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A meta-analysis of projected global food demand and population at risk of hunger for the period 2010–2050

Nature Food volume 2, pages 494–501 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Quantified global scenarios and projections are used to assess long-term future global food security under a range of socio-economic and climate change scenarios. Here, we conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to assess the range of future global food security projections to 2050. We reviewed 57 global food security projection and quantitative scenario studies that have been published in the past two decades and discussed the methods, underlying drivers, indicators and projections. Across five representative scenarios that span divergent but plausible socio-economic futures, the total global food demand is expected to increase by 35% to 56% between 2010 and 2050, while population at risk of hunger is expected to change by −91% to +8% over the same period. If climate change is taken into account, the ranges change slightly (+30% to +62% for total food demand and −91% to +30% for population at risk of hunger) but with no statistical differences overall. The results of our review can be used to benchmark new global food security projections and quantitative scenario studies and inform policy analysis and the public debate on the future of food.

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Fig. 1: Total (cumulative) number and types of global food security studies per year.
Fig. 2: Methods, drivers and food security indicators of the selected studies.
Fig. 3: Per capita and total food consumption baseline projections for 2010–2050.
Fig. 4: Population at risk of hunger baseline projections for 2010–2050.

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Data availability

The core data used in the study were obtained from the selected studies (Supplementary Section E) including their supplementary information and data files. For a few studies, additional information was supplied by the authors upon request. Historical data for the selected food security indicators were taken from FAO70. The database with information from the 57 selected studies as well as the Global Food Security Projections Database are publicly available at the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4911252. A dashboard to visualize the projections is available at https://michielvandijk.shinyapps.io/gfsp_db_dashboard/.

Code availability

We used R (ref. 71) for visualization and analysis. The complete code required to reproduce all figures as well as the meta-analysis is publicly available at the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4911251.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Webbink, C. Barrasso and W. de Jong for their support with the systematic literature review. We thank T. Hasegawa, K. Wiebe, D. M. Croz, A. Tabeau and M. von Lampe for making unpublished data available and H. Valin for useful suggestions to improve the paper. This research was funded by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation as part of the Ethics, Politics, Knowledge and Our Planet’s Food Futures project of the Johns Hopkins Global Food Ethics Berman Institute of Bioethics and Policy Program and a grant from Wageningen University and Research. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wageningen Economic Research, the Hague, the Netherlands

    Michiel van Dijk, Tom Morley & Marie Luise Rau

  2. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

    Michiel van Dijk

  3. University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands

    Yashar Saghai

  4. The Millennium Project Global Futures Studies and Research, Washington DC, USA

    Yashar Saghai

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Contributions

M.v.D. designed the study. M.L.R. organized the systematic literature review. M.v.D. and T.M. prepared the code to process and visualize the data. M.v.D. analysed the data. M.v.D. and Y.S. prepared the manuscript. Y.S. supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Michiel van Dijk.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Food thanks Shinichiro Fujimori, Alan Dangour and Mike Hamm for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram.

The diagram shows the different phases of the literature search and screening as well as the number of studies that have been included in the systematic literature review and the number of studies for which data could be extracted for the construction of the Global Food Security Projections Database. See Methods and Supplementary Information for the details of the systematic literature review approach, protocol and selected studies.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Shared Socio-economic Pathways scenario storylines.

Source: table 2 in ref. 65.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Population projections for 2010-2050.

a, Individual model projections for the SSPs (thin coloured lines), the average for each SSP (the bold coloured lines with circles) and the 3-year average historical trend (bold black line). b, Boxplots for the population projections. The diamond in the boxplot indicates the mean value and the whiskers indicate the maximum and minimum range of observations. SSP Population projections are independent of climate change and therefore only no climate change (NOCC) projections are presented. Projections from the Global Food Security Projections Database.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Per capita food consumption (a) and total food consumption (b) projections comparing no climate change (NOCC) with RCP projections for 2050.

The dark and light grey shaded areas demarcate the plausible range of projections using the 95% confidence interval across all NOCC SSP and all RCP SSP projections, respectively. See Fig. 3 for a detailed explanation of the figure elements.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Population at risk of hunger projections comparing no climate change (NOCC) with RCP projections for 2050.

The dark and light grey shaded areas demarcate the plausible range of projections using the 95% confidence interval across all NOCC SSP and all RCP SSP projections, respectively. See Fig. 4 for a detailed explanation of the figure elements.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–10, Tables 1–7, Discussion and systematic literature review protocol.

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van Dijk, M., Morley, T., Rau, M.L. et al. A meta-analysis of projected global food demand and population at risk of hunger for the period 2010–2050. Nat Food 2, 494–501 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00322-9

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