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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TL;DR: This article used data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Population Division (UNPD) to project plausible values for 2050 for population size, diet, yield, and trade, and then look at their effect on the area needed to meet demand for the 23 most energetically important food crops, for the developing and developed worlds in turn.
Abstract: How can rapidly growing food demands be met with least adverse impact on nature? Two very different sorts of suggestions predominate in the literature: wildlife-friendly farming, whereby on-farm practices are made as benign to wildlife as possible (at the potential cost of decreasing yields); and land-sparing, in which farm yields are increased and pressure to convert land for agriculture thereby reduced (at the potential cost of decreasing wildlife populations on farmland). This paper is about one important aspect of the land-sparing idea – the sensitivity of future requirements for cropland to plausible variation in yield increases, relative to other variables. Focusing on the 23 most energetically important food crops, we use data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Population Division (UNPD) to project plausible values for 2050 for population size, diet, yield, and trade, and then look at their effect on the area needed to meet demand for the 23 crops, for the developing and developed worlds in turn. Our calculations suggest that across developing countries, the area under those crops will need to increase very considerably by 2050 (by 23% under intermediate projections), and that plausible variation in average yield has as much bearing on the extent of that expansion as does variation in population size or per capita consumption; future cropland area varies far less under foreseeable variation in the net import of food from the rest of the world. By contrast, cropland area in developed countries is likely to decrease slightly by 2050 (by 4% under intermediate projections for those 23 crops), and will be less sensitive to variation in population growth, diet, yield, or trade. Other contentious aspects of the land-sparing idea require further scrutiny, but these results confirm its potential significance and suggest that conservationists should be as concerned about future agricultural yields as they are about population growth and rising per capita consumption.
348 citations
TL;DR: Thirtle et al. as discussed by the authors presented a summary of the behaviour of food commodity prices in 2007-2008 and a review of the causes of the price increases, extracted from a report to the Chief Scientific Advisor to Her Majesty's Government.
317 citations
TL;DR: The authors provide an overview of the evolution of distortions to agricultural incentives caused by price, trade, and exchange rate policies in a large sample of countries spanning the world, including the United States.
Abstract: This book provides an overview of the evolution of distortions to agricultural incentives caused by price, trade, and exchange rate policies in a large sample of countries spanning the world. This chapter begins with a brief summary of the long history of national distortions to agricultural markets. It then outlines the methodology used to generate annual indicators of the extent of government interventions in markets, details of which are provided in Anderson et al. (2008a, 2008b) and appendix A of this volume. A description of the economies being examined and their economic growth and structural changes over recent decades is then briefly presented as a preface to the main section of the chapter, in which the nominal rate of assistance (NRA) and consumer tax equivalent (CTE) estimates are summarized across regions and over the decades since the 1950s. These estimates are discussed in far more detail in the regional studies that follow, chapters two-ten. A summary of an additional set of indicators of agricultural price distortions, presented in chapter eleven, is based on the trade restrictiveness index first developed by Anderson and Neary (2005). In chapter twelve, the focus shifts from countries to commodities, and various distortion indicators are used to provide a sense of how distorted each of the key farm commodity markets is globally. Chapter thirteen uses the study's NRA and CTE estimates to provide a new set of results from a global economy-wide model. It quantifies the impacts of reforms undertaken since the early 1980s, and of the policies still in place as of 2004, on global markets, net farm incomes, and welfare. Finally, that chapter concludes by drawing on the lessons learned to speculate on the prospects for further reducing the disarray in world agricultural markets.
305 citations
Book•
01 Nov 2004
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the outstanding issues in global agricultural trade policy and evolving world production and trade patterns and explore the key questions for global agricultural policies, both the impacts of current trade regimes and the implications of reform.
Abstract: This book explores the outstanding issues in global agricultural trade policy and evolving world production and trade patterns. Its coverage of agricultural trade issues ranges from the details of cross-cutting policy issues to the highly distorted agricultural trade regimes of industrial countries and detailed studies of agricultural commodities of economic importance to many developing countries. The book brings together the background issues and findings to guide researchers and policymakers in their global negotiations and domestic policies on agriculture. The book also explores the key questions for global agricultural policies, both the impacts of current trade regimes and the implications of reform. It complements the recent agricultural trade handbook that focuses primarily on the agricultural issues within the context of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations (Ingco and Nash 2004).
295 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2009
TL;DR: In the past 12 months, large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have made headlines in a flurry of media reports across the world as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Over the past 12 months, large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin
America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have made headlines in a flurry of
media reports across the world. Lands that only a short time ago seemed of little
outside interest are now being sought by international investors to the tune of
hundreds of thousands of hectares. And while a failed attempt to lease
1.3 million ha in Madagascar has attracted much media attention, deals
reported in the international press constitute the tip of the iceberg. This is rightly
a hot issue because land is so central to identity, livelihoods and food security.
283 citations