Food wedges: Framing the global food demand and supply challenge towards 2050 (original) (raw)

The future of the global food system

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2010

Although food prices in major world markets are at or near a historical low, there is increasing concern about food security—the ability of the world to provide healthy and environmentally sustainable diets for all its peoples. This article is an introduction to a collection of reviews whose authors were asked to explore the major drivers affecting the food system between now and 2050. A first set of papers explores the main factors affecting the demand for food (population growth, changes in consumption patterns, the effects on the food system of urbanization and the importance of understanding income distributions) with a second examining trends in future food supply (crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and ‘wild food’). A third set explores exogenous factors affecting the food system (climate change, competition for water, energy and land, and how agriculture depends on and provides ecosystem services), while the final set explores cross-cutting themes (food system econo...

Managing Food Systems, Climate Change and Related Challenges to Ensure Sustainable Food Security: The Urgent Need of a Paradigm and Policy Shift

Sustainable Food Security in the Era of Local and Global Environmental Chang, 2013

Addressing the challenge of global food security in our era is strongly linked with other global issues, most notably climate change, population growth and the need to sustainably manage the world’s rapidly growing demand for energy, land, and water. Our progress in ensuring a sustainable and equitable food supply chain will be determined by how coherently these long-term challenges are tackled. This will also determine our progress in reducing global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The challenge is to deliver nutritious, safe and affordable food to a global population of over nine billion in the coming decades, using less land, fewer inputs, with less waste and a lower environmental impact. All this has to be done in ways that are socially and economically sustainable. In this paper, we try to analyze the different challenges affecting the global capacity to build a food system with the potential to enhance a sustainable food security. Actions needed to make such a paradigm and policy shift, in both developed and developing countries, have been demonstrated.

Creating a Sustainable Food Future: Interim Findings

2013

This important analysis demonstrates that big changes are possible. The solutions on our menu would allow the world to sustainably increase food production and reduce excess consumption. Governments, the private sector, farming organizations, and civil society must urgently come together in a determined alliance in order to deliver on the promise of a sustainable food future. We cannot afford to wait.

Drivers and challenges for food security

CABI eBooks, 2013

At the global scale, humanity is increasingly facing rapid changes, and sometimes shocks, that are affecting the security of our food systems and the agroecosystems that are the ultimate sources of food. To plan and prepare for resilient food production and food security in a sustainable and effi cient way, we are challenged to better understand the conditions and likely responses of these diverse agroecosystems under various drivers of change and scenarios of future trends. Among the many direct drivers and indirect pressures that exist or are emerging, the discussion in this chapter focuses on the main themes of drivers of demographic changes, globalization of economic and governance systems (including markets), and climate change. The current state of health of water and land resources, and of ecosystems and their services, are considered alongside these drivers, as these are critical determinants of the pathways with suffi cient potential to move food-producing systems towards more sustainable production. Hence, addressing the opportunities, synergies and constraints of multiple drivers will be critical for policy advice to build resilient food systems in the future.

Scenarios and challenges for feeding the world in 2050

2009

The Agrimonde foresight study enabled us to address questions that had not yet been formulated as such in mainstream scientific debates. Not that the facts reported or the assumptions put forward were entirely unpredictable or unknown; but they prompted the experts, followed by the various audiences to whom the results were presented, to consider the actions to be undertaken from a different point of view, primarily in relation to the type of future wished for, or not, in the decades to come. The value of baseline scenarios is not that they predict a sure future, which no one can actually anticipate as far ahead as 2050, but that they define the narrow path of possible futures that are likely to unfold if we fail to broaden our options now. Alternative scenario(s) can thus be mobilised to identify the objectives that we need to set when broadening the options explored. This has been the role of the Agrimonde 1 scenario, in contrast to the baseline scenario provided by Agrimonde GO

The State of Food Systems Worldwide: Counting Down to 2030

arXiv (Cornell University), 2023

Domain Indicator Unit Min. 25th Median 75th Max Weighted Mean Weighted SD Weighted by Environment, production, and natural resources Greenhouse gas emissions Food systems greenhouse gas emissions kt CO2eq (AR5)

Scenarios to explore global food security up to 2050: Development process, storylines and quantification of drivers

2015

To guide policymaking, decision makers require a good understanding of the long-term drivers of food security and their interactions. Scenario analysis is widely considered as the appropriate tool to assess complex and uncertain problems, such as food security. This paper describes the development process, storylines and drivers of four new global scenarios up to the year 2050 that are specifically designed for food security modelling. To ensure the relevance, credibility and legitimacy of the scenarios a participatory process is used, involving a diverse group of stakeholders. A novel approach is introduced to quantify a selection of key drivers that directly can be used as input in global integrated assessment models to assess the impact of aid, trade, agricultural and science policies on global food and nutrition security.