The world's population will reach 8.3 billion by 2030, but people overall will be better fed despite continuing problems in many countries and especially in Africa, according to a new study by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
"World population will grow from around six billion people today to 8.3 billion people in 2030," said the study, World Agriculture: towards 2015/2030.
"The world population will be increasingly well-fed by 2030, with 3,050 kilocalories (kcal) available per person, compared to 2,360 kcal per person per day in the mid-1960s and 2,800 kcal today," the report said.
"This change reflects above all the rising consumption in many developing countries whose average will be close to 3,000 kcal in 2030."
The overall picture for developing countries is moderately encouraging, with the number of hungry people expected to decline from 777 million today to about 440 million in 2030, it said.
This meant, however, that the World Food Summit's target in 1996, to reduce the number of hungry by half, from its 1990-92 level (815 million), by 2015, will not even be met by 2030.
The study stresses that "Sub-Saharan Africa is a cause for serious concern, because the number of chronically undernourished people will only decrease from 194 to 183 million."
While patterns of food consumption are "shifting towards higher quality and more expensive foods such as meat and dairy products", the study says cereals will remain the world's most important source of food by far, with an extra billion tonnes of cereals needed by 2030.
On water supply the study says: "At global level there is enough water available, but . . . one in five developing countries will be suffering water scarcity" by 2030. The FAO singles out Libya, Saudi Arabia and large parts of China and India as high-risk areas.
It called on developing countries to extend their irrigation systems by a fifth from 500 million acres by 2030.
The study also gave a cautious welcome to biotechnology as a tool for increasing world food production.
"If the environmental threats from biotechnology are addressed, and if the technology is affordable by and geared towards the needs of the poor and undernourished, genetically modified crop varieties could help to sustain farming in marginal areas and to restore degraded land to production."
The study predicted that future food production would shift further towards intensive industrial farming and warned of future fish shortages due to over-fishing. It said "the effect of climate change on food production by 2030 is likely to be small". - (AFP)