Agrimonde: scenarios and challenges for feeding the world in 2050

By 2050, there will be nine billion people worldwide, the environment will have to be protected, and energy sources will be increasingly scarce... in view of this, what might the future hold for global agricultural and food systems? It was this question that the Agrimonde foresight study being conducted by CIRAD and INRA since 2006 set out to answer. A report containing the results of the first phase of the project (2006-2008) was published in February 2009. It was presented to the players who contributed to the study, at the Paris International Agricultural Show.
In particular, the report describes the study of two scenarios. The first, "Agrimonde 1", set out to apply the principles of sustainable development, based on the guidelines suggested by Michel Griffon in his book Nourrir la planète . This will require ecological intensification of production and a reduction in the current inequalities as regards consumption: reducing under-nutrition in some regions, while cutting waste and excess food consumption in others. To fuel the debate, the researchers involved integrated into their analysis grid a scenario from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), "Global Orchestration", the MEA's most effective scenario for alleviating poverty. This second scenario, renamed "Agrimonde GO", is primarily characterized by significant growth in calorie yield per hectare cultivated, and by unregulated global trade. It also centres on the assumption that environmental problems are not anticipated, with the certainty that they can always be overcome once they become too acute.
In both cases, based on the hypotheses put forward, it should not be impossible to feed the world in 2050. However, three regions–sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and North Africa/Middle East–will still have overall shortages. This highlights the importance to be given to organizing and regulating global trade with a view to ensuring food security. Furthermore, to feed the world in 2050, the "Agrimonde 1" scenario puts forward a hypothesis of major changes in how losses are managed and in dietary habits: food calorie availability would be 3000 kcal per person, per day, worldwide, corresponding to the global average in 2003, whereas it is currently no more than 2500 kcal/person/day in sub-Saharan Africa but close to 4000 kcal/person/day in the OECD countries. This hypothesis will thus mean a substantial change in current habits and trends. Lastly, the foresight study asks new questions about how research is tackling the changes in yields and in the areas used for agricultural production, and their extent and their technical, economic, social and environmental consequences. By linking the technical and land-related aspects of the yield-area pairing, it establishes ecological intensification as a major issue.

These results will shortly be presented and discussed at seminars, with a view to extending and intensifying the work done to date.
The full report will shortly be available in English.