∼250 Mt y−1 by then. In contrast, if 2050 crop demand was met by moderate intensification focused on existing croplands of underyielding nations, adaptation and transfer of high-yielding technologies to these croplands, and global technological improvements, our analyses forecast land clearing of only ∼0.2 billion ha, greenhouse gas emissions of ∼1 Gt y−1, and global N use of ∼225 Mt y−1. Efficient management practices could substantially lower nitrogen use. Attainment of high yields on existing croplands of underyielding nations is of great importance if global crop demand is to be met with minimal environmental impacts.
5,303 citations
Cites background or methods from "Food Security: The Challenge of Fee..."
...3 billion person increase in global population and greater per capita incomes anticipated through midcentury (1)....
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...Because of data availability, we use past N fertilization rates as quantitative measures of soil fertility enhancement, but we emphasize that soil fertility can also be enhanced by legumes, cover crops, and other means and that yields could increase with less N fertilizer than in the past if N use efficiency increases (1, 2, 13)....
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...The increased global yields that could result from various degrees of technology improvement, technology transfer, or N use would meet 2050 crop demand with less cropland clearing (1, 2) (Fig....
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...Both land clearing and more intensive use of existing croplands could contribute to the increased crop production needed to meet such demand, but the environmental impacts and tradeoffs of these alternative paths of agricultural expansion are unclear (1, 2)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, a re-make of the Interim Report World Agriculture: towards 2030/2050 (FAO, 2006) is presented, which includes a Chapter 4 on production factors (land, water, yields, fertilizers).
Abstract: This paper is a re-make of Chapters 1-3 of the Interim Report World Agriculture: towards 2030/2050 (FAO, 2006). In addition, this new paper includes a Chapter 4 on production factors (land, water, yields, fertilizers). Revised and more recent data have been used as basis for the new projections, as follows: (a) updated historical data from the Food Balance Sheets 1961-2007 as of June 2010; (b) undernourishment estimates from The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010 (SOFI) and related new parameters (CVs, minimum daily energy requirements) are used in the projections; (c) new population data and projections from the UN World Population Prospects - Revision of 2008; (d) new GDP data and projections from the World Bank; (e) a new base year of 2005/2007 (the previous edition used the base year 1999/2001); (f) updated estimates of land resources from the new evaluation of the Global Agro-ecological Zones (GAEZ) study of FAO and IIASA. Estimates of land under forest and in protected areas from the GAEZ are taken into account and excluded from the estimates of land areas suitable for crop production into which agriculture could expand in the future; (g) updated estimates of existing irrigation, renewable water resources and potentials for irrigation expansion; and (h) changes in the text as required by the new historical data and projections. Like the interim report, this re-make does not include projections for the Fisheries and Forestry sectors. Calories from fish are, however, included, in the food consumption projections, along with those from other commodities (e.g. spices) not analysed individually. The projections presented reflect the magnitudes and trajectories we estimate the major food and agriculture variables may assume in the future; they are not meant to reflect how these variables may be required to evolve in the future in order to achieve some normative objective, e.g. ensure food security for all, eliminate undernourishment or reduce it to any given desired level, or avoid food overconsumption leading to obesity and related NonCommunicable Diseases.
2,991 citations
TL;DR: Detailed maps are presented to identify where rates must be increased to boost crop production and meet rising demands, which are far below what is needed to meet projected demands in 2050.
Abstract: Several studies have shown that global crop production needs to double by 2050 to meet the projected demands from rising population, diet shifts, and increasing biofuels consumption. Boosting crop yields to meet these rising demands, rather than clearing more land for agriculture has been highlighted as a preferred solution to meet this goal. However, we first need to understand how crop yields are changing globally, and whether we are on track to double production by 2050. Using ∼2.5 million agricultural statistics, collected for ∼13,500 political units across the world, we track four key global crops-maize, rice, wheat, and soybean-that currently produce nearly two-thirds of global agricultural calories. We find that yields in these top four crops are increasing at 1.6%, 1.0%, 0.9%, and 1.3% per year, non-compounding rates, respectively, which is less than the 2.4% per year rate required to double global production by 2050. At these rates global production in these crops would increase by ∼67%, ∼42%, ∼38%, and ∼55%, respectively, which is far below what is needed to meet projected demands in 2050. We present detailed maps to identify where rates must be increased to boost crop production and meet rising demands.
2,404 citations
Cites background from "Food Security: The Challenge of Fee..."
...Numerous authors have suggested that increasing crop yields, rather than clearing more land for food production, is the most sustainable path for food security [2,4,9–14]....
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...The world is experiencing rising demands for crop production, stemming from three key forces: increasing human population, meat and dairy consumption from growing affluence, and biofuel consumption [1–5]....
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...Numerous studies have shown that feeding a more populated and more prosperous world will roughly require a doubling of agricultural production by 2050 [1–7], translating to a ,2....
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References
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01 Jan 2007TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an appropriate way to examine the economics of climate change, given the unique scientific and economic challenges posed, and suggest implications for emissions targets, policy instruments, and global action.
Abstract: �Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are exter nalities and represent the biggest market failure the world has seen. We all produce emissions, people around the world are already suffering from past emissions, and current emissions will have potentially catastrophic impacts in the future. Thus, these emissions are not ordinary, localized externalities. Risk on a global scale is at the core of the issue. These basic features of the problem must shape the economic analy sis we bring to bear; failure to do this will, and has, produced approaches to policy that are pro foundly misleading and indeed dangerous. The purpose of this lecture is to set out what I think is an appropriate way to examine the economics of climate change, given the unique scientific and economic challenges posed, and to suggest implications for emissions targets, policy instruments, and global action. The sub ject is complex and very wide-ranging. It is a subject of vital importance but one in which the economics is fairly young. A central challenge is to provide the economic tools necessary as
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TL;DR: In this article, climate change economics attends to this issue by offering theoretical insights and empirical findings relevant to the design of policies to reduce, avoid, or adapt to climate change, which has yielded new estimates of mitigation benefits, improved understanding of costs in the presence of various market distortions or imperfections, better tools for making policy choices under uncertainty, and alternate mechanisms for allowing flexibility in policy responses.
Abstract: Global climate change poses a threat to the well-being of humans and other living things through impacts on ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, capital productivity, and human health. Climate change economics attends to this issue by offering theoretical insights and empirical findings relevant to the design of policies to reduce, avoid, or adapt to climate change. This economic analysis has yielded new estimates of mitigation benefits, improved understanding of costs in the presence of various market distortions or imperfections, better tools for making policy choices under uncertainty, and alternate mechanisms for allowing flexibility in policy responses. These contributions have influenced the formulation and implementation of a range of climate change policies at the domestic and international levels.
2,783 citations
"Food Security: The Challenge of Fee..." refers background in this paper
...These include the release of greenhouse gases [especially methane and nitrous oxide, which are more damaging than CO2 and for which agriculture is a major source (26)], environmental pollution due to nutrient run-off, water shortages due to overextraction, soil degradation and the loss of biodiversity through land conversion or inappropriate management, and ecosystem disruption due to the intensive harvesting of fish and other aquatic foods (6)....
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TL;DR: As part of its commitment to openness and transparency, the IPCC releases drafts that have been submitted for formal expert and/or government review, review comments on these drafts, and author responses to these comments after publication of the associated IPCC Report or Technical Paper.
Abstract: As part of its commitment to openness and transparency, the IPCC releases drafts that have been submitted for formal expert and/or government review, review comments on these drafts, and author responses to these comments after publication of the associated IPCC Report or Technical Paper. During the multi‐stage review process, expert reviewers and governments are invited to comment on the accuracy and completeness of the scientific/technical/socioeconomic content and the overall balance of the drafts. Therefore, review comments and author responses should be considered within the context of the final report. Drafts, review comments, and author responses are pre‐decisional materials that are confidential until publication of the final Report or Technical Paper; they are not the results of the assessment and may not be cited, quoted, or distributed as such. Only the approved, adopted, and accepted Reports or Technical Papers may be cited or quoted as the results of the assessment.
2,095 citations
TL;DR: The finfish and crustacean aquaculture sector is still highly dependent upon marine capture fisheries for sourcing key dietary nutrient inputs, including fish meal and fish oil, which is particularly strong within compound aquafeeds for farmed carnivorous finfish species and marine shrimp.
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