Download Challenges: Population Growth Challenges

Nourishing the Planet
Worldwatch Institute Project on
Hunger and Poverty Alleviation
Danielle Nierenberg
Senior Researcher, Worldwatch Institute
[email protected]
http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/
www.worldwatch.org
Nourishing the Planet
Part II: Our Challenge in the
21st Century?
Source: Bernard Pollack
Finding ways to nourish both people and the
planet with environmentally sustainable methods
of food production
Challenge of Reducing Hunger
Demographic, economic, and natural forces
all conspire to make the challenge of
reducing hunger more difficult, including:
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Soaring petroleum and food prices
Population growth and urbanization
Climate change
Gender inequity
Changing diets
Unfair trade practices
Subsidies
Challenges: Population Growth
Challenges: Population Growth
• 79 million more
people each year
• By 2050, population
will exceed 9 billion
Source: World Bank
Challenges: Urbanization
• More people now living
in cities than in rural
areas
• Urban consumers pay
more for their food than
people in rural areas
Source: Bernard Pollack
• Urban and peri-urban
agriculture are growing,
but can also create food
safety problems
Challenges: Gender Inequity
Source: World Bank
• Women comprise up to 80 percent of farmers in subSaharan Africa
• Many lack access to land tenure, credit, extension services
• Studies show that gender inequity can negatively affect
natural resources, including by causing deforestation
Challenge: Changing Diets
Challenge: Changing Diets
• Growing middle-class
populations are able to
include more animal
products in their diets
• Livestock are
responsible for 18% of
GHG emissions
• Spread of zoonotic
diseases and foodborne
illness
Source: EcoAgriculture Partners,Sajal Sthapit
Challenges: Biofuels
Challenges: Biofuels
• The increased biofuel
demand between 2000 and
2007 is estimated to have
accounted for 30 percent of
the increase in weighted
average grain prices (IFPRI 2008)
• Worldwide, the amount of
coarse grains converted to
energy jumped 15 percent
to 255 million tons in 2007
Source: World Bank
Challenges: Climate Change
• The impacts of rising
temperatures and moreextreme weather events
will likely hurt the poor,
especially rural farmers,
the most
• According to the
Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change
(IPPC), agricultural yields
in Africa could decline by
more than 30 percent by
2050
Source: World Bank
Opportunities and Growing
Interest in Agriculture
• The same high food prices that handicap
food-aid organizations and threaten hundreds
of millions of people with hunger are also
pushing governments to commit to long-term,
agricultural investment
• They are also responsible for establishing
food security as a global priority
The Single Best Way to
Alleviate Poverty
• A recent United Nations analysis of Asia and
the Pacific found that 218 million people
could be lifted out of poverty by raising
agricultural productivity
• Growth originating from agriculture is known
to be twice as effective in reducing poverty
as GDP growth originating from outside of
agriculture
(World Bank, WDR 2008)
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