Article and photos published courtesy of CEMA aisbl European Committee of Associations of Manufacturers of
Agricultural Machinery
Our world is getting larger… and hungrier… with every tick of the clock. Each second, the
world’s population grows by nearly 3 more people, that is 240,000 people a day.
B
y 2025, the global population
will reach 8 billion people and
9.6 billion by 2050. This
means there will be an extra
billion mouths to feed within the next
10 years. And within one generation,
there will be more people additionally on the planet than there were at the
beginning of the 20th century.
Feeding the growing world population
poses an unprecedented challenge
to human ingenuity. Even in the best of
circumstances, sustainably satisfying
this hugely increased demand for crops
and livestock will be an enormous task.
By 2050, food production must increase
by 70% to keep pace.
To generate enough food to meet the
ever-growing demands of a growing population, we need to build more
sustainable food production systems
and to embrace smarter farming methods. Fortunately, the technology to do
so is available – and working – right
now!
Food production under pressure: “a
gathering storm”
Achieving the level of agricultural
productivity necessary to meet the rising world demand for food, fibre and
fuel by 2050 will be a tremendous challenge. Meeting this challenge is made
even more daunting by a number of
stringent constraints - the combined effect of which the Food and Agricultural
Organisation of the United Nations
(FAO) has termed “a gathering storm”.
Key constraints that global agriculture
is facing:
Slow-down in productivity growth
Limited availability of new arable
land
Climate change
Price and availability of energy
Impact of urbanisation on rural labour supply
In light of the above challenges to our