Perspective on future World food needs

We have often heard that the growth in world population will require the production of food to double by 2050 if we are to feed the world of nine billion people an average of 3000 Calories per day. Given the foibles of forecasting anything 35 years into the future we might well be in denial of these numbers. But even if they are wrong, we know the direction is right. Increasing agricultural production to meet this prediction would require plowing up new (forest) lands and soaking up even more of our precious water supply. And, we are told that we can only accomplish this with big scale, commercial agricultural methods. To many this is a frightening scenario. 

Philip G. Pardey and his colleagues around the world have been re-examining this scenario and finding a more hopeful picture. He has been a leader in analyzing the rates of return to agricultural research and the impacts of public policy on worldwide food production and consumption.

On October 27 at our UMRA Luncheon he will be sharing his perspective on the future needs for increasing the amount of food and changing the types of food that will be demanded by the world’s consumers. 

Dr. Pardey’s research deals with assessing the economic impacts of research, and the economic and policy aspects of genetic resources and the biosciences. He will present the results of a new approach to assessing the production, consumption, and land-use prospects for global agriculture over the coming decades, highlighting changes in the worldwide landscape for food and agricultural research and development.

 Philip G. Pardey is an alumnus of the University of Minnesota and is now a professor of science and technology policy in the Department of Applied Economics. He is also the director of Global Research Strategy for the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences and the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, and he directs the University’s International Science and Technology Practice and Policy (InSTePP) center. He is a fellow  of the American Agricultural Economics Association, distinguished fellow and past president of the Australian Agricultural  and Resource Economics Society, and he  received the Siehl Prize for Excellence in  Agriculture.

  He currently co-directs a Gates Foundation project, HarvestChoice (www.HarvestChoice.org), which is designed to inform  and guide investments to stimulate productivity growth in African agriculture.

  Pardey is author of more than 300 books,  articles, and papers, including Ending  Hunger in Our Lifetime: Food Security and  Globalization, Agricultural R&D in the  Developing World: Too Little, Too Late?

 — Jean Kinsey, President