The future of the global food system

By H. C. J. Godfray, I. R. Crute, L. Haddad, D. Lawrence, J. Muir, N. Nisbett, J. Pretty, Sherman Robinson, C. Toulmin, R. Whiteley. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2010

667 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although food prices in major world markets are at or near a historical low, there is increasing concern about food security—the ability of the world to provide healthy and environmentally sustainable diets for all its peoples. This article is an introduction to a collection of reviews whose authors were asked to explore the major drivers affecting the food system between now and 2050. A first set of papers explores the main factors affecting the demand for food (population growth, changes in consumption patterns, the effects on the food system of urbanization and the importance of understanding income distributions) with a second examining trends in future food supply (crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and ‘wild food’). A third set explores exogenous factors affecting the food system (climate change, competition for water, energy and land, and how agriculture depends on and provides ecosystem services), while the final set explores cross-cutting themes (food system economics, food wastage and links with health). Two of the clearest conclusions that emerge from the collected papers are that major advances in sustainable food production and availability can be achieved with the concerted application of current technologies (given sufficient political will), and the importance of investing in research sooner rather than later to enable the food system to cope with both known and unknown challenges in the coming decades.

Subfields: Ecology, Food Science, Water Science and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b9a38a476105ee78f1a7896e25e8f21d77c99714

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

In Food Science

In Water Science and Technology

A. Dorward

Citations in the corpus

Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Strategies of Agriculture in Mediterranean-Climate Regions (MCRs) (2019, background): “From the point of view of food security, humans are currently challenged by an increasing global population that demands more food, the desire for environmentally and socially sustainable food production, and how to create food distribution networks and avoid food waste that will ensure no further d”
Agricultural labour productivity, food prices and sustainable development impacts and indicators (2013, background): “…about environmental limits on continued high dependence on fossil fuels and materials, about rising prices of energy and material inputs, and about increasing competition between food and energy production (for example Foley et al., 2011; Foresight, 2011; Godfray et al., 2010a; Naylor, 2011).”
The Sustainability Conundrum of Fishmeal Substitution by Plant Ingredients in Shrimp Feeds (2019, background): “Additionally, improvement of feed conversion ratios [2], side streams up to 30–40% of the global food system [28], and novel protein sources (microbial biomass [70], insects [71], yeast, microalgae [6], macroalgae [72], and macrophytes) might allow acceptable solutions to supplement high quality fis”
Securing ocean benefits for society in the face of climate change (2013, background): “Aquaculture is on the rise as demand for seafood increases and wild harvests saturate globally and even decline in some regions [18,23,113,114].”
Food Waste Paradox: Antecedents of Food Disposal in Low-Income Households (2015, background): “…al. (2013), Ganglbauer et al. (2013), Graham-Howe (2013), Stefan et al. (2013) Retail offers and promotions Cox & Downing (2007), Schneider (2008), Godfray et al. (2010) Buying food in large packages Ganglbauer et al. (2013), Koivupuro et al. (2012), Williams et al. (2012) Lack of knowledge about…”
Food System Sustainability and Food Security: Connecting the Dots (2014, background): “Consumption levels and patterns are driven by population growth [2,4,14,22,29,30]; demographic change [22]; affluence and income [2,4,29,30,31]; urbanisation [22,32,33]; changing lifestyles and cultural values [29]; food availability and accessibility [32].”