Abstract:
The notion that global agricultural output needs to double by 2050 is oft repeated.
Using a new International Agricultural Prospects (iAP) Model, to project global
agricultural consumption and production, we find in favour of a future where
aggregate agricultural consumption (in tonnes) increases more modestly, by around
69 per cent (1.3 per cent per year) from 2010 to 2050. The principal driver of this
result is a deceleration in population growth in the decades ahead. Per capita income
growth and changing demographics (generally ageing population) have significant
but secondary roles in spurring growth in agricultural consumption, as does our
projected growth in the use of agricultural feedstocks to meet the growth we envisage
in biofuel demand. Worldwide (but not equally everywhere), crop yield growth has
generally slowed over the past decade or so. Notwithstanding a projected
continuance of this slowdown, the prospective improvements in crop productivity
are still sufficient to reduce per capita cropland use, such that land devoted to crops
would need to increase by less than 10 per cent. Even in our upper-bound (highconsumption)
scenario, we estimate that there remains sufficient productive agricultural
land to more than meet the demand without ploughing-in additional forestdominated
lands.
