Global food production will slow in next decade
The average annual growth in global agricultural production through 2021 will slow to 1.7 percent.
ROME: Global food production will slow in the period to 2021 after the exceptional but unsustainable rate of growth seen in the last decade in a number of developing countries, the UN s food agency said Thursday.
"The average annual growth in global agricultural production through 2021 will slow to 1.7 percent, down from the 2.6 percent of the previous decade," the Food and Agriculture Organisation said in its yearly report.
"Agriculture in many countries has grown at a pace that cannot be sustained," it said, adding that production shot up by over 50 percent over the last 12 years in Latin America as a whole and by 70 percent in Brazil alone.
Production had also increased by over 40 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, eastern Europe and central Asia, and by 20 percent in the United States and western Europe, the Rome-based agency said.
Biofuel production has also expanded rapidly over the past 10 to 15 years, particularly in the United States, Brazil and the European Union (EU), it said. Ethanol production in the United States shot up by 780 percent over the last 12 years while in Brazil it grew by 140 percent. This year, it absorbed over 37 percent of coarse grain crop in the United States and over 50 percent of Brazil s sugar cane crop.
Biodiesel production absorbed almost 80 percent of the EU vegetable oil production. In countries such as Australia and Canada, growth in the biofuel sector has been strong, although less than in the primary producing countries.
"The sector has proved the largest source of new demand for agricultural production in the past decade, and represents a new market fundamental ," the report said.
