FAO SAYS WORLD RISKS FAMINE IN 2050
FAO SAYS WORLD RISKS FAMINE IN 2050
(ANSA) - Rome, October 12 - Agriculture must become more productive if the world is to avoid widespread famine in the next 40 years, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization Director General Jacques Diouf said Monday.
Opening a high-level expert forum in Rome on how to feed the world in 2050, Diouf said ''the combined effect of population growth, strong income growth and urbanization will almost double the demand for food, feed and fibre''.
As a result, ''agriculture will have no choice but to be more productive,'' Diouf said.
According to the director general, global food production would have to increase by 70% in order to feed the estimated 9.1 billion people who will inhabit the earth by mid-century, 2.3 billion more than today.
But Diouf said ''the challenge is not only to increase global future production but to increase it where it is mostly needed and by those who need it most''.
In order to reduce hunger, Diouf explained that 90% of yield increases would have to come from a more efficient use of land and resources by farmers in developing countries.
''Unless we start making the right decisions now, we risk finding the food basket in 2050 running dangerously low,'' the director general concluded.
FAO experts predict, however, that even if governments scale up agricultural spending, there will still be 370 million people suffering from famine in 2050, around 5% of the world's population.
That would still be an improvement on the 860 million hungry people estimated by the FAO last year.
Outlining major obstacles to boosting food production, Diouf estimated that climate change ''threatens to reduce agricultural output in developing countries by over 20%''.
''At the same time, the agricultural sector faces a shrinking labor force as over 600 million people move from rural areas into large urban centers,'' Diouf said.
FAO experts predict that urbanization will bring 60% of the world's population into cities by 2050, against 49% today.
A report issued by the organization last week put the cost of feeding an extra 2.3 billion people by 2050 at $44 billion per year in agricultural investments for developing countries, against $7.9 billion being spent now.
The report said that most of the money could be expected from private investors but that public funding would be necessary to provide roads, water, power and sanitation services required for large-scale agriculture.
China and India alone will require one third of those investments, while experts say sub-Saharan Africa could reach food production targets with $11 billion per year.
Commenting on the director general's statements, Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia said ''we need to put global agriculture and rural development at the center of plans for sustainable economic growth''.
The High-Level Expert Forum brings over 300 of the world's top food security experts to Rome to examine policy recommendations on feeding the world's hungry.
The two-day summit is expected to lay the groundwork for the World Summit on Food Security in November, which will convene world leaders to address the impact of the global economic crisis on the world's ability to feed itself.
