Will it be possible to feed nine billion people sustainably?
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
January 28, 2010 Sometime around 2050 researchers estimate that the global population will level-out at nine billion people, adding over two billion more people to the planet. Since, one billion of the world’s population (more than one in seven) are currently going hungry—the largest number in all of history—scientists are struggling with how, not only to feed those who are hungry today, but also the additional two billion that will soon grace our planet. In a new paper in Science researchers make recommendations on how the world may one day feed nine billion people—sustainably. The difficulties are many and large, according to the paper: “growing competition for land, water and energy, and the over-exploitation of fisheries, will affect our ability to produce food, as will the urgent requirement to reduce the impact of the food system on the environment.” The finiteness of arable land and freshwater will be further strained by what the authors call “higher purchasing power”, which increases the demand in the developing world for “processed food, meat, dairy and fish, all of which adds pressure to the food supply system.” Further complicating the problem of limited—and over-stretched resources—will be the need to adapt to a changing climate. “Projections of food needs over the next 40 years have generated deep concern about how agricultural production can increase sufficiently in the face of climate change threats,” explains co-author Dr. Camilla Toulmin from the International Institute for Environment and Development. “Not only will rising temperature and shifts in rainfall patterns render crop production more uncertain in many areas, but the agricultural sector will need to become a better sink for carbon, through sequestration, while reducing emissions of greenhouse gas such as nitrous oxide, which is produced from use of chemical fertilizers.” She adds that the availability of arable land is further constrained by the “need to maintain and improve the carbon stores held in forests, which also contribute to the world’s water balance, biological and cultural diversity, so expansion of farming into forest and grazing lands is not a sensible option.” Given all of these issues, the authors conclude that “a three-fold challenge now faces the world: match the rapidly changing demand for food from a larger and more affluent population to its supply; do so in ways that are environmentally and socially sustainable; and ensure that the world’s poorest people are no longer hungry.” …
Will it be possible to feed nine billion people sustainably?
I think it is exceedingly unlikely that the world will reach 9 billion. There are far too many collapsing systems within the biosphere today for this figure to ever be realized. We are almost at peak population world wide now.
By 2050, we will have seen several huge events. The severity of climate change will have been fully realized by humans, impacting global populations everywhere and agricultural production. The severity of depleted aquifers, soils and minimal agricultural outputs will prevent such human numbers ever being realized.
I fully expect energy wars to have earnestly commenced within the next decade too, far sooner then 2050, and this will lead to WWIII, new disease and plague outbreaks, and the continued expansion / exploitation for energy with resultant pollution and ecosystem destruction.
I suspect these scientist are simply dreaming, creating a wish list of 'possibilities' not rooted in reality. Human nature being what it is, we will never see 9 billion on this planet (thankfully).
These kind of numbers stagger the mind, the destruction required to the biosphere would make this considerably worse then it already is. ~Survival Acres~