Enough Food win the Future--Without Genetically Engineered Crops
United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Report
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Economic and Social Department. 2000.
Agriculture: Towards 2015/30, Technical Interim Report, April 2000. 249 pp. Read the full text of this report.
A new technical interim report from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concludes that the long-term food security outlook for developing countries is good. While the world population is expected to reach eight billion by 2030, growth in global agriculture should be more than sufficient to meet world demand.
The FAO study, using recent United Nations (UN) estimates of world population growth, assesses future developments in world food production, demand, and consumption. The base year for this study is a three-year average of 1995-1997 and projections are made for the years 2015 and 2030. The growth in crop and livestock production, forestry and fisheries, the deceleration of the world population growth rate and the rise in, and subsequent leveling of food consumption will contribute to a slow down in the demand for food and for food production. The study does warn that while the predicted global trends over the next 30 years are cause for optimism, poverty and poor food distribution will continue to limit access to food in some countries. The full report, containing more in-depth agricultural, trade, and environmental policy analysis, is due out in early 2002.
It is important to note that FAO's prediction of an abundant world food supply is based solely on the availability of present day technical knowledge. The potential agricultural benefits of genetic engineering were intentionally not considered. Genetically engineered crops, livestock, and fish were omitted by FAO due to ambiguities over the long-term promise, safety and consumer acceptance of this technology.
World population
The study reports that the most recent UN assessment of global population trends indicates a drastic slowdown in world population growth. The 2010 population level of 7.2 billion people projected in 1995, for example, was reset by the UN in 1998 at 6.8 million, or about 400 million fewer people. This recalibration in population level is due in part to changes in the world population growth rate, which has fallen from 2.1 percent per year in the later half of the 1960's to 1.3 percent in the late 1990's. This growth rate is predicted to continue dropping over the next three decades, reaching 0.7 percent by 2030. By 2050 the global population growth rate is expected to have dropped as low as 0.3 percent.
Food Consumption
Concurrent with a decreasing population growth rate, individual food consumption rates (measured as Kcal/person/day) will continue to rise in developing countries. Citing the latest FAO assessment of undernourishment, the study reports that the percent of the world's undernourished has been dropping since the late 1960s. Projections of food consumption will continue to rise in developing countries over the next 30 years, moving from an average of 2626 kcal in the 1990s to nearly 3000 kcal in 2015. The average daily consumption rate in developing countries is expected to exceed 3000 kcal by 2030. The report also predicts that over the next 30 years more and more people will be living in countries with medium to high levels of individual food consumption. Associated with this rising level of consumption will be a diversification in the diet and subsequent improved nutrition.
The report emphasizes that these predictions are at the world level, and notes that in several countries individual food consumption rates are not expected to increase greatly. By 2015, the report estimates, 6 percent of the world population (412 million people) will still live in countries with very low food consumption levels (under 2200 kcal). High rates of undernourishment will be most pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa where 12 of the 17 countries with individual food consumption rates under 2200 kcal will be located. Leading causes of continued problems in food availability cited in the study are failures by countries to achieve rapid economic development and to reduce poverty. Limitations for increasing food consumption within the affected countries will be the continued inequalities in access to food due to poverty and poor food distribution systems.
Food Production
The FAO report is relatively optimistic that, at the world level, there will be sufficient agricultural production to meet increases in demand over the next thirty years. By 2030, for example, crop production in developing countries is projected to be 70 percent higher than in the 1990s. Still, this increase in production will be far lower than the increases seen during the "green revolution" begun in the 1960s.
The report indicates that while the predictions in the rate of annual growth in global crop production is expected to decrease over the next 30 years relative to those advances seen in the previous 30, it will still exceed the demand for increased agricultural production. With lower population growth and the gradual attainment of medium to high food consumption levels in most countries, crop productivity will continue to outpace the overall growth rate in the demand for food. The report acknowledges the persistent contradiction between having sufficient food production at the world level and food shortcomings in developing countries, and recognizes the need for increasing productivity in developing countries.
There is a need for continued support of agricultural research and policies in developing countries. The report states that by 2030 three-quarters of the projected world crop production will occur in developing countries compared to just over half of world production in the early 1960s. Most of these future increases in crop productivity will come from a further intensification of crop production. The bulk of the increases in production will come from increasing plant yield and through more intensive land use (e.g., multicropping or high cropping intensities).
