Population Growth, Climate and World Food Supply

21 Oct Population Growth, Climate and World Food Supply

National Academy of Technologies of France (NATF)
2011

This report studies the possibility to adequately feed 9 billion people in 2050, and shows that it is feasible, on certain conditions:
– Give priority to the agricultural question among the political concerns of nations and set up ambitious programmes of agricultural development in the poorest countries.
– Subsidize, for short periods, certain local agricultural markets, in southern countries whose populations live in self-sufficiency with a small production surplus.
– Attenuate the effects of speculation in agricultural markets by better regulation of raw-material futures markets.
– Build up stocks to constitute regional, or even family, reserves to avoid the risks of chronic deficits.
– Maintain the strong production capacities of European agriculture but redirect it towards healthy and ecologically acceptable food production;
– Encourage everybody to eat less animal food products; strengthen regulations governing agro-food industries and collective food preparation; combat waste, currently up to 30% of the production.
– Tightly control or ban first-generation bio-fuels which are in direct competition with food production but continue research on 2nd and 3rd generation products.
– Create an Observatory for Predicting World Food Situations and Markets to independently observe developments, interpret evolutions, propose hypotheses and scenarios, and anticipate dangers and suggest lines of solution.
These recommendations are both for the public authorities and the entire civil society: individual behaviour must primarily change.