{"id":36726,"date":"2013-06-22T05:33:17","date_gmt":"2013-06-22T09:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetsave.com\/?p=36726"},"modified":"2013-06-22T05:33:17","modified_gmt":"2013-06-22T09:33:17","slug":"global-food-production-wont-keep-up-with-the-worlds-growing-population-research-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetsave.com\/articles\/global-food-production-wont-keep-up-with-the-worlds-growing-population-research-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Food Production Won't Keep Up With The World's Growing Population, Research Warns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global food production isn’t increasing fast enough to support the world’s rapidly growing population, according to new research from the Institute on the Environment (IonE) at the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n

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Image Credit: Deepak K Ray, Nathaniel D Mueller, Paul C West, Jonathan A Foley<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Crop yields are actually falling rather notably in many of the warmer\/poorer regions of the world as a result of rising temperatures and increasing natural disasters. Such agricultural declines are predicted to continue into the foreseeable future as a result of climate change. And something else to note — this new research (along with most) doesn’t take into account the rapidly approaching problem of running out of inorganic fertilizers… A very significant problem…<\/p>\n

With regards to the new research — previous work has estimated that global agricultural production would need to increase by around 60-110% by 2050 in order to keep up with mid-range population growth estimates. But according to the new research, as of right now yields of the world’s four most important crops — maize, rice, wheat and soybean — are only increasing about 0.9-1.6% a year. “At these rates, production of these crops would likely increase 38-67% by 2050, rather than the estimated requirement of 60-110%. The top three countries that produce rice and wheat were found to have very low rates of increase in crop yields.”<\/p>\n

“Particularly troubling are places where population and food production trajectories are at substantial odds,” Ray says, “for example, in Guatemala, where the corn-dependent population is growing at the same time corn productivity is declining.”<\/p>\n