Lifestyle Changes Will Trigger Major Shifts in World Agriculture
By John Miner, The London Free Press
Thursday, July 17, 2014 12:27:27 EDT PM
If the projections hold true, consumers will breathe a bit easier at the grocery store checkout, beef and hog producers will be on a roll, and crop farmers will have to sharpen their pencils.
The agricultural outlook for 2014 to 2023, prepared by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, projects major shifts in world food production with some surprising twists.
Think of India, a country with predominately vegetarian traditions, as a major beef exporter and the biggest milk producing nation in the world, outstripping Europe.
Or for the first time, more fish will come from fish farms than caught in the oceans.
While the report's authors expect demand for agricultural products to be tempered by slowing population growth around the world, a shift in diets is expected to create opportunities.
Climbing incomes and increasing urbanization are forecast to prompt a lifestyle shift that will see people in developing countries putting more protein, fats and sugars on their plate and less rice and wheat products.
The world will need an additional 58 million tonnes of meat by 2013, the report projects.
David Sparling, a professor and chair of agri-food innovation at Western's Ivey Business School, said the shift in diet has been underway for a few years and there is no sign of that changing.
"If anything it is accelerating," Sparling said Thursday.
Producing meat and dairy products such as cheese will require a major increase in agriculture production to grow animal feed, but there is little additional land available.
"We are going to have to be more productive on the land we have," Sparling said, adding farmers will need to use technologies such as GPS.?
Kevin Grier, a senior market analyst with the George Morris Centre in Guelph, said the trend puts livestock owners here in a strong position in a world increasingly looking for meat protein.
"It has already had a major favourable impact on meat demand over the past decade," Grier said. "Those projections are consistent with past trends."
On the flip side, the report forecasts rising stockpiles of grains will push prices down for one or two more years before stabilizing.
That will be felt by Canadian crop farmers, said James Bryan, a senior agriculture analyst with Farm Credit Canada.
"Lower prices for two years and then a slow recovery. It will keep prices above the pre-2006 era, but they will below the peaks that we reached in 2008 and again in 2012," Bryan said.
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 329-PAGE REPORT
Substantial increase in farm production needed
Rising income levels, a growing population and increasing non-food use of agriculture products will require a substantial increase in agriculture production over the next decade. Developing regions of the world are expected to make up 75% of that led by Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. World population is forecast to slow to 1% a year in the next decade, but there will still be an additional 776 million living on the planet in 2023, half of them in the Asia and Pacific region.
Food inflation tame
Food price increases are slowing across the world after turbulent years and are expected to be lower and more stable for all regions.
The report notes food inflation varies widely around the globe. When it comes to spending on food, Canadians are the envy of much of the world with food taking an 11.5% bite of expenditures in 2013. Compare that to Mexico at 18.9%, Spain 18.2%, Japan 19%, Russia 32.8%, India 35.4%, China 33.6%, Ethiopia 57% and Moldavia 60%. One of the few countries spending substantially less on food than Canada was the U.S. at 7.8%.
Big demand for dairy, meat products
Rising incomes and increasing urbanization in developing countries are expected to push up demand for meat. Canada was cited as an example of country where meat consumption won't grow because per capita consumption is already high. Meat consumption will stagnate in this country through the next decade. the report said. The expansion of the livestock sector will result in a declining share of pure foods crops in favour of crops like corn and oilseeds which are also used to feed livestock.
Poultry will capture half of new meat markets
Growth in global meat consumption will be led by poultry, viewed as the healthiest meat choice and one with few cultural barriers. While poultry will capture half the global increase, pork comes in second, accounting for nearly 30%. Beef will make up 15% of the additional meat consumed, while sheep will provide the remaining 6%.
Fish consumption is expected to grow on all continents except Africa, where it will decline slightly. Demand for dairy products projected to expand at a rapid rate through the next decade.
Aquaculture taking the lead
For the first time, fish from aquaculture operations in 2014 will exceed what is caught in the oceans for human consumption. Growth of aquaculture production will be concentrated in Asia with 62% of world aquaculture production taking place in China by 2023.
More biofuels
Consumption and production levels of biofuels expected to jump by more than 50%. Ethanol and biodiesel will continue to mostly produced from feedstocks that can also be used for food. By 2023, 12% of coarse grains, 28% of sugar cane and 14% of vegetable oil production will be used to produce biofuels..
Food waste major problem
It is estimated one third of global food production is either wasted or lost. The just one-quarter of that could be saved, it would be enough to feed the 840 million hungry people in the world, the report said. One example of what can be done comes from Turkey which launched a $243-million media campaign in 2013 to reduce the waste of bread in the country. The result was an 18% drop in bread waste from 2012, a saving of 384 million loaves and $1.5 billion.
Read an article and find link to report on the FAO website here http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/238638/icode/