Agri Kultuur June / Junie 2018 | Page 21

The water requirements for food production from 1960 and going forward to 2050 are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: Water requirements for food It is estimated that overall food production would require to be raised by some 60% towards 2050 to meet demand. This means an increase from 8.4 billion metric tons of food a year to almost 13.5 billion metric tons. Current growth however is falling short (See figure 3). In case of developing nations, the food production needs to be doubled to feed the growing population. Photo credit Flickr Figure 3: Food demand AgriKultuur |AgriCulture 21