Biotech Updates

Scenarios in Feeding the World by 2050

April 16, 2010

The French Initiative for International Agricultural Research on behalf of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) and the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) developed the Agrimonde platform. It is used to analyze the global food and agricultural concerns under the scenario of feeding nine billion people by 2010, without compromising the  sustainability of agro-ecosystems. Based on the Agrimonde analyses, the main challenges in feeding the growing world population are global economic growth and ecosystems preservation.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) also conducted a research on alternative futures for agricultural supply and demand and food security on 2050. Major crops like maize, rice and wheat are projected to increase in price by 60 to 90 percent. This may lead to lower food demand, increased child malnutrition rates, and decelerated advancement of nutrition and food security in low-income countries.

For details of the story, see http://crop.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/50/Supplement_1/S-33?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=
and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&fdate=1/1/2010&resourcetype=HWCIT