New Report Offers Solutions to Close Global Food Gap

A new report offers solutions to meet the world's growing food needs, while advancing economic development and environmental sustainability. The analysis finds that the world will need 70 percent more food in order to feed 9.6 billion people in 2050. Produced by the World Resources Institute (WRI), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Bank, the Report was launched during the 3rd Global Conference on Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Security and Climate Change, in Johannesburg, South Africa on December 3, 2013.

The Report finds that boosting crop and livestock productivity on existing agricultural land is critical to saving forests and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but that the world is unlikely to close the food gap through yield increases alone. The new report finds that crop yields would need to increase by 32 percent more, over the next four decades than they did in the previous four to avoid more land clearing. The report's recommendations to close the food gap include:

• Improve soil and water management
• Improve pastureland productivity
• Use degraded lands
• Avoid shifting agricultural land from one place to another
• Leave no farmer behind

For more details about the WRI report, read the news release at http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/WRR_Interim_Findings_Release.pdf.