Horizon scanning and review of the impact of five food and food production models for the global food system in 2050

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.

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.

With a growing world population and increasingly demanding consumers, the production of sufficient protein from livestock, poultry, and fish represents a serious challenge for the future. Approximately 1,900 insect species are eaten worldwide, mainly in developing countries. They constitute quality food and feed, have high feed conversion ratios, and emit low levels of greenhouse gases. Some insect species can be grown on organic side streams, reducing environmental contamination and transforming waste into high-protein feed that can replace increasingly more expensive compound feed ingredients, such as fish meal. This requires the development of cost-effective, automated mass-rearing facilities that provide a reliable, stable, and safe product. In the tropics, sustainable harvesting needs to be assured and rearing practices promoted, and in general, the food resource needs to be revalorized. In the Western world, consumer acceptability will relate to pricing, perceived environmental benefits, and the development of tasty insect-derived protein products.