Major Challenges to Food Production

There was a time when industrial agriculture seemed like a perfect solution for a rapidly growing world population. Synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and high-yielding hybrids promised to reduce the number of hungry people, feed a growing population, and spur economic prosperity. Eventually, agricultural production more than tripled, leading to an abundance of low-cost commodities and a reduction in global food deficit.

But not all expectations came true. Decades of industrial farming have taken a heavy toll on the environment and raised serious concerns about the future of food production. Today, efficient agriculture is not just a matter of production – it is also about environmental sustainability, health, and economic inclusion.

The number of people in the world is growing significantly each year. Never before has so many people lived on the planet at the same time. And the question is would there be enough food to satisfy the growing demand of a growing population, given that about 1 billion people are already starving?

Therefore, in terms of food production, the world faces a triple challenge in the 21st century: to meet the growing demand for food from a growing and wealthier population, to do it in an environmentally friendly way, and to cope with the problem of hunger. Luckily, the modern market offers innovative technologies in agriculture that increase productivity to help tackle those challenges in the most efficient way possible. Let’s get into more detail on what these issues are and what challenges they pose to food production today.

Main Challenges of Food Production System

The food production industry will face the following constraints at the global level in the next 50 years:

• Lack of new farmlands
• Changing climate in traditional crop growing areas (especially changes in temperature and precipitation patterns)
• Soil degradation
• Shortage of water resources
• Decreased yield growth rates even with increased fertilization
• Increased dependence on fossil fuels (logistics, raw materials)
• Growing food demand

Population Growth

By 2050, the world’s population will come close to 10 billion people. At the same time, the issue of hunger already exists at an alarming rate. Problems are added by the fact that the population is not only growing, but also requires better nutrition (primarily meat and dairy products). As a result, per capita yield productivity will soon decline. Poor countries will feel this especially strongly. In addition, the consumption of biofuels is increasing, adding to the problem. More so, there is urbanization happening, meaning growing demands for urban planning and governance, hence more pressure on the economy. Developing effective and sustainable food production systems for the rapidly growing cities is also a challenge to be addressed by modern agricultural technology and food production systems overall.

Climate Change

For agriculture as a whole, the consequences of climate change will be associated with the following points: the decomposition of humus in soils will be activated; soil moisture will worsen in the south; the efficiency of fertilizer application will increase; sowing dates will become earlier, but the threat of plant death due to spring frosts will remain; overwintering conditions for agricultural crops and perennial grasses will improve, but overwintering conditions for pests, plant pathogens, and weeds will become more favorable. In addition, an increase in yields is expected with an increase in CO2 concentration due to the well-known stimulating effect of carbon dioxide on plant photosynthesis. Overall, food production and climate are interconnected since climate change affects farming via weather changes, while unsustainable farming that lacks the use of new techniques in agriculture facilitates climate change through resources depletion.

Limited Farm Lands

In the past, the main ways to deal with food shortages were agricultural development of new farmland. However, over the past five decades, while grain production has more than doubled, the amount of land for farming around the world has increased by only a few percent. Of course, some new land may be used for cultivation, but competition for land for other human activities makes this an increasingly less likely and costly solution, especially with greater attention to biodiversity conservation. In recent decades, certain agricultural areas that were previously productive have been lost due to urbanization and other human activities, as well as due to desertification, salinization, soil erosion, and other consequences of unsustainable land use.

Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions to the problem of sustainable food production under the condition of satisfying the demand of 9 billion people. Climate change, increasing pollution, growing population, changing diets, and the impact of food products on human health will need to be taken into account. The solution to meeting these challenges could be the development of innovations in farming technologies and food production chains overall.

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