FOOD TO FEED THE WORLD

The Challenge of Growing Food to Feed the World

Rayyan Sappayani
Sunnyvale High School

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Abstract

This paper will evaluate the challenges facing our agriculture needs. There are numerous
challenges regarding our agriculture and the amount of people we need to feed. This paper will
address the issue of urbanization, climate change, and solutions to these challenges. The paper
will begin with the challenges we face, and an in-depth explanation of each. The challenges we
face will cover our present time and future- through at least 2050. The paper will then transition
to viable solutions for these challenges. The purpose of this paper is to provide a background in
the challenges of agriculture, then to be used in our BET The Farm competition. Our
organization, Sunnyvale High School, is indulged in numerous research topics to better enhance
our performance in our competition. This paper, being one of the research topics.

FOOD TO FEED THE WORLD

The Challenge of Growing Food to Feed the World
Food is a vital resource that we humans have been depending on since early man. Even
then, feeding every human was a constant challenge. In modern times, especially in 1st world
countries, we have a prodigious amount of food. However, other countries are struggling to feed
their civilians. Also, with a declining rural population, and a growing population, the world is
faced with the challenge to feed everyone. That is just one of the challenges we face,
unfortunately, there are too many challenges and too little solutions.
Declining Rural Population, More Food Needed

FOOD TO FEED THE WORLD

All over the world, people are preferring to live a modern, urban lifestyle. Farming was
the primary occupation, but in our modern world, we send our youth to schools to join the
specialized labor force. Our world is predicted reach a population of 9 billion, the same trend of
urbanization and a growing population can lead to disastrous food shortages, especially for those
in under-developed countries. This means that food demand will continue to increase, and
because of more and more individuals leaning towards the specialized labor force, food
production will be at an all-time low. Even in our
year of 2016, we still have a substantial amount of
malnutrition. If we were to reach our goal feeding
approximately 9 billion people in 2050, a 70
percent increase of food production is needed.
Cereal production would have to grow by almost
one billion tons, and meat would require a 200 million tone growth, totaling to 470 tons. Such
numbers require a mass global effort is required for us to reach our food demands.
Climate Change
Once again, urbanization is indirectly linked to a negative effect on agriculture. Polar ice
caps are melting, sea levels are rising, and known climates in a region are drastically changing.
Carbon emission from vehicles and factories are the cause for these changes. Parts of the world
where agriculture had been a vital part, where agriculture is a must, where agriculture is the
primary occupation, are undergoing climate changes that make the area unsuitable for any type
of farming. A 2014 paper by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Colorado
State University, published in the journal Nature, concluded that climate change would reduce
crop yields by more than 10% by 2050, with a potential to substantially worsen global

FOOD TO FEED THE WORLD

malnutrition in all scenarios considered. The International Food Policy Research Institute
(IFPRI) concluded in a 2009 report that an additional 25 million children would be malnourished
by 2050 because of global warmings negative effect on agriculture. All of these climate-induced
changes could raise food prices around the world, which could have a heavy impact on underdeveloped countries.
Solution
There are multiple solutions regarding our agricultural problem; Such as: GMOs, proper
irrigation and seeding techniques, but even without these advancements, we are still capable of
growing food. However, more and more farmland is being taken to build urban developments, in
fact, in the US alone, we are losing 9.5 acres of farmland per minute. Around the world, we have
lost a third of arable land in the last 40 years. This is because when soil is constantly turned, it is
exposed to oxygen and other elements that reduce the arability of the land. That is just one of the
few issues, but researches and engineers have introduced autonomous farming robots that
minimize these issues. On top of that, they can plant and harvest at faster rates than most of
todays methods. They are much cheaper than paying individuals to do manual labor, and more
effective. By 2050, farming rates must receive a 25% increase to meet the demand. Equipping
farms with robots can do just that.

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References

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