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Global food production must ramp up in the face of enormous challenges. We are all familiar with many of the key metrics surrounding the central food security challenge: By the year 2050, the earth’s population is expected to soar from the current 7bn about 9.6bn. It is estimated that in the next 40 to 50 years, we will need to produce as much food as was necessary in the previous 10,000.
This requires a dramatic increase in agricultural production, which must be achieved against a backdrop of issues such as climate change (and the attendant ills of extreme weather, flooding and droughts), water and soil depletion and
degradation, and possible yield plateaus in key production regions for wheat and rice. The need to intensify production on existing lands rather than relying too heavily on new ones—which would require deforestation or the clearing of
savannahs—will also require new technologies all along the agricultural chain, to boost production and replenish overworked farmland.
An estimated 2.5bn people live in about 500m small farm households—and increasing their levels of production is crucial. This requires greater access to high-quality agricultural inputs as well as to finance and credit. Private firms and NGOs are responding with creative financing tools, a range of new technologies to help them farm more abundantly, sustainably and efficiently, and better seeds, fertilisers and soil management tools.
This report provides examples of recent projects that are already having an impact on urban food access in cities around the world – ranging from New York, where NGOs are partnering with federalagricultural agencies on local farm and nutrition programmes, to Beijing, where concerns about food safety and quality are sparking government interest in urban organic farming projects
