The World Food Situation: Recent Developments, Emerging Issues, and Long-Term Prospects

During the next quarter century the worldwill produce enough food to meet thedemand of people who can afford to buy it,and real food prices will continue to decline. However, if the global community continues with business as usual, prospects for food security will be bleak for millions of people and degradation of natural resources will continue. IFPRI projections suggest that in developing countries as many as 150 million children—one out of four preschool children—could remain malnourished in 2020. In many developing countries food production is unlikely to keep pace with increases in the demand for food by growing populations. The “food gap”—the difference between production and demand for food—could more than double in the developing world during the next 25 years, increasing dependence on imports from developed countries. For those countries with sufficient foreign currency reserves, including the rapidly growingAsian countries, this should not be cause foralarm. However, many low-income countries,including most of those in Sub-SaharanAfrica, will not be able to generate the necessary foreign exchange to purchase neededfood on the world market. And many poorpeople within these countries will not be able to afford the food to fully meet their needs. Humanity is entering an era of volatility in the world food situation. Several factors have emerged that could lead to larger fluctuations in food availability and access in various regions and countries around the world, making the poor even more vulnerable to hunger. These factors include low grain stocks and declining food aid, which have reduced a key buffer at times of food shortages; growing scarcity of water, which is likely to reduceavailability for agricultural uses; weather fluctuations such as those induced by El Ninoand global warming, which affect productionin hard-to-predict ways; and civil strife andpolitical and social instability, which are both a cause and a result of hunger.Policymakers, researchers, and othersmust take proactive steps to minimize uncertainty in the future world food situation in order to achieve food security for all people. In developing countries, policymakers need to ensure that their policies promote broadbasedeconomic growth, especially agriculturalgrowth, so their countries can produceenough food to feed themselves or enoughincome to buy the necessary food on theworld market. Policymakers in developedcountries should consider reversing thedecline in aid flows and redirecting aid to the most vulnerable developing countries. Aworld of food-secure people is within ourreach, if we take the necessary actions.This report is taken from a presentationmade at the October 1997 InternationalCenters Week meeting of the ConsultativeGroup on International Agricultural Research(CGIAR). Every two years the CGIAR invitesthe director general of IFPRI to present anassessment of the world food situation tothose gathered for International CentersWeek. This report comes out of ongoingIFPRI research and activities conducted aspart of the 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture,and the Environment initiative, which aims togenerate information to eradicate hunger,prevent poverty, and protect the environment.The authors would like to thank RaisuddinAhmed, Christopher Delgado, Peter Hazell,and Sherman Robinson for useful commentsand suggestions; Heidi Fritschel for valuableediting assistance; and Vicki Lee for excellentword processing and graphics assistance. Special thanks are due to Mercedita A. Sombilla, who was instrumental in the development of the IMPACT model and was responsible forrunning alternative scenarios for this report, and Claudia Ringler, whose careful and constructive reviews strengthened the report.