Posted June 2000

Transition to sustainability in the twenty-first century: Meeting food needs

by
Jacques du Guerny
Chief, FAO Population Programme Service (SDWP) and Focal Point on HIV/AIDS

The Conference draft Statement's objective is to facilitate the transition towards sustainability. Sustainability should not be understood as a state but as a process, which will always require adjustments to keep it on the right track.

The problem, therefore, is not only one of meeting food requirements but, more important, of selecting the optimal path to reach this evolving objective. In other words, what are the possible shapes and characteristics of the agriculture maps of tomorrow? Which are the ones we prefer? How do we ensure that the outcomes of our activities get us there without undesirable side-effects? This means that technical solutions are not enough even if environmental concerns are integrated. The fact that technical solutions are dependent on populations and can affect them in various ways must not be overlooked.

The issue of estimating food requirements and demand in the future has been looked at from the population perspective as well as from the agriculture perspective. Both views are divided into pessimists and optimists. The United Nations population projections for the world from the 1950s to the year 2000 turned out to be quite robust and agriculture should be commended for rising to the challenge of a global population that has more than doubled during the period, from 2.5 billion to 6 billion.

The global consensus expressed at the World Food Summit (WFS) was relatively optimistic for the future at the global level, but it is apparent that population-driven factors are likely to result in increasing heterogeneity in the future. In recent years the UN population projections have been systematically revised downwards. Consequently, the challenge to agriculture coming from population growth is expected to peak around 2050 and may even decline significantly towards the end of the twenty-first century, particularly in Asia (Figure 1).

Source: 1950-2050: United Nations Population Division (1999), World Population Prospects: The 1998 Revision; 2050-2100: United Nations Population Division (1999), Long-range World Population Projections: Based on the 1998 Revision

On the requirements and demand side of the food-population equation, two continents - Africa and Asia - emerge as crucial, but for very different reasons. Africa will face the greatest challenge to meet the food needs of its still rapidly increasing population over the next few decades. While Asia is expected to exert a determining influence on many aspects of global agriculture, from production to trade, as it corrects some of the inequalities in distribution to eliminate malnutrition and as the numbers of its massive populations continue to increase, their demographic structures age and their tastes evolve.

Future population growth will play a lesser role, therefore, and the remaining projected growth is expected to be relatively robust.

Other demographic variables, such as ageing or mortality and spatial distribution, will become more important. Projections of some of these factors can be quite uncertain. Over the long term, therefore, uncertainties and demographic heterogeneity may increase, and the emphasis could eventually shift from meeting food requirements to meeting food demand with volatility resulting.

As it has become more and more clear that it is technically feasible to provide enough food for projected populations, the concern for sustainability has broadened to cover the environmental impacts of agriculture. This is a welcome development, but it is not enough as there are many ways in which food requirements and demand can be met. Each of these ways also has consequences on rural populations, which tend to be overlooked in the concern for increasing production.

It is tempting to implement narrow technical solutions in order to meet future food requirements and demand rather than implement complex holistic strategies, which would facilitate change and increase the resilience of rural populations to ensure that the brunt of the costs of such changes are not borne uniquely or mostly by rural people. The human element of the equation must not be overlooked as it was during much of the green revolution and in structural adjustment programmes. It is particularly important in this case because the impacts of new technologies can be sudden and brutal. For example, biotechnologies can allow certain crops to be produced in new areas, something which might put traditional producers out of business before they have the opportunity to find alternatives. This could affect millions of farm households and significantly change projected rural-urban population distribution as rural people attempt to adjust to new patterns of production (Figure 2) through migration to the cities.

Source: United Nations Population Division (1999), World Population Prospects: The 1999 Revision

More advanced countries and wealthier and better-educated farmers can be expected to take advantage of developments such as precision farming, thus squeezing out the poor and less educated or increasing existing income and food security gaps. This does not mean that development should be stopped, but an an enabling environment for rural populations must be integrated into the development process so that they can take advantage of any change rather than be destabilized by it and left to cope by themselves. Apart from human rights considerations, if such negative effects were to occur, they could boomerang in the form of intractable urban problems with negative socio-economic and political consequences.

The promotion of a more enabling environment is all the more important since the expected increases in heterogeneity and variability of agriculture will call for much finer sub-national and local adaptations and resilience, which are incompatible with macro-level rigidities. The well-known saying "Think global, act local" should perhaps be replaced by "Don't just think globally, think and act locally".

Creating a favourable institutional context and investing in human resource development of rural populations will become of prime importance both to meet food demands and to open up the choice for rural inhabitants to stay in rural areas or migrate to urban ones under better conditions. It is important to note that this would lead to a fundamental change in the nature of societies of developing countries as the past and present rural populations and their peasant cultures are replaced by smaller farming ones attuned to the emerging urban and global cultures.

Such a holistic approach should enable us to consider both scientific and humanistic concerns when meeting future challenges.

For further information contact:

Jacques du Guerny
Chief, FAO Population Programme Service and Focal Point on HIV/AIDS
Email: Jacques.duGuerny@fao.org