How Will Global Agriculture and Food Security Respond to Future Socioeconomic Shocks?

Abstract

The demand- and supply-side drivers connected to the “shared socioeconomic pathways” (SSP) will impact future agriculture. By 2050, agricultural output will expand, but at different rates depending on the region and on the SSP-productivity scenario. Yield gains will consolidate as a major driver, but cropland expansion will still play an important role, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The SSP1 (Sustainability), fast technological development scenario, offers a promising perspective to increase global agricultural output and reduce the pressure for cropland expansion. In addition, under SSP1-high productivity scenario food insecurity would drop the most, to 2.7% of world population by 2050. However, achieving the SSP1 scenario will require an articulated global effort to strengthening agricultural R&D expenditures accompanied by a well-designed strategy to translate science into problem-solving knowledge and technologies that could be successfully transferred and adopted by farmers to boost productivity gains over the next three decades.