United Nations Radio

FAO logo for High Level Forum

PRES: The world will need to produce 70% more food by the year 2050 to feed a growing population and meet the environmental challenges ahead. Experts meeting in Rome at a high-level forum organized by FAO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, say that in order to do this, agriculture must become much more productive. Bissera Kostova reports.

NARR: World population is projected to overtake 9 billion in the year 2050, up from just over 6 and a half billion today. Coupled with growing urbanization and rising incomes in many developing countries, this means investment in agriculture needs to increase drastically in order to provide enough food for everybody and avoid starvation and malnutrition. Kostas Stamoulis is Director of FAO's Agricultural Economic Division.

Stamoulis: The reason is that we will be farming with less hands and that we have to increase yields substantially, there is very little room to expand land.

NARR: The effects of climate change, such as higher temperatures and more frequent floods and droughts, will only make things worse, especially for Africa, says FAO Assistant Director-General, Hafez Ghanem.

Ghanem: And some people estimate that between now and the end of the century productivity in Africa could be lowered by 20 or 30% because of the change in climate.

NARR: Countries need to invest more in research and development in order to overcome these challenges, according to FAO's economist, David Dawe.

Dawe: Some of the most important technologies in that regard are technologies that allow plants to withstand drought, or submergence, because poor farmers typically have very low quality land that's prone to flooding or prone to drought, they don't have control over their water supplies. So new seeds that can tolerate these things are very important.

NARR: And FAO's Director-General Jacques Diouf, in his opening statement to the two-day conference in Rome, emphasized that simply producing enough food is not enough to end hunger in the world. Investments must favor small holder farmers, who need to intensify their production.

Diouf: If people go hungry today, it is not because the world is not producing enough food, but because such food is not produced by the 70% of the world's poor whose main livelihood is agriculture and who cannot afford to eat their fill.

NARR: Combining scientific innovation and support of small holder farmers, FAO's NERICA project in Uganda shows the way. NERICA, or new rice for Africa, which produces increased yields and can be farmed in dry land, was given to former internally displaced farmers returning to their lands. 20-year-old Eric Lobi, whose parents died during their more than 2-decade exile, has had to put off college because of lack of income, but he hopes with the new NERICA harvest he will have enough money to start school next semester.

Eric Lobi: We are growing rice and the rice plays a greater role in the country's economy as being one of the most marketable crops in the country and which if you grow and you realize a good harvest you will be able to get fairly good income out of the produce.

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NARR: The farmer group Eric Lobi belongs to has already discussed what to do with the extra cash they expect, and he says they've decided to send their children to school and create an emergency fund for food and hospital fees, as well as improve their houses. For UN Radio, I'm Bissera Kostova.

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Duration: 3'26"