The idea of feeding a population of 9 billion by the year 2050 is daunting. Consider the United Nations’ estimate that 1 billion people in the world today are hungry. The average number of unnourished people worldwide between 1990and 2006 is 850 million with the high point of 1.023 billion hungry people, reached in the 2008 crises. Before we can determine if we can feed 9 billion people in 2050, is it not a better question to ask: “Have we met the needs of our current population?” Increases in population growth, higher food prices due to increased demand, and rising poverty levels both in the US and internationally are all obstacles that need to be controlled.
To begin with, there are several challenges we face in meeting the growing demand for food, as well as strategies we can use to face them. Elizabeth Dickinson states, “the world is always on the verge of a food crisis” (144). The population in this world is growing larger and larger everyday, so imagine how much food production would need to increase to feed 9 billion people by 2050. For example, in Elizabeth Dickinson’s info graphic essay, the largest number of respondents voted that the world would need to increase its food production by 70 percent. That is an enormous percentage because of the fact that we would need to start increasing the production from now so by the time 2050 comes around we will have increased by 70 percent. If we delay the process of starting to increase the food production then we will probably still won’t be able to feed the whole world in the future. As the population grows, increased demand will lead to higher food prices. For example, at any time demand for a commodity goes up on constant supply, prices generally surge. On the other hand, at any time demand goes down at constant supply, price ranges decrease. The cycle works the same with supple. An increase in supply on constant demand will cause a decrease in prices while decreasing demand will cause an increase in prices....