An annual report on global agriculture says productivity growth is stagnating in low-income countries at 1.3 percent, far below the 1.75-percent increase needed yearly to assure enough food and fiber for a world population forecast to be 9.7 billion in 2050. The Global Harvest Initiative, a coalition of agribusinesses and consulting groups, says the productivity rate is growing at 1.73 percent worldwide currently, the third year in a row that it has run below the target.
“The food price crisis was just six years ago,” said Ben Pratt of Mosaic Co., and chairman of GHI’s board. “To think that in half a decade we have created systems that will sustainably produce an abundance of food would be to disregard history.” GHI released the productivity report on the sidelines of the World Food Prize conference in Des Moines.
The report says farmers can control their costs and conserve natural resources by adopting sophisticated approaches that include precision agriculture, which tailor seed, fertilizer and weed control to the productive capacity of farmland and advances “in seed, fertilizer, biotechnologies and animal welfare practices.”