KUALA LUMPUR (April 25): The world population could be too big to feed itself by 2050.
According to Copenhagen-based TheWorldCounts, by then, there will be almost 10 billion people on the planet and food demand will have increased by 70% compared to 2017.
It said scientists put the limit on how many people Earth can feed at 10 billion maximum.
The website uses the latest and most accurate live statistics on the state of the planet.
As at the time of writing, TheWorldCounts said Earth will run out of food in 27 years and 249 days.
Citing Harvard sociobiologist Edward Wilson, it added that there are limits to Earth’s capacity to feed humanity.
"If everyone agrees to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people,” he said.
Wilson added that there is little room for flexibility.
"The constraints of the biosphere are fixed,” he noted.
Meat an inefficient food source
TheWorldCounts said the reason the world could feed a much larger population if we didn’t eat meat is that it requires more energy to produce meat than any other food.
It states that for example, it takes 75 times more energy to produce meat than corn.
“And it takes an estimated two to threecalories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of protein from soybeansor wheat.
“For beef, it takes 54 calories of fuel to produce one calorie of protein,” it said.
Food prices will skyrocket
As part of the food crisis, prices of foods such as corn and rice are likely to increase rapidly by 180% and 130%respectivelyby 2030.
Wasted food
In a situation of an upcoming food crisis, between one-third and half of all food produced is lost or wasted before or after it reaches consumers.
TheWorldCounts said that globally, more than 407.73 million tons of food were lost or wasted so far this year.
Natural resources
Some 90 billion tons of natural resources are extracted from Earth annually to feed the consumer society.
The number is expected to double between 2015 and 2050.
