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Page added on April 18, 2013
UN says world needs to produce 70 percent more food by 2050
As we all know, food is one of the most important resources in the world.
As Forbes points out, past civilizations such as the Mayan’s have failed because they ran out of food.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the world needs to produce 70 percent more food by 2050. Although that sounds like an astronomical amount, with innovation in crop growing and biotechnology, it can be done.
According to Forbes, the world used to produce 900 million tons of grain per year. However, over the last 50 years, that number has grown to 2.6 billion tons per year.
Since 1961, the world population has tripled and many people believed then that maintaining enough crops for the growing population was impossible. Clearly innovation has proven those naysayers wrong.
One of the main problems we are facing in the future is how farms collect energy. Normally, an acre of corn in the U.S. will produce about “150 bushels of corn each year,” according to Forbes.
The calories in those grains is only “1/1000th” of the sunlight collected by that acre of land, which shows farms aren’t utilizing all of the solar power they receive. There’s room to innovate since farmers haven’t maxed out the amount of energy taken in.
Other factors that play a role in food production are “water, nitrogen and phosphorous,” Forbes said. Each limits the amount of food that can be produced on any given piece of land.
According to a study by the International Food Policy Institute, the world can produce a maximum of 72 billion tons of grain on current farmlands. We only currently produce 2.6 billion tons.
Now it is only a matter of “tapping into potential” Forbes said.
10 Comments on "UN says world needs to produce 70 percent more food by 2050"
Kenz300 on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 12:34 am
Quote — “Since 1961, the world population has tripled and many people believed then that maintaining enough crops for the growing population was impossible. ”
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Every problem is harder to solve with the world growing population. Finite resources meets endless population growth ending with more poverty, suffering and despair. We have a growing water crisis, food crisis, financial crisis, declining fish stocks crisis, an energy crisis, a climate change crisis and an over population crisis.
Forbes believes in the power of endless growth. They will be disappointed.
Hugh Culliton on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 12:36 am
We don’t need Forbes to tell us that civilization takes a dirt nap when it runs out of food. But “70% – no prob man, we’ll just eat innovation, cow farts, and technology”? Oh really. When today we’re running at 10:1 fossil fuel to food calorie input: output? Where is all that extra energy going to come from? Rhetorical question. We’re in doo-doo so deep that folks see what’s coming and are too scared to face it. Too bad you can’t live on denial.
sparky on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 12:53 am
.
That’s sooo absurd , the past increase was due to the one off “green revolution and the upgrading of ex communist countries
as for why we should need 70% more food for a 20% increase in population ???
probably to improve world nutrition
a worthy object no doubt but not a need
need is what will happen if we get some really bad harvest years in a row
BillT on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 2:04 am
Forbes is a dinosaur and it sees the asteroid coming that will end it’s life. That includes most of the Capitalist, for profit, system. Our financial system, our globalization, everything was built on cheap oil. Now we cannot even go back to the life before oil because we have turned up the heat and made it impossible. We could have cooked our own goose with that oil bonanza.
poaecdotcom on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 3:15 am
Denial.
It is quite scary when you consider these are very smart men and women.
dissident on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 3:44 am
No climate change impact? What are they smoking? The world is not likely to maintain current food production levels by 2050 so forget about increasing them by 20% or 70%.
Ed on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 12:42 pm
By 2050 there may not be any major oil export nations left. (We have 30 now but lose one per year on average). By 2050 we’ll have maybe only 20% of the oil that we have today if we’re lucky. 20% more people with 80% less conventional oil. Umm Tricky!!!
Ed on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 12:49 pm
Tell you what: why don’t we use 60% of our arable land to produce bio fuel.That should solve any food production problems! lol
fecteau on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 7:32 pm
Most of today’s crop goes to feed farm animals. It takes 13 pound of grain protein to produce one pound of animal protein.
The world has to go vegetarian a big way to avert starvation.
Newfie on Fri, 19th Apr 2013 9:03 pm
And by 2100 the world will need to produce 150% more food. And so on… And so on… Get real people. It can’t go on forever.