Print This PageMeeting the Needs of Everybody
Related Resources
Challenges for Agriculture (.pdf 156K)
Produce More
Helping farmers meet the needs of a growing planet.
Conserve More
Preserving natural resources for future generations.
Improve Farmers' Lives
Increasing incomes and standards of living.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, global population will reach 8.9 billion by 2040 and 9.4 billion by 2050 before stabilizing around 9.7 billion later in the century4. Implied in this estimate is a 34 percent increase by 2040 over today’s global population estimate of 6.6 billion, and a 42 percent increase by 2050. According to Dr. Bob Thompson, agricultural policy expert with the University of Illinois, as incomes rise to the level of $2 to $10 per day, people eat more meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and edible oils – creating rapid demand growth for agricultural commodities. Even today, nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2 per day including 46 percent of the Chinese population, and similarly large populations in countries like India and Indonesia. Taken together, population growth and rising incomes are expected to double the quantity of food demanded by 20505. In fact, participants at a recent United Nations forum on food demand predicted agriculture will be called upon to produce more food over the next 50 years than has been produced in the past 10,000 years combined6.
While agriculture has answered the call to produce more food over the past 50 years, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) still counts 854 million people as malnourished and hungry. Up to 2 billion people suffer from the “hidden hunger” of micronutrient malnutrition stemming from a lack of diversity in their diets7. Among the most vulnerable to the plague of hunger are young children who suffer from physical or mental developmental delays. Worse yet, an estimated 5.6 million children die each year due to hunger-related illnesses prior to their fifth birthday8. “Far from decreasing, the number of hungry people in the world is currently increasing,” says FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.
What can we do?
