Wrong. We have no problem with global food supply. There is more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet. The problem we have is political where food is withheld from certain groups for some sort of political gain.
World agriculture 2030:
Main findings
World population will grow from around 6 billion people today to 8.3 billion people in 2030. Population growth will be growing at an average of 1.1 percent a year up to 2030, compared to 1.7 percent annually over the past 30 years. At the same time, an ever increasing share of the world’s population is well-fed. As a result, the growth in world demand for agricultural products is expected to slow further, from an average 2.2 percent annually over the past 30 years to 1.5 percent per year until 2030. In developing countries, the slowdown will be more dramatic, from 3.7 percent for the past 30 years to an average of 2 percent until 2030.
However, the developing countries with low to medium levels of consumption, accounting for about half of the population in developing countries, would see demand growth slowing only from 2.9 to 2.5 percent per year, and per caput consumption increasing.
The world population will be increasingly well-fed by 2030, with 3050 kilocalories (kcal) available per person, compared to 2360 kcal per person per day in the mid-1960s and 2800 kcal today. This change reflects above all the rising consumption in many developing countries whose average will be close to 3000 kcal in 2030.
The number of hungry people in developing countries is expected to decline from 777 million today to about 440 million in 2030. This means, that the target of the World Food Summit in 1996, to reduce the number of hungry by half from its level in 1990-92 (815 million) by 2015, will not even be met by 2030. Sub-Saharan Africa is cause for serious concern, because the number of chronically undernourished people will only decrease from 194 to 183 million.
Patterns of food consumption are becoming more similar throughout the world, shifting towards higher-quality and more expensive foods such as meat and dairy products. Meat consumption in developing countries, for example, has risen from only 10 kg per person annually in 1964-66 to 26 kg in 1997-99. It is projected to rise to 37 kg per person per year in 2030. Milk and dairy products have also seen rapid growth, from 28 kg per person per year in 1964-66, to 45 kg now, and could rise to 66 kg in 2030. FAO expects increases in meat and dairy consumption to be less dramatic than in the past.
Cereals are still by far the world’s most important sources of food, both for direct human consumption and meat production. An extra billion tonnes of cereals will be needed by 2030.
The developing countries will become increasingly dependent on cereal, meat and milk imports, their production will not keep pace with demand. By 2030 they could be producing only 86 percent of their own cereal needs, with net imports rising from currently 103 million tonnes to 265 million tonnes by 2030. Traditional grain exporters such as the US, the EU, Canada, Australia and Argentina, and the transition countries as emerging exporters, are expected to produce the surpluses needed to fill this gap. “If real food prices do not rise, and exports of industry products and services grow as previously, then most countries will be able to afford to import cereals to meet their needs. However, the poorest countries tend to be the least able to pay for imports.”
The use of cereals as animal feed does not contribute to hunger and undernutrition. Globally, some 660 million tonnes of cereals are used as livestock feed each year. This represents just over a third of total world cereal use. If these cereals were not used as feed, they would probably not be produced at all, so would not be available as food in many cases, according to the report. More likely, the lack of demand for cereals for livestock production would lead to lower crop production.
Much of future food production growth will come from higher productivity. In developing countries, almost 70 percent of the increase in crop production will come from higher yields, around 20percentfrom an expansion of arable land and around 10 percent from multiple cropping and shorter fallow periods.
[fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/7833-en.html](http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/7833-en.html)
