Agrimonde. Scenarios and Challenges for Feeding the World in 2050

17/12/2010 - Article

A book summarizing the report on the Agrimonde foresight study initiated by CIRAD and INRA on global agriculture and food between now and 2050.

The 21st century faces a triple challenge in terms of agriculture and food: food security, environmental conservation, and a shortage of fossil fuels. With this in mind, INRA and CIRAD launched the initiative, in 2006, to develop a foresight project for analysing issues pertaining to the world's food and agricultural systems on the 2050 timeline.

This book provides a synthetic presentation of the main conclusions that this foresight project has yielded. First, it recapitulates the main statistical references for the period 1961 to 2003, before going on to describe the Agribiom simulation tool used to calculate food biomass resource use balances. Two scenarios on the 2050 timeline are then considered: Agrimonde GO is a trend-based scenario that bets on economic growth to feed the world, in a context where environmental protection is not a priority; in contrast, the idea in Agrimonde 1 is to feed the world while preserving its ecosystems.
The book is also available in French.

Agrimonde. Scenarios and Challenges for Feeding the World in 2050
Editorial coordination: Sandrine Paillard, Sébastien Treyer and Bruno Dorin
Matière à débattre et décider collection
Editions Quae
2010