World agriculture towards 2030/2050: the 2012 revision

Current UN projections indicate that world population could increase by 2.25 billion people from today's levels, reaching 9.15 billion by 2050. At the global level, agricultural production and consumption in 2050 are projected to be 60 percent higher than in 2005/07. The perceived limit to producing food for a growing global population remains a source of debate and preoccupation despite the agriculture sector's historical ability to meet such demand. This paper is the latest in the series by the Global Perspective Studies unit within FAO, which aims to provide insights into how food and agriculture may develop, between now and 2050, making note of key assumptions and uncertainties. Such a long look forward is inherently burdened with uncertainty, but the methodical inclusion of the range of technical expertise found throughout FAO on likely paths of development and constraints results in an outlook that is widely used for planning and framing debates in food and agriculture.