The Resource Outlook to 2050: by how much do land, water and crop yields need to increase by 2050?

This paper discusses the natural resource implications of the latest FAO food and agriculture baseline

projections to 2050 (FAO, 2006a). These projections offer a comprehensive (food and feed demand,

including all foreseeable diet changes, trade and production) and consistent picture of the food and

agricultural situation in 2030 and 2050. The main purpose of this paper is to provide an indication of the

additional demands on natural resources derived from the crop production levels in 2030 and 2050 as

foreseen in the FAO 2006 projections. It does not deal with additional demand for agricultural products used

as feedstock in biofuel production or the impacts of climate change (these are dealt with in another paper,

G. Fischer 2009, for this expert meeting), nor the additional production needed to eliminate (or to accelerate

the elimination of) the remaining undernourishment in 2050.

Growth in agricultural production will continue to slow down as a consequence of the slowdown in

population growth and of the fact that an ever increasing share of world population is reaching medium to

high levels of food consumption. Nevertheless, agricultural production would still need to increase by

70 percent (nearly 100 percent in developing countries) by 2050 to cope with a 40 percent increase in world

population and to raise average food consumption to 3130 kcal per person per day by 2050. This translates

into an additional billion tonnes of cereals and 200 million tonnes of meat to be produced annually by 2050

(as compared with production in 2005/07).