World food production: Dinner for 9 billion?

Right now, around seven and a half billion people live on planet Earth. But in 2050, there will probably be 9 billion of us! How can we make sure there is enough food for everyone? And what kind of food will we eat in the future? To find answers to these questions, let’s first look at food production as it is today.

Food production uses a lot of the planet’s resources, such as land and water. Farming requires a lot of nutrients that are found in the soil. Growing food continuously on the same patches of land, drains the soil of nutrients, so the plants can’t grow properly. This means we have to replace these nutrients with chemicals. Despite that, growing plants has less of a negative impact on the planet than raising animals for food, and plants can feed more people!

Livestock farming causes a lot of emissions of greenhouse gases, and the food fed to animals could be used to feed hundreds of millions of people! Today, people in richer countries eat too much meat, and waste a lot of food, which is not sustainable. So what can we expect on our dinner plate in the future? Seaweed and algae are good candidates! Although these are already used in some traditional cuisines, like the Japanese one, they’re not widespread across the globe.

Algae and seaweed are very nutritious, and don’t need many resources to grow. Farming them could actually be sustainable. Insects like grasshoppers and crickets, are quite likely to end up on our plates too. Like seaweed and algae, insects are very nutritious and easy to farm. Adult grasshoppers can actually contain more protein than beef!

They also don’t require much space or food to grow. In Europe and North America, insects are regarded as something ‘yuck’, but in many places around the world, like Thailand and Cambodia, they are a great delicacy! If insects still don’t seem appealing, lab grown meat might be an option. While it’s still very expensive now, the production of it doesn’t require many resources, and it doesn’t pollute the environment as much as farmed meat! Finally, there might also be a lot more genetically modified food on our plates.

We don’t know for sure if these foods will be enough to feed 9 billion people. But one thing is certain - our current methods of food production won’t.