(NAS Colloquium) Plants and Population Is There Time? (1999) / Chapter Skim
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World food trends and prospects to 2025
World food trends and prospects to 2025
Pages 5929-5936
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From page 5929... ...
For example, we are told that the world's population has been growing faster than cereal production since the early 1980s, and therefore that global per-capita cereal output is falling now. The rate of growth of world cereal yields also is said to be declining; the strong implication is that this decline is caused by increasing environmental production constraints.
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From page 5930... ...
that have boosted agricultural production elsewhere. Around 1995 this region's average per-capita cereal output was only about 146 kg, which is a low figure, even allowing for the fact that cereals are not grown in much of middle and west Africa, and average levels of per-capita cereal consumption were only slightly higher because of cereal imports and aid.
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From page 5931... ...
average per-capita cereal output in the mid-199Os exceeded that in 1984 in all other world regions. It is especially noteworthy that the two large Asian regions, which together contain 57% of humanity, both have experienced significant rises in per-capita cereal production.
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From page 5932... ...
The largest absolute additions, by far, will occur in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. These are regions of low per-capita cereal production and consumption, but together they account for more than 55% of the total anticipated demographic growth.
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From page 5933... ...
Accordingly, I believe it plausible to assume some continued rise in overall per-capita cereal consumption in the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America, and, most importantly, East and Southeast Asia. Essentially, this computation has been done by means of a considered extrapolation from the corresponding regional per-capita cereal consumption trends of the period 1970-1990 (see ref.
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From page 5934... ...
Sci. USA 96 (1999J Projected Average annual production Average area cereal yield on the basis Shortfall/surplus harvested increase, kg/ha of constant compared to 1989-1991, Average yield, per year Linearly projected area, projected Region million ha 1989-1991 1981-1997 yield 2025 million tons demand Sub-Saharan Africa 59.3 1.165 10.6 1.536 91.1 -88.7 The Middle East 40.2 1.642 23.6 2.468 99.2 -132.7 South Asia 140.3 1.919 52.0 3.739 524.6 -25.1 East and Southeast Asia 145.1 3.817 70.9 6.299 914.0 -126.9 Latin America 48.4 2.119 40.5 3.537 171.2 -46.7 Europe/FSU 171.4 2.816 22.8 3.614 619.4 + 112.9 North America/Oceania 98.4 3.734 55.4 5.673 558.2 +238.7 World 703.1 2.711 39.0 4.076 2,977.7 -68.5 The total 2025 cereal production figure given above is the sum of the regional figures, as is the total shortfall.
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From page 5935... ...
And farming everywhere is likely to involve much greater dependence on information-intensive farm management procedures, as well as heightened attention to variation of conditions within individual fields, whether done through the reading of subtle color change in crop leaves or by satellite Imagery. It is highly unlikely that there will be any wonder breakthrough that will solve the problem of raising world food production.
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From page 5936... ...
(1997) The World Food Outlook (Cambridge Univ.
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