This book presents technical research results that encompass a wide range of subjects drawn from research on policy-relevant aspects of agriculture, poverty, nutrition, and the environment. It contains materials that IFPRI believes is of key interest to those involved in addressing emerging food and development problems.

In this volume, which reports the results of IFPRI’s projection work in far more detail than previous publications, the authors give their best assessment of what the future food situation will be in the baseline scenario. Then they examine the effects of changes in policy, technology, and life styles through two sets of alternative scenarios. One set explores changes at the global level; the other is regional, focusing on changes specific to Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

These scenarios point to one inescapable conclusion: even rather small changes in agricultural and development policies and investments, made in both developed and developing countries, can have wide-reaching effects on the number of poor and undernourished people around the world. The policy choices we make now will determine to a considerable degree what kind of lives the next generation will lead.

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Forward:

Over the years, it has become more and more apparent that any meaningful discussion of policies and priorities for alleviating malnutrition and poverty and achieving economic growth depends on an accurate assessment of where we have been and where we are headed. But forecasting the future of food supply and demand requires more than just an examination of short-term trends in global markets: it is essential to focus on long-term growth in income, population, agricultural technology, and a host of other pressing potential changes.

IFPRI presented the first projections of global food supply and demand based on its IMPACT model in 1995 at its Washington, D.C., conference on a 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment. The 2020 discussion paper that presented those first projections stressed that the prospects for global food security greatly depend not only on population growth and economic development but also on emerging issues such as trade liberalization, urbanization, environmental degradation, water scarcity, the livestock revolution, and new technologies. Two years later, IFPRI updated its take on the global food situation, extending its baseline scenario forward, and in 1999 further updated it, adding commodities and again extending the baseline. Now, in 2001, on the eve of another 2020 conference—”Sustainable Food Security for All”—to be held September 2001 in Bonn, Germany, IFPRI has once again fine-tuned its IMPACT model.

In this volume, which reports the results of IFPRI’s projection work in far more detail than previous publications, the authors give their best assessment of what the future food situation will be in the baseline scenario. Then they examine the effects of changes in policy, technology, and life styles through two sets of alternative scenarios. One set explores changes at the global level; the other is regional, focusing on changes specific to Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

These scenarios point to one inescapable conclusion: even rather small changes in agricultural and development policies and investments, made in both developed and developing countries, can have wide-reaching effects on the number of poor and undernourished people around the world. The policy choices we make now will determine to a considerable degree what kind of lives the next generation will lead.

To further share the key findings from this pathbreaking research, IFPRI is publishing a more popular version of this paper as a food policy report titled 2020 Global Food Outlook: Trends, Alternatives, and Choices.

Per Pinstrup-Andersen
Director General, IFPRI

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About the Author:

Mark W. Rosegrant is a senior research fellow in the Environment and Production Technology Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Michael S. Paisner is a research assistant at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Siet Meijer is a senior research assistant in the Environment and Production Technology Division of IFPRI. Julie Witcover is a graduate student at the University of California, Davis.

About IFPRI:

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) was established in 1975. IFPRI's mission is to identify and analyze alternative national and international strategies and policies for meeting food needs of the developing world on a sustainable basis, with particular emphasis on low-income countries, poor people, and sound management of the natural resource base that supports agriculture; to make the results of its research available to all those in a position to use them; and to help strengthen institutions conducting research and applying research results in developing countries.

While the research effort is geared to the precise objective of contributing to the reduction of hunger and malnutrition, the factors involved are many and wide-ranging, requiring analysis of underlying processes and extending beyond a narrowly defined food sector. The Institute's research program reflects worldwide collaboration with governments and private and public institutions interested in increasing food production and improving the equity of its distribution. Research results are disseminated to policymakers, opinion formers, administrators, policy analysts, researchers, and others concerned with national and international food and agriculture policy.

IFPRI is one of 16 Future Harvest agricultural research centers and receives its principal funding from governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations, most of whom are members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

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