SINGAPORE—Animal products will rise rapidly, as global food demand will double until mid-century, a study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows.
The study shared by PIK to Database said the development of future diets is not only crucial for food security and nutrition, but also for greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture. Scientists at PIK, using a new simple and transparent tool, have investigated different scenarios for future calorie demand around the globe. Their results are visualized in an interactive online application, enabling interested parties to explore the future demand for plant and animal products per capita on a continental scale.
“Long-term projections of global food demand are of major importance when it comes to global food security, human nutrition or environmental pressures, like greenhouse-gas emissions from agricultural production,” lead author Susanne Rolinski said.
“We provide the first statistical method that allows to robustly create long-term customized food-demand scenarios,” Rolinski said. Researchers at PIK applied their new method to four acknowledged and common scenarios of global socioeconomic development. The new method can easily be used for upcoming scenarios.
The PIK study indicates a strong increase of global food demand until 2050 in all four scenarios. “Under continuous income growth, there are good prospects that widespread undernourishment will strongly decline until 2050,” second lead author Benjamin L. Bodirsky said.
“But already today, unhealthy diets cause globally a higher mortality than undernutrition and hunger,” Bodirsky said. He said unhealthy diets, rich in red meat, sugar and processed foods are an important risk factor for many noncommunicable diseases, like diabetes II, cancer or coronary heart disease.
“This risk factor may become even more prominent in the future, as many emerging economies are projected to rapidly increase their demand for animal-based products, Bodirsky pointed out.
Also per-capita caloric demand, he said, is projected to increase in all world regions, either due to higher per-capita intake or due to an increase of food waste in households.
Agriculture’s major role
“From climate change to poverty, hunger or health, agriculture plays a major role in shaping our future,” said Hermann Lotze-Campen, chairman of PIK research domain Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities.
“Our study shows on the one hand that in some regions, like Sub-Saharan Africa, undernourishment is likely to persist in the coming decades and requires a long-term engagement. At the same time, our results indicate the importance of returning to a healthy diet that benefits the climate and environment, as well as people’s health,” Lotze-Campen said.
He said in some of the richest countries, the share of animal-based calories has already started to decline. The PIK food-demand model can be used to create long-term scenarios of household food consumption for all countries of the world. It is based on a statistical analysis of historical data on dietary patterns and income of 162 countries over 46 years. The scenarios can be customized to a specific storyline by applying different input data from the key indicators GDP and population growth.
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