Current Yield Trends are not Catching Up with Population Growth

Studies have shown that current global crop production must be doubled in order to feed the growing population which is expected to reach over 9 billion by 2050. To check if we are on track towards this goal, Dr. Deepak Ray and colleagues from the University of Minnesota conducted an analysis of production trends of major crops namely maize, rice, wheat, and soybean. They used ~2.5 million agricultural statistics collected from about 13,500 political units worldwide that currently produce nearly two-thirds of global agricultural calories.

The researchers found out that the major crops are increasing at 1.6%, 1%, 0.9%, and 1.3% every year at non-compounding rates, respectively. These are alarming figures because the required rate is 2.4% to double global production by 2050.

Read research article published by Plos One journal at http://www.plos.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/pone-08-06-ray.pdf.