(NY) The New York Times – According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, feeding humanity in 2050 – when the world’s population is expected to be 9.1 billion – will require a 70 percent increase in global food production, partly because of population growth but also because of rising incomes.
The organization hopes that this increase can be brought about by greater productivity on current agricultural acreage and by greening parts of the world that aren’t now arable. It is also “cautiously optimistic” that, even with climate change, there will be enough land and probably enough water to do so. It’s important to look at this projection in light of another United Nations goal – preserving biodiversity – and ask whether the two are compatible. More