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Systems to 2050
Agriculture & Food
Global Trends, Challenges and Opportunities
11/10/18 3:50 PM
World Scientific Series in Grand Public Policy Challenges of
the 21st Century
ISSN: 2630-4856
Editor-in-Chief
Anil B Deolalikar (University of California, Riverside, USA)
This book series will address topics related to some of the biggest challenges facing socie-
ties around the world in the 21st century — threats such as climate change, food insecurity
and malnutrition, energy and water insecurity, pandemics, conflict and violence, growing
inequality and poverty, low fertility and depopulation in affluent countries, anemic eco-
nomic growth and stubbornly high unemployment in much of the developed world, and
rising rates of obesity and chronic diseases in developing countries. If unaddressed, these
challenges have a real chance of derailing the substantial gains in living standards and
quality of life achieved around the world in the last three decades.
The World Scientific Series in Grand Public Policy Challenges of the 21st Century, under
the leadership of Professor Anil Deolalikar, a renowned development economist, seeks to
fill this gap. It will strive to publish high-quality scientific works, including monographs,
edited volumes, references, and handbooks, that address topics related to the grand
challenges confronting societies around the world today.
Published
Vol. 2 Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050: Global Trends,

Challenges and Opportunities
edited by Rachid Serraj (Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations, Italy) and Prabhu Pingali (Cornell University, USA)
Vol. 1 Global Challenges for Future Food and Agricultural Policies

editor-in-chief Tim Josling (Stanford University, USA)
edited by David Blandford (The Pennsylvania State University, USA) and
Katharina Hassapoyannes (European Parliament, Belgium)
Sylvia - 11212 - Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050.indd 1 15-10-18 9:30:31 AM

Wor
Grand ld Scientific S
Public eries i
Policy
Challen n
of the 2 ge
1st Cen s
tury
Vol. 2
Agriculture & Food

Systems to 2050
Global Trends, Challenges and Opportunities
editors
Rachid Serraj
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy
Prabhu Pingali
Cornell University, USA
World Scientific
11212_9789813278349_tp.indd 2 11/10/18 3:50 PM

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Serraj, Rachid, editor. | Pingali, Prabhu L., 1955– editor.
Title: Agriculture & food systems to 2050 : global trends, challenges and opportunities /
edited by Rachid Serraj and Prabhu Pingali.
Other titles: Agriculture and food systems to 2050
Description: New Jersey : World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd, 2018 | Series: World Scientific
series in grand public policy challenges of the 21st century ; volume 2
Identifiers: LCCN 2018045737 | ISBN 9789813278349 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Sustainable agriculture. | Food supply. | Agriculture--Forecasting.
Classification: LCC S494.5.S86 A378 2018 | DDC 333.76/16--dc23

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Foreword
The adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 193 countries

in 2015 signaled global commitment to addressing the complex
challenges facing human society in the 21st century, such as ending
poverty and hunger. Delivery of the commitments made will, more than
ever, require research that defines its focus through a lens of how
important drivers such as climate change, economic transformations, and
demographic change are putting increasing pressure on natural resources
and challenging governments on how to meet the expectations of their
populations. Yet, as well as living in a world of increasing challenges,
we also live in an era of extraordinary scientific advances. With
appropriate alignment of these advances with the societal challenges, it
should be possible to achieve a step change in meeting the targets, which
have been set to monitor progress toward meeting the SDGs.
The CGIAR is recognized as having made a significant contribution
to the step change in global food production that was achieved in the
second half of the 20th century. As an international research organization
that has aligned its research strategy with the SDGs, it has the potential
to make a significant contribution to their delivery.
The Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) of the
CGIAR—which is tasked with providing advice to funders on strategic
research direction and ex ante quality of proposals—has identified a need
for that research direction to be more cognizant of both drivers and
scientific advances from outside the agriculture and food sectors.
A process for collating key issues, discussing them with CGIAR
researchers working on foresight within the CGIAR system, and
subsequently with funders, was developed. This book represents the
v
vi Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050
output from the first stage of that process. There are of course a wide
variety of drivers and scientific advances that are relevant to the
agriculture and food sectors, and hence choices had to be made. To do
this, we sought advice from experts and institutions that had been
working on foresight (such as the European Commission’s Joint
Research Centre, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, the University of Naples, the University of Oxford, the

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, and the Global
Forum on Agricultural Research and Innovation).
The 18 chapters in this volume are grouped into five sections to help
the reader navigate the wealth of thinking provided by authors from a
wide range of disciplines. These authors were ably guided by the editors
Rachid Serraj and Prabhu Pingali, both of whom have extensive
experience working on research in the agriculture and food sector and
who currently work respectively for the ISPC Secretariat and the ISPC
Council.
We hope you find the contents both exciting (in terms of the depth of
understanding of the issues and the scientific opportunities to solve them)
and helpful in shaping your own contribution to delivery of the SDGs.
Maggie Gill (Chair) and Leslie Lipper (Executive Director)

Independent Science and Partnership Council
September 2018
About the Editors
Rachid Serraj joined the ISPC Secretariat in December 2012, coming

from ICARDA where he served as director of the research program on
diversification and sustainable intensification of production systems
(DSIPS) in Central and West Asia and North Africa. He is a crop scientist
with a broad production systems background, having worked for more

than 25 years with national and international research organizations. He
holds a PhD in Agronomy and Crop Science from the University of
Montpellier, and has published more than 200 scientific publications on a
wide range of topics. Before ICARDA, he worked as professor at the
University of Marrakech, as visiting research associate with USDA and
University of Florida, as principal crop physiologist at ICRISAT (India),
Technical Officer with the joint FAO-IAEA Division in Vienna (Austria),
and at IRRI (Philippines) as leader of the rice drought frontiers research.
He has trained dozens of graduate students and postdocs, and serves on
several international scientific panels and editorial boards. His research
interests include crop adaptation to abiotic stresses and climate
change, and sustainable natural resource management in unfavorable
environments.
Prabhu Pingali is a Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied

Economics and Management at Cornell University, with a joint
appointment in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, and the Founding
Director of the Tata-Cornell Agriculture and Nutrition Institute (TCI).
Prior to joining Cornell, he was the Deputy Director, Agricultural
Development Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from
2008–2013, and as the Director of Agricultural and Development
vii
viii Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050
Economics Division at FAO (2002–2008). In addition, he worked with the

CGIAR for 15 years from 1987–2002, first with IRRI in the Philippines
and then with CIMMYT in Mexico. Pingali is a member in the U.S.
National Academy of Sciences and an AAEA Fellow. He has over three
decades of experience working with some of the leading international
agricultural development organizations as a research economist,
development practitioner and senior manager. Pingali has written 10 books

and over 100 referred journal articles and book chapters on food policy.
List of Contributors
Kym Anderson, George Gollin Professor of Economics, University of

Adelaide, Australia.
Martin Andersson, Associate Professor, Department of Economic

History, Lund University, Sweden.
Anaka Aiyar, Post-Doctoral Associate, Tata-Cornell Institute for

Agriculture and Nutrition, Cornell University, United States.
Aslihan Arslan, Senior Research Economist, International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD), Rome, Italy.
Regina Birner, Chair of Social and Institutional Change in Agricultural
Development, Hans-Ruthenberg Institute, University of Hohenheim,
Stuttgart, Germany.
Molly E. Brown, Associate Research Professor, Department of

Geography, University of Maryland College Park (UMCP), United
States.
Tine van Criekinge, International Cooperation Officer, European

Commission’s (EC) Directorate General for International Cooperation
and Development, Brussels, Belgium.
Jonathan Crouch, Chief Executive Officer, Innovative Solutions for

Decision Agriculture (iSDA), Nairobi, Kenya.
Patrick van der Duin, Managing Director, Netherlands Study Centre for
Technology Trends (STT), The Hague, Netherlands.
ix
x Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050
Eva-Maria Egger, Applied Economist, Research and Impact

Assessment Division, International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD), Rome, Italy.
Silke den Hartog, Foresight Expert, Netherlands Study Centre for

Technology and Trends (STT), The Hague, Netherlands.
Peter B. R. Hazell, Independent Researcher, Santa Barbara, California,

United States.
Yanbo Huang, Research Agricultural Engineer and Lead Scientist,
United States Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service
(USDA-ARS), Mississippi, United States.
John Ingram, Leader, Environmental Change Institute (ECI) Food

Programme; Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow,

Somerville College, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Lakshmi Krishnan, Agricultural Research Officer, CGIAR Independent

Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) Secretariat, FAO, Rome, Italy.
Peter Langridge, Emeritus Professor, School of Agriculture, Food and

Wine, University of Adelaide, Australia.
Rodrigo Leme, Bioenergy Team, International Renewable Energy

Agency (IRENA), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Albino Maggio, Professor of Agronomy and Crop Science, University of

Naples Federico II, Italy.
J. V. Meenakshi, Professor of Economics, Delhi School of Economics,

University of Delhi, India.
Prabhu Pingali, Professor, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied

Economics and Management; Founding Director, Tata-Cornell Institute
for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI), Cornell University, United States.
Carl Pray, Distinguished Professor, Agricultural, Food and Resource

Economics Department, School for Environmental and Biological
Sciences, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, United States.
List of Contributors xi
Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist, NASA Goddard

Institute for Space Studies (NASA GISS); Adjunct Senior Research
Scientist, Columbia University Earth Institute’s Center for Climate
Systems Research; Professor, Department of Environmental Science,
Barnard College, New York City, United States.
Alex C. Ruane, Research Physical Scientist, National Aeronautics and

Space Administration, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
(NASA GISS), New York City, United States.
Fabiana Scapolo, Deputy Head of Unit for Foresight, Behavioural

Insights and Design for Policy, European Commission General Joint
Research Centre (JRC), Brussels, Belgium.
Marie-Hélène Schwoob, Research Fellow, Agriculture and Food

Policies, Institute for Sustainable Development and International

Relations (IDDRI), Paris, France.
Rachid Serraj, Senior Agricultural Research Officer, CGIAR

Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) Secretariat, FAO,
Rome, Italy.
Jeffrey Skeer, Senior Programme Officer for Technical Cooperation,
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Bonn, Germany.
Peter Timmer, Cabot Professor of Development Studies, Emeritus,
Harvard University; Non-Resident Fellow, Center for Global
Development, Washington, DC, United States.
Pablo Tittonell, National Coordinator, Natural Resources and

Environment Program, National Agricultural Technology Institute
(INTA); Principal Investigator, National Council on Science and
Technology (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Sébastien Treyer, Director of Programmes, Institute for Sustainable

Development and International Relations (IDDRI), Paris, France.
Kristel Van der Elst, Co-Founder and CEO, The Global Foresight
Group, Visiting Professor, College of Europe, Geneva, Switzerland.
xii Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050
Patrick Webb, Professor of Nutrition, Friedman School of Nutrition

Science and Policy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, United States.
Alex Williams, Strategy and Foresight Consultant, The Global Foresight

Group, Geneva, Switzerland.
Paul Winters, Associate Vice-President, a.i., Strategy and Knowledge

Department, and Director of the Research and Impact Assessment
Division, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD),
Rome, Italy.
Monika Zurek, Senior Researcher, Environmental Change Institute

(ECI), University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
Contents
Foreword v
About the Editors vii
List of Contributors ix
Part I – Agriculture and Food Systems: Looking towards 2030/2050 1
Chapter 1 – Agriculture and Food Systems to 2050: A Synthesis 3

Rachid Serraj, Lakshmi Krishnan, and Prabhu Pingali
Chapter 2 – Global Drivers and Megatrends in Agri-Food Systems 47

Albino Maggio, Fabiana Scapolo, Tine van Criekinge,
and Rachid Serraj
Part II – Food System Threats and Challenges 85
Chapter 3 – Migration, Demography, and Agri-Food Systems 87

Aslihan Arslan, Eva-Maria Egger, and Paul Winters
Chapter 4 – Urbanization, Agriculture, and Smallholder Farming 137

Peter B. R. Hazell
Chapter 5 – Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture 161

Alex C. Ruane and Cynthia Rosenzweig
Chapter 6 – Environment and Natural Resources 193

Kristel Van der Elst and Alex Williams
Chapter 7 – Food Systems, Diets, and Nutrition 215

J. V. Meenakshi and Patrick Webb
xiii
xiv Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050
Part III – Technological Innovation and Disruptive Futures 243
Chapter 8 – Innovation in Breeding and Biotechnology 245

Peter Langridge
Chapter 9 – Advancing to the Next Generation of Precision Agriculture 285

Yanbo Huang and Molly E. Brown
Chapter 10 – Disruptive Futures: Prospects for Breakthrough Technologies 315

Patrick van der Duin and Silke den Hartog
Chapter 11 – Investor Perspectives on Future Priorities 351

Jonathan Crouch
Part IV – Agricultural Transformation, Bioeconomy, and 415

Sustainable Resource Use
Chapter 12 – Agricultural Transformation Pathways toward the SDGs 417

Marie-Hélène Schwoob, Peter Timmer, Martin Andersson,
and Sébastien Treyer
Chapter 13 – Ecological Intensification of Agriculture 437

Pablo Tittonell
Chapter 14 – Renewable Energy in the Energy Future 473

Jeffrey Skeer and Rodrigo Leme
Chapter 15 – Bioeconomy 503

Regina Birner and Carl Pray
Part V – Food Systems Policy Futures 545
Chapter 16 – Food Systems Approaches for the Future 547

John Ingram and Monika Zurek
Chapter 17 – Global Trade Futures 569

Kym Anderson
Index
Prabhu Pingali and Anaka Aiyar
Looking Ahead to 2050
Contents
Chapter 18 – Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition Policy:
655
609
xv
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Part I
Looking towards 2030/2050

Agriculture and Food Systems:

b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Chapter 1
Agriculture and Food Systems to 2050:

A Synthesis
Rachid Serraj, Lakshmi Krishnan, and Prabhu Pingali

1.1 Introduction
Over the next 30 years, the global agri-food system will confront an
unprecedented confluence of pressures, facing the so-termed “perfect
storm” (Foresight, 2011). Whereas the Green Revolution focused on
increasing food security and agricultural productivity, in the coming
years questions will center on access to food, nutrition, and the
sustainability of agroecological systems (Pingali, 2012). This change
implies a need for a paradigm shift to address tensions related to food
availability, diet quality, and resource efficiency.
On the demand side, the global population is projected to increase
from nearly 7 billion today to 8 billion by 2030 and more than 9 billion
by 2050. This growth—accompanied by rising prosperity, changing
dietary patterns in emerging economies, and increased demand for a
more varied, high-quality diet requiring additional resources for
production—will exert pressure on the food system. Parallel
demographic changes—such as the migration of youth into urban areas
in response to low agricultural productivity—will in turn affect
agricultural productivity through labor and wage effects. On the supply
side, the availability and productivity of water, energy, and land vary
enormously between regions and production systems, and competition
for all three resources will intensify, even as the combined effects of
3
4 Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050
climate change will become increasingly obvious. Agriculture makes use

of 70% of water withdrawn from aquifers, lakes, and streams. By 2050,
water withdrawals for agricultural irrigation are projected to increase
further compared to 2006. This projection masks regional- and country-
level variations in availability and existing water stress (FAO, 2011). For
instance, groundwater withdrawals are already reported to exceed rates
of natural replenishment in key cereal-producing regions across high-,

middle-, and low-income countries. The largest increases in withdrawal
levels are projected to occur in Southeast Asia (19%) and Southern
America (53%), with a modest increase (22 km3) in absolute terms for
Sub-Saharan Africa, representing a 21% increase (FAO, 2011).
Excessive nitrogen use, particularly in agriculture and livestock
activities, affects both food production on land and freshwater and inland
fisheries. At the same time, some projections suggest that fertilizer use
may have to double to meet the demand for food by 2050 (Malingreau
et al., 2012). There are questions about whether sufficient nutrients (in
the form of fertilizers) essential to plant growth will be available to meet
this demand. Among other issues, phosphorus is a finite resource,
nitrogen transformation is energy-intensive, and potassium reserves
could be sensitive to geopolitical developments—two-thirds of
potassium production comes from Belarus, Canada, and Russia
(Malingreau et al., 2012).
The complex relationship known as the water-food-energy nexus
implies that any solution for one parameter of the nexus must equally
consider the other parameters (Hoff, 2011). Climate change adds to this
complexity. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is already an
imperative (IPCC, 2014), and even after emissions peak, the emphasis on
aggressive mitigation actions and adaptation—including in the agri-food
sector—to a changing climate will predominate. The transition away
from traditional biomass (e.g., agricultural residues, animal waste,
charcoal, wood) in developing countries will not only need to consider
the significant growth in local demand; countries will need to rapidly
transition to low-carbon energy while balancing the demand for land to
produce (liquid) biofuels with the need to ensure an adequate food
supply and water availability and management, in the context of global
warming.
Agriculture and Food Systems to 2050: A Synthesis 5
The post-2015 agenda has set new, complex, and more interconnected
challenges, such as eradicating poverty, ending hunger, achieving food
and nutrition security, halting biodiversity loss, sustainably managing
water resources, and protecting and restoring terrestrial ecosystems.
Between 1981 and 2015, the percentage of the world’s population living
in absolute poverty declined by a factor of four—from 44% in 1981 to
less than 10% in 2015—and the rate of reduction has been accelerating
(Roser and Ortiz-Ospina, 2017). Recognizing this and the fact that 767
million people still live on less than US$1.90 a day (primarily in Sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia), Sustainable Development Goal 1
proposes an end to poverty by 2030. Globalization of markets and the
concentration of the food and agricultural sector have occurred at a rapid
pace and are likely to continue over the next decades. This
interconnectedness implies that economic shocks or altered geopolitical
dynamics could have significant consequences, although inter-

connectedness can also reduce the effects of economic shocks through
trade and remittances (Anderson, this volume). As the international
community attempts to deliver on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) are on the rise
(OECD, 2016). According to the World Bank (2018), 2 billion people
now live in countries where development outcomes are affected by FCV.
The share of the extreme poor living in conflict-affected situations is
expected to rise from 17% of the global total today to almost 50% by
2030. Conflicts are contributing to forced displacement and massive
migration; they currently drive 80% of all humanitarian needs while
reducing GDP growth by 2 percentage points a year on average (World
Bank, 2018). Although the world made significant progress on
many targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the
implementation of Agenda 2030 and achievement of SDGs and
sustainable development beyond will be much harder to accomplish,
particularly under more extreme climates in many parts of the world.
Any of these pressures described (or drivers of change) would
represent a substantial challenge to food and nutrition security. Together,
they encompass a major and complex threat that requires a strategic
reappraisal of how global agri-food systems are designed and managed
(Foresight, 2011), and the positioning of research to address these
challenges. We need to do things differently than in the past, not only to

address the pressing problems of today but to identify potential threats,
opportunities, and appropriate strategies for tomorrow. Strategic
foresight is needed to navigate times of change, uncertainty, and
disruption. Horizon scanning, early identification of key trends and weak
signals of change, and an understanding how the future may evolve and
what responses are needed now and into the future are critically
important in making strategic decisions that optimize the organizational
performance of research-for-development (R4D) institutions dealing with
these development challenges.
A number of studies have discussed the future of food security,
agriculture, and sustainable development in the recent years. Maggio
et al. (this volume) provide an overview of these foresight studies and
summarize the key drivers and megatrends. The analysis shows a
growing interest in foresight work on food and nutrition security and

highlights issues that merit further investigation and attention. Using a
systemic approach to the future, the authors analyze 14 megatrends,
considering social, technological, economic, environmental, and political
forces of change and potential disruptions, and examining their
implications for the future of food systems, poverty reduction, and
sustainability. The analysis shows that 6 out of the 14 megatrends have
been well addressed as key drivers of food systems and food security.
These 6 are climate change and environmental degradation; worsening
resource scarcity and growing consumerism; accelerating technological
change and hyperconnectivity; the changing nature of work; shifting
health challenges due to changing diets; and demography transitions and
urbanization. However, a second group of megatrends—potential game
changers—are still currently not adequately addressed in agri-food
systems analyses. These include rising income inequality; improved
education and literacy; the increasing significance of migration; and the
expanding influence of countries in the East and South. This second
group of megatrends may require further attention in foresight work on
food and nutrition security (Maggio et al., this volume).
The Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) of CGIAR
initiated a foresight assessment, through an international workshop in
2017, to explore the pressures—threats as well as opportunities—on the
global agri-food system between now and 2050 (Figure 1.1). The
overarching objective was to first help understand the context by
analyzing global trends and anticipating change in order to enable better
planning and construction of pathways from the present to the future.
Subsequently, the aim was to focus on the right questions and problems
and identify a wider range of opportunities and options for agricultural
research for development (AR4D); in order to enable prioritization and

inform strategy and decision making in the CGIAR. This book presents
the outcome of the assessment, including the thematic chapters that form
the core of the book (Table A1.1 summarizes the chapters, highlighting
the main findings and conclusions). It contextualizes the role of
international agricultural research in addressing the complex challenges
posed by Agenda 2030 and beyond, and identifies the decisions that
CGIAR donors, scientific leaders, and policy makers must take today,
and in the years ahead, to ensure that a global population rising to 9

billion or more, combined with their rising incomes and changing diets,
can be fed sustainably and equitably.
Fig. 1.1. Key drivers or threats (dark ovals) and opportunities (light ovals) of agri-food
systems.
While there have been several other foresight initiatives, our effort
provides a sharp focus on the future prospects for developing-country
agriculture and food systems, the consequences for the rural poor, and
the implications for international agricultural research for development.
The chapters in this book describe how the future may look with
regard to the “grand challenges,” global trends, and likely disruptions to
food and nutrition security, and to an extent, they reflect on how the
world is prepared to address them for reaching the SDGs and beyond.
We did not undertake a scenario analysis but rather analyzed the
consequences of global trends on the future of developing-country
agriculture and food systems. Wherever relevant, we juxtaposed
alternative visions or trends and compared their likely consequences.
The ISPC assessment has identified key challenges for the future,
including the following:
 shifting the focus from food security to nutrition security and from
agricultural production to sustainable agri-food systems, diet
quality, and diversity;
 addressing the fact that producing enough food globally does not
necessarily ensure equitable global access to food and progress
toward food and nutrition security for all;
 enhancing the quantity, quality, and diversity of agri-food systems
to balance future demand and supply, to ensure that food supplies
remain affordable and stable, and to protect the poor and most
vulnerable from the risk of volatility, both social and
environmental; and
 managing the contribution of agri-food systems to the mitigation
of climate change; preparing for and adapting to the effects
of climate change on agri-food systems; and maintaining
biodiversity, natural resources, and ecosystem services while
feeding the world.
The last two challenges recognize that food production already
dominates 40% of the world’s land surface and 70% of freshwater use
and has a major impact on all of Earth’s ecosystems. In recognizing the
need for urgent action to address these future challenges, policy makers
should not lose sight of existing major weaknesses in the food system. If
we are to anticipate and manage major stresses to the food system, it will
be vital to address these challenges pragmatically while promoting

economic and ecosystem resilience to shocks and future uncertainties.
This chapter synthesizes the dominant drivers of agriculture and food
system change, with a particular emphasis on smallholder agriculture and
the food and nutrition security of the poor in developing countries. It also
provides an assessment of new science and technology opportunities and
policy options for a more sustainable and resilient food system.
1.2 Urbanization, Demographic Transitions, and the

Transformation of Smallholder Farming
The world’s population is projected to increase by more than 1 billion

people by 2030, reaching 8.6 billion, and to climb to 9.8 billion in 2050
(UN, 2017). A substantial shift in the proportion of the world’s

population in urban (versus rural) areas has already occurred—by 2008,
50% of the population already lived in urban areas. By 2040, more than
half of the population on the African continent will live in urban areas
(UN, 2015). Hazell (this volume) states that by 2050, 82.4% of the
world’s urban population will be based in less-developed regions. He
notes that rapid urbanization and rising incomes in many developing
countries are leading to more diverse national diets, characterized by
increased per capita demand for livestock products, horticultural
products, and processed and precooked foods and by reduced per capita
demand for traditional food staples. For instance, by 2050, per capita
meat consumption in developing countries is projected to increase from
28 to 42 kg (an increase of 50% from 2005–07), and in developed
countries from 82 to 91 kg (Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012). Urban
areas also consume a disproportionate amount of the food produced and
sold—in a study of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, and Vietnam, urban
areas accounted for 38% of the population but 53% of consumption
(Reardon et al., 2014); similarly, in eastern and southern Africa, 26% of
the population is urban, and they consume 48% of food (Dolislager et al.,
2015).
The movement of population from rural to urban areas is a
consequence of economic growth and structural transformation that is
historical, observed across the developed world over the past several
centuries and occurring now in emerging economies (Hazell, this
volume). However, rapid migration to urban areas is also taking place in
poor countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, driven primarily by
the poor state of the agricultural sector and the rising urban-rural wage
gap. This trend is particularly pronounced for youth, primarily in Africa
(Arslan et al., this volume). Such an urbanization trend can in turn usher
in the modernization of the agricultural sector, particularly for
smallholders. Remittances from migrants have been found to increase
household investment in agriculture and stimulate agricultural
productivity (Böhme, 2015; Taylor et al., 2003), in addition to
investments in nonfarm enterprises. However, the evidence is not
unequivocal (Quisumbing and McNiven, 2010; Castelhano et al., 2016),
and investments may depend on a number of factors, including
smallholder access to markets and resource endowments. Environmental

degradation and climate change impacts have also contributed to
migration out of rural areas, particularly in the least-developed countries.
Some projections suggest an increase of 0.8–1.2% in climate migrants’
share of the global population, with just over 143 million people (2.8%
of the regional population) forced to move within countries in Sub-
Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America by 2050 (Rigaud et al.,
2018) to escape the impacts, albeit slow-evolving, of climate change.
Conflicts and political unrest are other well-recognized drivers of
migration and can affect demographic trends and migration patterns
(Arslan et al., this volume).
The other dimension to urbanization is the physical expansion of
urban areas: between 1970 and 2000, the global urban land area
increased by 58,000 km2, with the highest rates of expansion occurring in
China, India and across Africa, and the largest change in area occurring
in North America. By 2030, “built-up areas” are expected to triple in size
to 1.2 million km2 (Seto et al., 2011). While cropland area makes up 12%
of the world’s ice-free land cover, and urban areas make up only 3%—
indicating that physical expansion of urban areas will have minimal
impact on agricultural land use—there are likely to be regional variations
and significant implications for urbanization’s ecological footprint. In
countries where urban population growth is high and agriculture is the
main economic activity, because built-up areas are growing faster than
urban populations, cropland loss is likely to be acute. In countries like
China, India, Turkey, the United States, and Vietnam, urban expansion
has occurred on prime agricultural land—such a trend has implications
for cropland productivity and yield gaps (Seto and Ramankutty, 2016;
Seto et al., 2011). However, as urban populations rise, we should also
expect cities to grow vertically (with higher buildings) and thereby slow
expansion into agricultural lands. In addition to land, there will be
competing demands for water (or energy) between urban and rural areas,
and urbanization is projected to have negative impacts on protected
ecosystems through direct and indirect effects (such as fragmentation,
edge effects, and species composition) (Seto et al., 2012).
Economic growth, structural transformation, and rapid urbanization
can represent new growth opportunities for the rural poor. As agricultural
systems increasingly focus on meeting the needs of cities, there will be a

shift from agriculture as a way of life toward agriculture as a business.
Smallholder farmers can benefit from the new growth opportunities by
becoming integrated into agri-business value chains that provision the
cities on a commercial basis. In general, small farms will play a
diminishing role in feeding urban populations with food staples, but
many will be successful in producing some high-value and labor-
intensive products such as livestock or horticulture products for urban
markets. It is medium- and large-sized farms that are expected to meet
urban and agri-food industry needs, including for food staples (Hazell,
this volume). The changes in dietary preferences and composition related
to urbanization, economic growth, and rising incomes will affect the
entirety of the food system, from production to transport to storage and
distribution and finally waste management.
These transformation trends also present potential obstacles that
threaten to exclude many small farms (Masters et al., 2013). The
challenges facing small farms will be compounded in much of Africa and
South Asia by continuing rural population growth and the further
subdivision of landholdings. Despite these challenges, small farms are
unlikely to diminish much in numbers by 2030 even as they shrink in
size. A few smallholder farms will succeed as full-time commercial
farmers, while others will either diversify extensively into nonfarm
sources of income or continue subsistence modes of production,

particularly in more remote and less-favored areas (Masters et al., 2013).
There is also a risk, in the absence of supportive investments and
policies, that transition and subsistence farmers who are unable to
transform and become integrated into commercial value chains or exit
farming will be left behind and may be forced to move to marginal lands
or be jobless and food insecure in cities (Hazell, this volume).

Greater global trade integration and more open emerging economies
will increase the need to enhance the competitiveness of domestic
agriculture systems. International trade can ease supply shocks and
increase the resilience of food systems, but there can be systemic risks,
as the financial and food price crises of 2008 illustrated, with particular
implications for developing countries and poor households. Anderson
(this volume) documents the current extent of trade in farm products and
of barriers to trade, summarizes projections of trade under various

assumptions to 2050, and makes the case for further opening up to trade
by suggesting ways to increase the openness of emerging economies.
There are prospects for stronger WTO disciplines not only on farm
import tariffs and nontariff trade measures but also on domestic support
policies, for freeing up farm trade with bilateral and regional preferential
free trade agreements, and especially for unilateral market liberalization.
For instance, the increased liberalization of markets might come about as
more efficient instruments to assist food-insecure households—such as
conditional targeted income supplements—become administratively
feasible even in low-income countries.
However, if current trade integration trends slow down or are
reversed, then we should anticipate increased vulnerabilities for
developing-country food systems and food security, particularly in those
countries that are net importers of food. The pressure to enhance and
stabilize domestic food supplies could stimulate agricultural productivity
growth, but could also lead to long-term environmental degradation.
Climate change impacts, discussed in the next section, will also be
exacerbated if trade integration trends are reversed.
1.3 Climate Change and Agri-Food Systems
Agri-food systems are facing increased risks owing to progressive

climate change that manifests itself as more frequent, severe extreme
weather events—heat waves, droughts, and floods (IPCC, 2013). Often
without warning, weather-related shocks can have catastrophic and
reverberating impacts on the increasingly exposed global food system—

through production, processing, distribution, retail, disposal, and waste.
Simultaneously, crops and livestock will respond to higher minimum
and maximum temperatures, variations in precipitation, increased
atmospheric CO2, changes in pest and disease population dynamics, soil
salinization due to sea-level rise, and other climate change-related
effects. The resultant impacts—long-term or temporary, widespread or
geographically contained—on yield and productivity could be beneficial
or detrimental depending on the agroecological system and will require

various adaptation and resilience mechanisms ranging from genetic and
agronomic practices and irrigation infrastructure to alterations of planting
seasons and significant changes in land-use allocation.
It is now becoming evident that climatic changes will affect elements
of agricultural value chains beyond the farm, including storage facilities,
processing plants, and transportation. For example, sea-level rise may
disrupt trading ports, or extreme weather events may affect transportation
of agricultural commodities. Ruane and Rosenzweig (this volume)
provide an overview of climate trends and extreme events affecting
agriculture, projected risks from future agro-climatic changes, and the
nature of differing impacts among regions and farming systems. They
offer a transdisciplinary foresight framework based on the Agricultural
Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) (Rosenzweig
et al., 2013) and Coordinated Global and Regional Assessments
(CGRA), which incorporates biophysical and socioeconomic
assessments across spatial scales while also seeking to integrate nutrition
and food security metrics (Rosenzweig et al., 2016).
Most of these studies focus primarily on four major crops (maize,
wheat, rice, and soybeans), which together account for about 43% of
global dietary calories (Ruane and Rosenzweig, this volume). This
reflects the focus of the scientific literature but falls short of the meeting
diverse needs of agricultural sector planners. Priority areas for continuing

foresight development include the creation of models for more crop
species (notably perennials, fruits and vegetables, oil crops, and tropical
cereals) and plantation crops (such as coffee, tea, cacao, and wine grapes,
where yield quality may be more important than yield quantity). Tools
capable of simulating more complex systems would also allow testing of
creative interventions for intercropping, crop rotations, mixed crop-

livestock systems, and aquaculture.
Climate change impacts on agriculture must be understood in the
context of the intertwined systems that affect food security and
agricultural trade, including biological, socioeconomic, and political
processes. Ruane and Rosenzweig (this volume) illustrate how the
current and future state of these intertwined systems dictate the extent of
vulnerability to physical climate risks, which for agriculture in any given
location are determined by a combination of societal pathways; mean

climate change variables (e.g., temperature, precipitation, sunlight,
winds, relative humidity); extent to which extreme climate events alter
their magnitude, frequency, duration, and geographic extent; and the
patterns of local agro-climate exposure. In addition to the biological
impact of changing climate conditions on farms, future agricultural
production will be affected by economic and policy incentives across a
wide variety of stakeholders and actors, both locally and interacting
through global markets (Valdivia et al., 2015). Anderson (this volume)
argues that since climate change is expected to constrain global food
production via larger and more-frequent extreme weather events, this can
be a strong incentive for countries to be open to international food
markets to allow trade to buffer seasonal fluctuations in each country’s
domestic production and to reduce the volatility of international food
prices. Climate-induced changes in regional production may affect trade
balances and alter the flow of goods (Ruane and Rosenzweig, this
volume).
A holistic approach is needed to create a long-term research portfolio
and a development strategy for dealing with climate shocks and for
building climate-resilient food systems that take into account the
complexity of the food-water-energy nexus. This would include an
understanding of the disruptive effect of climate-induced shifts in agro-
ecological zones and production systems on livelihoods of the rural poor.

Impacts of mean climate change and extreme climate events (such as
droughts and floods) on the nutritional status of the poor would also be
an important area for further investigation.
Other remaining research gaps on climate change interactions include
the linkages between climate change and internal migration, rural
transformation, and global trade (Arslan et al., this volume; Anderson,

this volume). Given the projections that climate change will alter
seasonal weather patterns and hence increase the risk for rural incomes
dependent on agriculture, seasonal and temporary migration within and
between countries can be expected to play an increasingly important role
in the future. Many countries, however, continue to deter internal
migration through direct and indirect policies. Seasonal migration and its
implications for rural, peri-urban, and urban livelihoods under the
projected demographic and climatic pressures require further attention.

The agricultural sector is vulnerable to weather and climate hazards
but is also a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions and land
use changes that drive climate change. Agriculture, forestry, and land use
change account for just under a quarter of total greenhouse gas emissions
(Smith et al., 2014), which implies a substantial role for agricultural
systems in overall societal mitigation and efforts toward sustainability.
Rising demand for livestock products can exacerbate greenhouse gas
emissions. On the other hand, diversification out of staple grains—
especially wetland rice systems—more efficient input use practices, and
shifts to diets with a lower emissions footprint can help reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
Renewable energy provides another important entry point to
mitigation. Skeer and Leme (this volume) demonstrate that keeping
global warming to well below 2° C., as the Paris climate agreement
requires, will be a big challenge that requires dramatic reductions in
carbon emissions and nearly complete decarbonization of the energy
system. Scaling up renewable energy supplies, including bioenergy, is
essential, but dedicated use of land for bioenergy production could
compete with land cropped for food or increase carbon emissions
through deforestation. However, there is scope for producing additional
bioenergy by closing the gap between projected and potential crop
yields, using more of the agricultural residues currently available,

making land available for bioenergy crops by restoring degraded lands
and sustainably intensifying pasture land used for livestock production,
and reducing waste and losses in the food chain.
These themes come together in an analysis of the bioeconomy and the
effect of its development on agri-food systems (Birner and Pray, this
volume). In recent years, the bioeconomy concept has been embedded

more explicitly into the ideas of sustainable development and the green
economy. The forecasting framework—linking the development of the
bioeconomy to food system impacts—classifies all items consumed by
humans into three categories (food, energy, and materials) and then by
sources (bio-based resources, bio-based renewable sources, and
nonrenewable sources). The framework is in some senses a simplified
version of the economic system, wherein all processes involved in the
production, conversion, and consumption of materials and energy, as

well as trade, are captured.
Changes in population size as well as consumer behavior are the two
most significant demand-side factors influencing the competition for
biomass as food and as energy and material, threatening food security.
While the use of biomass for energy and bio-materials (such as
chemicals, plastics, and lubricants) constituted only 3% of crop
production in 2015, this share is expected to grow—e.g., depending on
biofuel policies, biofuels may account for nearly one-fifth of global land
use change over the 2006–2035 period. In the medium term, there are
likely to be trade-offs between bioenergy production and food security,
and the magnitude of this effect will depend both on the evolution of
second-generation biofuels and on energy efficiency–related innovations.
The forestry sector also plays a significant role in supplying biomass for
bioenergy and bio-based materials (Birner and Pray, this volume). The
availability of fossil fuels and their price relative to that of biomass, and
the availability of renewable energy technologies, are factors that will
exert or ease pressures on the supply side (Skeer and Leme, this volume).
The rationale for the bioeconomy model is to reduce the environmental
effects of the economic system, in particular greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions, climate policies and the environmental decisions that
influence outcomes. At the same time, the model helps identify those
uses of biomass that have considerable GHG emissions reduction

potential—implying that preference should be given to non-bio-based
renewable energy sources (solar and wind) over conversion of staple
crops to bioenergy.
1.4 Food Systems for Better Nutrition and Health
Substantial progress was made between 1990 and 2012 in addressing

hunger and undernutrition—rates of hunger decreased from 18.6% to
11.8% globally, and the percentage of children stunted fell from 39.6%
to 23.8% (Global Panel, 2016). However, the global R&D and policy
community is faced with the tremendous challenge of responding to
rising nutrition and dietary dilemmas. The 2017 Global Nutrition Report
shows that 88% of countries for which data are available face either two
or three forms of malnutrition (childhood stunting, anemia in women of
reproductive age, and incidence of obesity/overweight in adult women).
While the number of chronically or acutely undernourished children
under five years old has fallen in many countries, recent statistics show
that global progress to reduce these forms of malnutrition (stunting and
wasting) is not keeping pace (Development Initiatives, 2017). Minimum
dietary diversity standards needed for growth are met by fewer than one-
third of all young infants across 60 low- and middle-income countries
(Global Panel, 2016), and each year more than 3.1 million child deaths
are attributed to poor nutrition (Abraham and Pingali, 2017). At this rate,
the global nutrition targets, including SDG target 2.2 to end all forms of
malnutrition by 2030, will not be met. The number of individuals going
to bed hungry increased from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2017,
and the number of women with anemia has increased since 2012. More
than 2 billion people are micronutrient deficient—a systematic review
found that fewer than half of adolescent girls and young women in low-
and middle-income countries meet their micronutrient needs (Global
Panel, 2016).
While undernutrition continues to be an important priority, the rise of
obesity and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the developing world
needs urgent and concurrent attention (Meenakshi and Webb, this
volume). The number of children and adults who are overweight and
obese continues to increase in every region, particularly in low- and
middle-income countries. For instance, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the
growth rate for obese or overweight men now exceeds that for
underweight, and in South Asia, the prevalence of obesity/overweight
and underweight is the same among women (Global Panel, 2016). The
probability of meeting the global targets related to stopping the rise in

obesity and diabetes by 2025 is less than 1%. NCDs associated with
overnutrition are also on the increase, with little capacity in public health
systems as yet to deal with them (Meenakshi and Webb, this volume).
Globally, overweight and obesity cost an estimated US$2 trillion per
year, and 68% of all deaths are caused by NCDs, of which three of the
four most common are diet-related—namely cardiovascular diseases,
cancers, and diabetes (World Bank, 2017).
The Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition

recently concluded that most global burden of disease risk factors are
linked to diet. It is clear that there is an increasing convergence toward
the negative aspects of Western diets, which are highly processed and
contain high amounts of sugar, salt, trans fats, and oils, as well as
processed meats (Meenakshi and Webb, this volume). Actionable
priorities identified by the Global Panel’s report for addressing the
nutritional crisis include focusing systemwide policies on diet quality;
ensuring that food-based dietary guidelines inform policy decisions to
reshape food systems (not only consumer focus); making fruits,
vegetables, pulses, nuts, and seeds affordable, safe, and more available in
markets globally and year-round; ensuring that policy support for animal
source foods are pragmatically evidence-based rather than driven by
ideology; and refocusing agricultural research investments globally to
support healthy diets and good nutrition (Global Panel, 2016). This may
also imply moving the predominant focus of international agricultural
R&D away from the big three staple grains—rice, wheat, and maize—
and toward promoting a nutrition-sensitive food system that can help
address both ends of the nutrition problem (Pingali and Aiyar, this
volume).
Urbanization, rising incomes, and economic development are all
drivers of dietary quality. On the one hand, there is greater
diversification of national diets with increased per capita demand for

animal source foods and horticultural products and reduced per capita
demand for traditional food staples (Hazell, this volume; Seto and
Ramankutty, 2016). On the other hand, these trends can negatively
influence diet quality by altering the composition of foods consumed
toward greater fat, sugar, and salt content. The demand for precooked
and processed foods is higher in urban areas and for households with
women engaged in rural off-farm employment, with little difference
across income levels (Pingali, 2006; Reardon et al., 2014). Globally,
more food is consumed outside the home in more urbanized societies
(Seto and Ramankutty, 2016). Even among the rural poor and nonpoor,
food purchases constitute a significant proportion of total food
consumption. Besides diet quality issues, managing food safety will
become critical as these trends amplify in the low- and middle-income
countries. The challenge is to find ways to enhance the positive links

between, say, urbanization and diet quality while concurrently addressing
challenges such as food safety, nutrient quality, and affordability (Global
Panel, 2016). Similarly, structural changes in the rural environment pose
challenges and opportunities for the design of food and nutrition policies.
In Asia, factors such as a systematic decline in women’s rural labor force
participation rates, a lack of progress in reducing adult anemia,
increasing scarcity of freshwater, poor food safety, and high rates of
postharvest loss will increasingly influence both under- and overnutrition
(Meenakshi and Webb, this volume).
“Food systems thinking” can help identify points of intervention
across the whole food system that can help alleviate malnutrition and
better understand the synergies and trade-offs between strategic goals
related to food, nutrition, and the environment (Ingram and Zurek, this
volume). While primary production is often the focus of food security
considerations, post-farmgate activities (processing, packaging,
transporting, marketing, consuming, and disposing of food and food-
related items) are also important for household food security and
individual nutrition outcomes (Abraham and Pingali, 2017). Similarly,
addressing poor sanitation and high-disease-risk environments and
increasing access to clean water can help address issues of food safety
and human health, even as balancing water use for domestic and
agricultural sectors is anticipated to be increasingly difficult (Meenakshi

and Webb, this volume). The food systems approach allows food chain
activities to be linked to their social, economic, and environmental
context and to contribute to addressing the root causes of malnutrition in
all its forms (Gustafson et al., 2016; Tomich et al., 2018).
Advances in genomics and molecular biology targeted toward
enhancing the nutritive value of crops, particularly the less commonly

researched crops (Langridge, this volume), as well as innovations in
agronomy (Tittonell, this volume), food processing, and the use of
modern communication technologies for enhancing consumer demand
are some of the options that ought to be examined. Research could also
draw on advances in food technology being developed by advanced-
country public and private systems (Crouch, this volume). Van der Duin
and den Hartog (this volume) discuss potential applications of disruptive
technologies and innovations such as synthetic biology, food design, and

protein transition (see section 1.6 of this chapter). The World Economic
Forum identifies food-sensing technologies such as radio-frequency
identification tags, genetic markers, and hyperspectral imaging combined
with mobile phones as having the potential to significantly influence
diets and behaviors by providing nutritional and environmental
information (such as on safety and freshness) to consumers (WEF, 2018).
1.5 Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems
By 2050, world average per capita food consumption is projected to be

around 3,000 kcal/person/per day, with Sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia experiencing a substantial increase compared with 2005/07 (Le
Mouël and Forslund, 2017). Global food production (net of biomass used
for biofuels) would need to increase by 70% to feed 9 billion people by
2050 (FAO/IFAD/UNICEF/WFP/WHO, 2017). Yet food production per
capita in the least-favored regions of the world, bypassed by the Green
Revolution (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa), remains at the same level as in the
1960s. The doubling of global crop yields experienced between 1960s
and late 1990s was paralleled by a sevenfold increase in nitrogen
fertilizer use, a tripling of phosphorus use, and the doubling of irrigation
water (Tilman et al., 2002). Tittonell (this volume) concludes that if food
production needs to increase by an extra 70% over the next 40 years, as
some scenarios seem to suggest, then such an increase cannot be fueled
by further inputs of N, P, and water—at least not at the same rates as
experienced over the past decades. New forms of agricultural
intensification are needed to produce more food where it is most needed
and to make use of the natural functionalities that ecosystems offer in

order to reduce the need for and increase the efficiency of external inputs
(Tittonell, this volume). Although recent experiences with using
agroecological principles to design resource use–efficient agriculture
present some promising avenues (e.g., in Sub-Saharan Africa), important
challenges, such as approaches to scaling, remain unresolved (Tomich
et al., 2011). In market-based systems, sustainability labeling and
certifications for agricultural commodities play an increasingly important
role in promoting sustainable resource use (Birner and Pray, this

volume).
Agronomy is making significant progress in bridging yield gaps,
though debates on several topics and concepts (e.g., conservation
agriculture, system of rice intensification) are ongoing and must be
resolved to ensure future improvement in the sustainability of
agricultural productivity (Giller et al., 2017; Verhagen et al., 2017).
There has been progress in building scientific consensus about methods,
data requirements and sources, and models for yield gap analysis, as well
as about how to use yield gap analysis to evaluate food security and
constraints to increased crop production at different spatial scales (van
Ittersum and Cassman, 2013). More transparent, scientifically robust, and
reproducible methods will enhance the agronomic relevance and impact
of yield gap assessments. Improved understanding of hydrological and
biogeochemical cycles, such as N and P cycles, will help further improve
the management of soil nutrient balance and water and nutrient use
efficiency. However, the scaling challenge applies here as well—recent
efforts to scale up an integrated soil-crop system management (ISSM)
program in China demonstrate the degree to which this task requires
more than the development of scientifically credible and evidence-based
technologies. Beyond demonstrating the role that science can play in
increasing productivity and reducing environmental damage, the program
underlined the extent of the research network (1,200 scientists, 65,000

local officials, 140,000 industry representatives, and 21 million farmers)
needed both for scaling up and for providing scientists with access to
essential data (Cui et al., 2018).
Agriculturally marginal dryland environments continue to pose major
challenges for sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and
resilience. Globally, drylands represent about 40% of the land area and
host about 35% of world population in nearly 100 countries (ISPC,
2015). About half of dryland inhabitants are poor, depend on a highly
variable natural resource base for their livelihoods, and are constrained
by socioeconomic conditions that are worse than in other areas of the
world (Safriel and Adeel, 2005). The inherent water scarcity in drylands
is exacerbated by frequent droughts, land degradation, and
desertification. Looking toward 2030 and beyond, climate change is
expected to worsen the plight of the dryland farmers. Similarly, climate

change will exacerbate salinity intrusion in coastal areas. Finding better
solutions for drought, salinity, and abiotic stresses should be a priority
for research for development (ISPC, 2015).
Modern science and technology, in association with “big data” tools,
GIS, and remote sensing, can contribute significantly to sustainable
intensification and maximization of the use of inputs in smallholder
farming systems (Huang and Brown, this volume). Distributed ledger
technologies such as blockchain, which enable secure information
storage and retrieval for transactions, can the efficiency of agricultural
supply chains in many ways, such as by improving food safety through
increased traceability and reducing deforestation by enabling origin
tracing (WEF, 2018). Precision agriculture can be a part of the response
to changing climatic conditions and the increasing costs of agricultural
inputs, which are reducing farm profitability globally. While the
commercial agricultural sector in developing countries, through variable
application and yield monitoring using GPS systems, has adopted
precision agriculture technologies, the enabling environment—in the
form of mobile internet, portable plant sensors, and small unmanned
aerial vehicles—is considered sufficiently well developed in Asia,
Africa, and South America to implement these technologies in high-
value production systems as well (Huang and Brown, this volume). The
challenge is that transformative innovations and modern tools for making

agricultural systems more efficient and sustainable, such as precision
agriculture, are often not designed for smallholder use. Adaptation to
smaller scales is a major challenge for research and technology design
targeted to smallholder farmers in developing countries.
The massive improvement in communications networks, for instance
in India, presents an opportunity to digitize information and bridge the

gap between farmers and value-chain actors by reducing costs and
inefficiencies (Huang and Brown, this volume; Crouch, this volume).
Similarly, while energy use in agriculture accounts for less than 4% of
global energy use, it has been growing faster in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Improved access to energy, particularly renewable energy, can have
important effects on costs and efficiencies along the agri-food value
chain from irrigation to postharvest practices (e.g., drying) to food
processing (Skeer and Leme, this volume).
1.6 New Science and Technology for Managing Systemic

Complexity and Trade-offs
The complexity of the global grand challenges described in the sections

above require new science and synergistic interventions involving many
types of expertise across biological, physical, and social disciplines. To
ensure the long-term sustainability of agri-food systems, it will become
more and more crucial to preserve natural resources and environmental
health, including water, soil nutrients, and biodiversity, while paying
attention to the biogeochemical flows, terrestrial degradation, and land-
use productivity (Van der Elst and Williams, this volume). The concept
of planetary boundaries has proved useful as a framework for supporting
global sustainability and monitoring the fundamental characteristics of a
healthy, sustainable natural environment (Rockström et al., 2009).
Agriculture has led to the transgression of two planetary boundaries—
i.e., biosphere integrity and biogeochemical flows—which are already at
high risk (Campbell et al., 2017; Ripple et al., 2017). Scientists are
increasingly coming together to solve the grand challenges of food,
energy, water, climate change, and environmental sustainability. Inter-
and transdisciplinary research is considered increasingly essential by

scientists, policy makers, and funders (GRC, 2017; Nature, 2015; ISPC,
2017). Innovation is often the result of dynamic interactions among a
diverse range of actors within complex systems that are interdependent,
nonlinear, and collaborative (Katz, 2016).
Breakthroughs in biotechnology and genetic improvement are
expected to address the challenge of increasing productivity and

accelerating the rates of genetic gain in breeding by, among other things,
making efficient use of genetic resources; accessing genomic regions and
generating novel variation through gene editing, mutagenesis, and
genetic engineering; and exploiting heterosis through hybrid technology
(Langridge, this volume). This area also requires crosscutting
technologies for data management, mechanization, high-throughput
precise phenotyping, and close integration with agronomic practices and
socioeconomic analyses of the factors involved in successful technology

adoption by farmers, consumers, and governments. For instance, new
crop varieties must be delivered to farmers as part of a set of products
that includes optimal production methods and considers the entire
farming system (Langridge, this volume). Innovations in
biotechnologies, information and communication technologies (ICTs),
big data, smart- and precision-farming technologies, and technologies for
enhancing food quality and safety and reducing waste would fall into this
category, as well as labor-saving, digital agriculture systems and mobile
technologies (Huang and Brown, this volume).
Technologies and innovations such as synthetic biology, food design,
and the protein transition may play a key role in addressing challenges
arising in agri-food systems (van der Duin and den Hartog, this volume).
The prospects for disruptive innovations with potential applications for
developing countries are most likely to come from the private sector
(Crouch, this volume). Examples of disruptive food innovations include
private sector investments in food substitutes (insect protein), plant-
based meat substitutes, and “clean meat” as well as public sector
investments through the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) in areas
ranging from artificial intelligence to miniature sensors and novel
materials. Technologies being developed by the DOD’s Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) or through the U.S.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Advanced Food

Technologies Project, such as ready-to-eat meals with extended shelf life
for the military (e.g., food for Mars missions), could have significant
spin-off benefits for the target population in developing countries.
Advances made by the agri-food industry and the pharmaceutical
industry in nutrient-rich foods targeted to the commercial food sector
could have similar spin-off benefits. A variety of promising

transformational innovations are focusing on reducing postharvest losses
in food packaging, processing, storage, and transport (GKI, 2017).
Technology also has a role to play in increasing the sustainability of
agriculture and mitigating its adverse impacts on aforementioned
planetary boundaries. For instance, smart irrigation systems using sensor
technologies could help manage and reduce agricultural water use;
organic and inorganic nanomaterials (metal oxides, polymer and carbon
nanotubes) can help absorb contaminants in soil and increase soil

remediation capacity; and integration of artificial intelligence tools,
cloud computing, and on-farm sensors could facilitate decision making
and improve on-farm efficiencies (Fraceto et al., 2016; Small, 2017).
While water issues—such as groundwater depletion and competing
demands for water between agricultural, domestic, and industrial
sectors—are projected to intensify in the future, leading to an 18%
reduction in availability of freshwater for agriculture, changes in
consumption patterns and innovative policies could enable transitions
that ensure that ecosystems remain within boundaries to meet future
demand for food, energy, water, and materials (van der Elst and
Williams, this volume).
Food systems, agriculture, nutrition, and environmental sustainability
are all important components of the 2030 Development Agenda. The link
between the SDGs and the agri-food sector, particularly smallholder
farming, is clear: while SDG2 explicitly illustrates this link (end hunger,
achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable
agriculture), farm development and growth are also central to the success
of eight other goals, related to ending poverty, gender discrimination,
inequality, environmental degradation, and climate change, and
promoting healthy lives (Abraham and Pingali, 2017). Recent work on
the trade-offs between the SDGs stresses the complexity of integrating
individual, often competing or conflicting, goals and targets and ways to

minimize the negative impacts of trade-offs (Machingura and Lally,
2017).
On the policy side, a new integrated approach is needed at the
intersection of food, agriculture, climate, and health. Food, agricultural,
and nutrition policies should address priorities for increased production
diversity to meet rising demand for dietary diversity and to increase

people’s access to nutritious food and thereby reduce malnutrition
(including reversing rising obesity rates)—and do so in ways that
enhance biodiversity and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The
use of modern technologies and policies to enhance the competitiveness
of smallholder agriculture systems and the design of effective
aggregation models for linking small farms to agri-business value chains
will continue to be major areas of applied research (Pingali and Aiyar,
this volume).
1.7 Conclusions
The perfect storm of global threats and challenges faced by the world’s
agri-food system also offer opportunities for future food and agricultural
systems to positively contribute to rural prosperity, improved nutrition,
and environmental sustainability, including enhanced management of
climate threats. The overarching question that this book seeks to address
is how agricultural research and policy ought to re-orient themselves to
confront those challenges and opportunities.
Positive futures can be driven by demand-side factors, such as the
rising urban demand for food diversity, or driven by technology, such as
the increasing role of ICTs and other disruptive innovations in, say,
precision agriculture. Since agri-food systems are intricately linked to
and interact with ecosystems and natural resources, these changes also
have implications for trends in those areas (related, e.g., to freshwater,
land, and marine ecosystems). Rapid urbanization, income growth, and
the consequent rising demand for food, in terms of both quantity and
diversity, provide a new growth opportunity for the agricultural sector
in developing countries. Increasing urban demand for high-value
agricultural products such as fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, and milk

creates opportunities for small farms to diversify production and realize
better income by participating in value chains. With that change comes a
shift from agriculture as a way of life to agriculture as a business for
smallholder farmers in developing countries. However, smallholders’
ability to participate in agricultural markets is determined by transaction
costs or the cost of accessing goods and services and making exchanges.
Meeting the quality and safety standards demanded by modern agri-food
value chains also adds to small farm marketing costs. These costs could
limit the ability of smallholders to effectively participate in markets,
hindering commercialization.
Increased global trade integration and the openness of emerging
economies will increase the need to enhance the competitiveness of small
farms in developing countries. Significant research is needed on boosting
competitiveness and reducing transaction costs in smallholder agriculture

systems. Crop-breeding technologies that can enhance yields or reduce
yield variability could lead to lower production costs per ton of crop
output and thereby enhance competitiveness. However, major scientific
advances in our understanding of the genes controlling disease resistance
and tolerance to environmental stresses have generally failed to find
delivery through genetic modification (GM). Yet, although the
predictions of diverse products resulting from large investments in GM
have been largely unrealized, the technology has advanced our
understanding of gene structure and function. There is now optimism
about the use of gene editing as a route to deliver advances in gene
discovery; this means that issues related to regulatory requirements and
consumer acceptance of this technology will need to be resolved.
Innovations for enhancing input use efficiencies, such as ICTs, labor-
saving and mobile technologies, and smart- and precision-farming
technologies, could also lead to unit cost reduction. Similarly, improved
access to markets might enable farmers to sell surpluses at a higher price
and influence their cropping choices. Effective aggregation models for
linking small farms to agri-business value chains will continue to be a
major area of applied research. Technologies for enhancing food quality
and safety and reducing waste could also improve farmers’ market
integration, especially for products targeted to the urban food value
chains. Disruptive technological breakthroughs are most likely to arise in

agricultural resource use efficiency, such as energy and water and in
post-harvest operations for enhancing shelf life, quality and safety.
The global R&D and policy community is faced with the
unprecedented challenge of responding to escalating nutrition and dietary
dilemmas in the developing world. While malnutrition continues to be an
important priority, the rise of obesity and NCDs in developing countries

needs urgent and concurrent attention. Moving away from the current,
almost predominant, focus on the big three staple grains—rice, wheat,
and maize—and toward a nutrition-sensitive food system can help
address both ends of the nutrition problem. Advances in genomics and
molecular biology could help create healthier food systems by enhancing
the nutritive value of crops, particularly less commonly researched crops
such as millets. International R&D could also draw on advances in food
technology being developed by public and private research systems in

advanced economies. Advances by the agri-food and pharmaceutical
industries in nutrient-rich foods targeted to the commercial food sector
could have similar spin-off benefits. Recent advances in cellular
agriculture, such as “clean meat,” could have long-term health and
environmental benefits, although it could be decades before such novel
foods are generally available in our food systems.
The challenge for policy makers—and thus for research to inform
those decisions—is to balance investments and policies supporting the
increased productivity of staple crops with investments and policies that
improve the productivity of or returns to higher-value products
(including livestock products). Food systems thinking—i.e., looking at
the food system as a whole—can help identify synergies and trade-offs
between various goals (poverty, nutrition, environment) and indicate
leverage points for policies and interventions.
In terms of promoting climate-resilient food systems, there has been
significant modeling work on the implications of the projected shifts in
mean climate and climate extremes on agriculture, but it has again
concentrated on the big staples (rice, wheat, maize, and soybeans). Little
is known of the adverse impacts of climate change on the crops and
resources that have been traditionally important to the poor, such as
millets, roots, and tubers, and crops of emerging significance, such as
fruits and vegetables, livestock, and fish. A holistic strategy is needed to

formulate a long-term research portfolio and a development plan for
dealing with climate shocks and for building a climate-resilient food
system that takes into account the complexity of the food-water-energy
nexus. Many agricultural “best practices” (such as reduced tillage) are
also best practices for sustainable management of carbon, nitrogen, and
water stocks—helping raise production and building resilience against

climate variability in addition to mitigating (or even reversing)
greenhouse gas fluxes into the atmosphere. Understanding the disruptive
effect of shifts in agroecological zones and production systems due to
climate change on livelihoods of the rural poor as well as their ex ante
and ex post coping strategies on- and off-farm (e.g., changes in land use
allocations, migration) requires further investigation. More study is also
needed on the impacts of mean climate change and extreme climate
events (such as droughts and floods) on the nutritional status of the poor.
Finally, climate mitigation can come from a reduction in the intensity of
emissions from agriculture (emissions per ton of harvested product) or
from a reduction in demand for high-emission products and toward
dietary pathways with a lower emissions footprint. Investments in
consumer behavior change could over the long term lead to a more
climate-resilient food system.
In addition to making positive contributions to climate mitigation,
sustainable intensification of food systems has direct impacts on
agricultural resources and the natural resource base. Modern science and
technology with big-data tools such as GIS, remote sensing, and
precision agriculture have the potential to contribute significantly to
sustainable intensification. Improved understanding of hydrological and
biogeochemical cycles, such as N and P cycles, could help to improve
soil nutrient balance and water and nutrient use efficiency.
Transformative innovations and modern tools, however, are often not
designed for smallholder use; adaptation to smaller scales is a major
challenge for research and technology design targeted to developing-
country agriculture. Advances in renewable energy sources, such as solar
and biofuels, could contribute to more efficient energy use and a more
sustainable resource base. Emerging bioeconomy paradigms and
practices, such as the reuse of bio-waste, could help reduce current trade-
offs in land resource use between food and energy.
The locus of scientific research and innovation is rapidly moving
from public sector laboratories and universities to multinational
bioscience companies. This trend is likely to continue into the future, and
this holds true for disruptive innovations with potential applications to
developing countries as well. The international agriculture research

system, CGIAR, may need to increasingly focus on its comparative
advantage in areas of market failure, where private sector investments
are limited. The continued amalgamation of the bioscience companies
and the food industry can transform power relations in ways that could
hamper access to technology for the poor. It is important to understand
the conditions under which CGIAR could play an essential role as a
conduit for technology access, adaptation, and delivery to poor,
smallholder agricultural systems.

Finally, as already stated, food and agricultural policy needs to
become more holistic, operating at the nexus between productivity,
environment, and human health. In-depth analysis and monitoring of
trends in food supply, demand, availability, input consumption, waste,
and recycling must be weighed in the context of planetary boundaries.
This agri-food systems approach could provide a policy framework for
driving future sustainability by relieving pressure on stressed systems,
leading to an increased focus on environmental care and reduced
footprints, and making progress toward achievement of the SDGs. Such
an integrated food policy will help promote sustainable intensification
while ensuring nutrition security as incomes rise and diets further
diversify in emerging economies. The health implications of food
policies must also be explicitly considered, specifically with regard to the
rising trends in obesity and noncommunicable diseases. Climate
mitigation through carbon sequestration programs, such as plantation
agriculture and recycling of agricultural wastes, can become income
growth opportunities for smallholders. Finally, as economies grow,
investments in rural human capital are essential to help people transition
out of agriculture. Particularly important are investments targeted toward
rural youth, whose capacity may be often underutilized.
Table Al.l. Summary of chapters.
Agriculture and Food Systems to 2050: A Synthesis

Authors Title Main conclusions
2. Albino Maggio, Global drivers and • 14 megatrends are shaping the future, including some trends that are "usual
Fabiana Scapolo, Tine mega trends in agri- suspects" (4), trends recognized as important but not addressed properly (3), game
van Criekinge, and food systems changers (3), and trends to be taken into account in systemic analysis (4).
Rachid Serraj
3. Aslihan Arslan, Eva- Migration, • Expected demographic trends (until2050) translate into expected increases in meal-
Maria Egger, and Paul demography, and agri- urban migration rates in low- and lower-middle-income countries (primarily in
Winters food systems Africa); this trend is even more pronounced for youth migration.
• Higher projected migration rates are correlated with lower levels of income, low
commercialization of agricultural production, low specialization, and slow
agricultural productivity growth, suggesting that nual-urban migration is part of the
mral transformation process.
• Policies should consider gender differences in mobility and access to resources;
evidence suggests that young women are at a particular disadvantage.
• There are research gaps on the implications of n1ral transformation and agri-food
value chains on internal migration, especially in Africa and Asia; on linkages
between climate change and internal migration; and on seasonal migration and its
implications for mral, peri-urban, and urban livelihoods under the projected
demographic and climatic pressures.
31
32
Table Al.l. (continued).
4. Peter B. R. Hazell Urbanization, • By 2050, 82.4% of the world's urban population will be based in less-developed
agriculture, and regions; urbanization is leading to more diverse national diets, with increased p er
smallholder farming capita demand for livestock and horticultural products and processed and precooked
foods, and reduced per capita demand for traditional food staples.
• Urbanization and the changing nature of the agri-food system offer new
Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050

opportunities for those small farms that can successfully link to value chains on a
commercial basis, but also present obstacles that threaten to exclude many other
small farms.
• Small farms will play a diminishing role in feeding urban populations with food
staples, but many will be successful in producing some high-value and labor-
intensive products for urban markets.
• Assistance programs for small farms, including agricultural research, will need to be
better targeted to meet the changing needs of different types of farm households as
their livelihood strategies diverge.
5. Alex C . Ruane and Climate change • Climate change and related shifts in the distribution of extreme events are
Cynthia Rosenzweig impacts on agriculn1re increasingly clear and pose sizable challenges for food production and stability.
• Ability to understand the diversity of climate responses is limited by the complexity
associated with differences in latitudes, agroecological zones, and agricultural
systems (G x E x M) interactions.
• Advances in modeling (AgMIP; CGRA) allow integrated assessment frameworks to
systematically evaluate vulnerability, feedback loops, and unintended consequences
within comp lex food systems; this also helps stakeholders and policymakers identify
and prioritize adaptation strategies.
Table A 1.1. (continued ).
6. Kristel Vander Elst Environment and • The business-as-usual trajectory of env ironment and natural resources management
and Alex Wiliams. natural resources as well as alternative scenarios to 2050 have are key policy implications for strategic
(Land, Water & decision making and governance. Present and future environmental health is

Ecosystems) discussed with a particular focus on biodiversity, biogeochemical flows, marine
health, terrestrial degradation, and land-use productivity.
• There is a risk of emergence of a water-scarcity-dominated regime, where extreme

regional water pressures-induced by human activ ities and climate change--
compromise the freshwater reserves essential for life and economic stability, such as
water for drinking, sanitation, and food production.
• Climate change, fragmented and lost habitat, overfish ing, coastal pollution, and the
invasive species rate of spread are among the highest risk factors for continued
biodiversity losses.
• Key threats and opportunities, if capitalized upon, can provide a high-level policy
framework to drive significant sustainability improvements, which can secure the
future of natural resources and the environment, mainly by relieving pressure on
stressed systems, and advance p rogress toward meeting specific SDGs.
7. J. V. Meenakshi and Food systems, diets, • The relationship between agriculture and nutrition has long been recognized. While
Patrick Webb and nutrition high-quality diets are critical and agriculn1re plays a key role, invesunents in
agriculn1re will need to interface with investments in roads, water systems,
education, disease control, disaster management, and poverty reduction.
• For overall sustainability, policies and incentive structures for farmers (to influence
crop choice) will need to consider inherent trade-offs (nutrition, yields, y ields
defined in terms of nutrition water productivity, etc.). Data to inform nutrition and
health policy are sparse and require investment.
33
34
Table Al.l . (continued).
• Food supply and access are twin pillars of a high-quality diet and will need to be
managed in the context of persistent shocks/threats (climate change, emerging pests
and diseases of crops and livestock, etc.).
• Anemia as a health issue requires urgent attention-half of the anemia burden can

be attributed to poor-quality diets, and changing diets takes time. Developing
countries, traditionally set up to focus on malnutrition and maternal/child health,
will also need to address noncommunicable diseases.
• Dietary quality requires investments in market and transportation infrastm cture to
ensure year-round access to nutrient-rich foods, make high-value foods more
accessible to consumers, etc.
8. Peter Langridge Innovation in breeding • Biotechnology already makes a significant contribution to crop and animal
and biotechnology improvement, and the agricultural biotechnology industry is expected to reach
almost $55 billion by 2022.
• Innovations in crop improvement expected to accelerate genetic gain in breeding
include more efficient use of genetic resources; accessing of genomic regions and
generation of novel variation through mutagenesis, gene editing, and genetic
engineering; and exploitation of heterosis through hybrids and apomixes.
• Investment in technology development alone is not sufficient; strong support for
breeding programs is needed to optimize their strategies and use of the diverse array
of technological options.
• New varieties must be delivered to farmers as part of a package that includes
optimal production methods and looks at the entire farming system.
Table ALL (continued).

9. Yanbo Huang and Advancing to the next • Novel technologies and innovations such as unmanned aerial vehicles, big data,
Molly E. Brown generation of artificial intelligence, and automation have been developed for diverse
precision agriculture applications in precision agriculture.
• The new generation of precision agriculture will be characterized by high-

performance cloud/mobile computing, intensive big data analysis, artificial
intelligent perception, and real-time control and automation.
• Precision agriculture applications relevant for smallholders include

inexpensive online massive data, real-time monitoring, optimization and
control, use of mobile devices, and social media applications.
• Various information and communication technologies and digital agriculture
systems applications can transform knowledge of farming systems and provide
powerful tools for engaging smallholders, by improving information
accessibility, ensuring institutional credibility, and stimulating their ability to
improve agricultural productivity.
10. Patrick van der Disruptive futures: • The potential dismptiveness of a technology depends not only on its technical
Duin and Silke den Prospects for performance, but also on how and the extent to which it addresses societal issues
Hartog breakthrough and Grand Societal Challenges (GSCs).
technologies • Bioinformatics, smart farming, synthetic biology, food design, and the protein
transition often play a role in addressing the GSCs; the connection is less well-
recognized for vertical agriculture, aquaculture, and conservation technology.
• The future of the agro-food sector will be dismptive, shaped by new technologies in
new contexts; many technologies can achieve a combination of economic, social,
and environmental objectives, but the most important question in the future will
concern how society will deal with new technological possibilities?
• Technological trends, GSCs, and scenarios are instruments that provide an important
basis for further study, policy sn1dies, innovation, and public debate.
35
36
Table A1.1. (continued).
11. Jonathon Crouch Investor perspectives on • Mapping capital flows to African agriculture highlights the critical need for
future priorities addressing the "missing middle" to enable scaling up of agribusiness investment
across the region.
• Investor perspectives on agribusiness investment help explain the key constraints to
investor appetite in the sector, at different points along agri-food value chains, and at
different investment sizes.
• Building inclusive agribusinesses can help achieve development impact at scale

based on an ecosystem approach that facilitates the sharing of value capnlfe across
all components of the value chain, from the perspective of impact investment in
small and medium-sized enterprises as well as opportunities in value chains
dominated by multinational corporations.
• Promising commercial opportunities in agricultural development are presented from
an agritech venture capitalist's perspective, with particular focus on three of the
most important factors for commercial agricultural development over the coming
decades in Africa, where new technologies may have greatest impact: water, protein,
and data.
12. Marie-Helene Agricultural • The dynamics of past development processes show a heterogeneity of systems and
Schwoob, Peter transformation pathways pathways, and a heterogeneity of such systems' ability to address challenges such as
Timmer, Martin toward the SDGs preserving natural resomces or closing the gap between the living levels of the
Andersson, and agriculn1ral and non-agricultural labor force.
Sebastien Treyer • Analysis must start at the country level to establish priorities and test options and
pathways in the long term that are coherent with the specific conditions of each
location. Multiple tools, approaches, and methodologies are being developed by
projects that aim at building shared visions of the future and commonly agreed
pathways in participatory ways.
• More research is needed on the sociopolitical roadblocks to transformation. The role
of local stakeholders in implementing actions must be taken into account.
Table Al. l. (continued).

13. Pablo Tittonell Ecological • Three major reasons for current productivity gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa are as
intensification of follows: ( 1) inadequate models of agricultural development coupled with increasing
agricultllfe population densities in rural areas have led to severe degradation of the nan1ral
resource base; (2) poor farmers in the poorer regions do not have access to, cannot
afford, or are unwilling to adopt modern agricultural technologies; and (3)

technologies were not developed to fit the reality of smallholder systems in these
contexts and hence are ineffective at increasing crop and livestock productivity.
• The increase in food production needed over the next decades cannot be fue led by
fi.1rther inputs ofN, P, and water-at least not at the same rate as in the past 50
years.
• New forms of agroecological intensification are needed to produce more food where
it is needed and to make use of natural ecosystem fi.mctions to reduce the need for
and increase the efficiency of external inputs. Promising avenues are explored based
on recent experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa in which agroecological principles are
used to design restorative and resource-use-efficient agriculture.
14. Jeffrey Skeer and Renewable energy in • Keeping global warming to an increase less than 2° C. will require dramatic
Rodrigo Leme the energy future reductions in car bon emissions and nearly complete decar bonization of the energy
system, implying the substitution of substantially carbon-free renewable energy
sources for carbon-bearing energy vectors.
• Renewable energy-including bioenergy-will play a growing role in the global
energy mix.
• There is substantial potential to produce additional bioenergy by closing the gap
between projected and potential crop yields, making land available for bioenergy
crops through restoration of degraded land and sustainable intensification of
pastureland used for livestock production, and reducing waste and losses in the food
chain.
• The chapter summarizes trends in energy use in agriculture (e.g., irrigation, fertilizer
production, processing) and examines the conditions and policy environment to
37
assist the energy transition.
38
Table A 1.1. (continued).
15. Regina Bimer and Bioeconomy • The forecasting framework on the development of the bioeconomy highlights
Carl Pray various demand-side and supply-side factors influencing the competition between
biomass for food and biomass for energy and materials.
• While the agriculture sector is currently the largest component of the bioeconomy in

terms of both biomass share and employment and turnover, the bioenergy and
biomaterials share could grow significantly in the coming decades depending on
factors such as biofuel policy.
• The driving forces of the bioeconomy on the supply side include the perceived
scarcity and price of fossil fuels; the need for climate change mitigation;
biotechnology innovations (agriculture, marine and freshwater, insects); efforts to
improve the sustainability of the economic system, in particular by linking to the
circular economy concept; and innovations in bio-based resources.
• Changes in population and income levels, with associated changes in consumption
patterns and increased demand for food , energy, and materials, are important
demand-side factors.
• International agricultural research must play a major role in reducing the
competition between the use of biomass for the bioeconomy and food security, by
increasing crop productivity, creating novel ways of managing inputs, and using by-
products of outputs. The rise of the bioeconomy calls for specific attention to three
foodlbiofuel crops: corn, sorghum, and cassava. Increasing their productivity and
use of residues and stalks in industrial products has implications for food security,
energy, and smallholder farmer income.

16. John Ingram and Food systems • A shift was made from a focus solely on food production to one that also
Monika Zurek approaches for the incorporates food consumption, retail, and policy. Food systems approaches
future integrate multiple activities, actors, and motivations; multiple environments and
drivers; and multiple outcomes of food systems activities. Hence the approach

allows food chain activities to be linked to their social, economic, and environmental
context.
• Food systems "thinking" can identify and address root causes of malnutrition;
establish connections with other systems (e.g., energy, infrastructure, information);
and analyze synergies and trade-offs of interventions (between food and nutrition
security, environment, and other societal goals).
• Besides providing a framework to stmcture the debate around a highly complex
issue, food systems thinking allows for an integrated assessment that can focus on
impacts and leverage points in different domains of the food system.
17. Kym Anderson Global trade fun1res • As climate change becomes more damaging to food production, there is more reason
for countries to be open to international food markets and allow trade to buffer
seasonal fluctuations in each country's domestic production and to reduce the
volatility of global food prices.
• Prospects for freeing up farm trade with bilateral and regional preferential free trade
agreements, for stronger WTO disciplines not only on farm import tariffs and
nontariff trade measures but also on domestic support policies, and especially for
unilateral market liberalization through more efficient instruments to assist the most
food-insecure households, such as conditional targeted income supplements, become
administratively feasible even in low-income countries.
• Trade opening should be considered among the food policy options of national
governments seeking to reduce income inequality, poverty, malnutrition and hunger;
to boost diet diversity and food safety; and to raise food quality.
39
40

18. Prabhu Pingali and Food, agriculture, and • To address the multiple challenges it faces, the global food system requires an
Anaka Aiyar nutrition policy: alternative paradigm where the main goal of policymakers is to ensure better health
Looking ahead to 2050 and well-being of all stakeholders (individuals, biodiversity, flrms, governments).
• A first policy priority is to reorient away from sector-specific goals and toward
integration of sectoral priorities into a more climate-sensitive food system and to
consider spillover impacts across sectors.
• A second policy priority involves changing the focus of the scientific community
from designing strategies to increase calorie production to strategies that improve
access to nutrition.
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Chapter 2
Global Drivers and Megatrends in

Agri-Food Systems
Albino Maggio, Fabiana Scapolo, Tine van Criekinge,

and Rachid Serraj
2.1 Introduction
A sustainable food system is defined as one that “delivers food security

and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and
environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future
generations are not compromised” (HLPE, 2014, 31). The current global
food system does not provide food and nutrition security for all, and
there are concerns that it may not provide sustainable food and nutrition
security in the future in a way that integrates environmental and social
impact with agricultural and economic development.
The proportion of people who are chronically undernourished has
declined through the century, even as the global population has
increased. In absolute terms, though, the estimated number of
undernourished people increased from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million
in 2016 (FAO, 2017a). Programs to sustainably and consistently ensure
food and nutrition security and eradicate poverty have only partially
succeeded. Moreover, most achievements in this time frame have been
obtained at the expense of natural resources, which have been used
unsustainably (Pingali, 2012).
47
It is unquestionable that food production has increased tremendously

in recent decades (FAO, 2013), yet this achievement meets only one
requirement of a sustainable food system. We also face diet-related
health issues (Friel and Ford, 2015), food safety and foodborne disease
concerns (Nguyen-The et al., 2016), malnutrition and undernutrition
(FAO, 2017b), agricultural and environmental pollution (Abbasi et al.,
2014), and rapidly diminishing stocks of fish and seafood (FAO, 2016).
Both the agricultural landscape and the world’s oceans and seas are
under threat, posing a real challenge to the sustainable production of food
in the long run.
Complex links between food production and environmental, social,
and economic factors are increasingly evident (Russell and Hedberg,
2016; Jennings et al., 2016; Fagioli et al., 2017; Johnson and Karlberg,
2017). As a result, the debate in recent years has shifted from a mere
food supply or value chain approach to a food system approach that

considers inputs, outputs, actors, and activities that comprise the food
value chain, as well as the outcome of the activities that make up this
chain (Ingram and Zurek, this volume; FAO, 2016; Bullock et al., 2017).
While the main purpose of these activities and system interactions should
be to generate food and nutrition security, in reality the food system also
generates outcomes beyond the provision of food (Milone et al., 2015;
Fagioli et al., 2017). Whether positive or negative, desired or undesired,
food systems impact socioeconomic well-being, health, ecosystems, and
the natural environment (Ingram and Zurek, this volume).
To address such complexities, the use of foresight has been
instrumental in analyzing major trends and exploring new and alternative
avenues for achieving sustainable food systems (Bourgeois and Sette,
2017). Foresight offers a structured, systematic, and systemic approach
to gain valuable insights on the mid- to long-term future, beyond
established pathways. It generally involves a broad range of actors and
stakeholders to develop a collective understanding of the future (i.e.,
“future intelligence”). The objective of foresight is, therefore, not merely
to produce new insights about the future but primarily to bring together
key agents and drivers of change and sources of knowledge in order to
develop strategic visions and anticipatory intelligence and to provide
Global Drivers and Megatrends 49
inputs to decision makers for longer-term policies (Bengston et al., 2012;

Saritas and Burmaoglu, 2015; Tully, 2016).
2.2 Approaches to Foresight

Foresight analyses use both quantitative and qualitative approaches,

often in combination and/or in different steps of the foresight process.
Quantitative methods rely on hard data to represent developments
numerically and use models to simulate possible or probable future
trajectories of a system. Quantitative data are also used in forecasting,
which is now considered one among many inputs in foresight analysis. In
contrast, qualitative methods are useful when there are no data to
numerically depict trends and developments and/or when such
developments are subjected to multiple variables and cannot be described

by simplified indicators. Foresight relies on participatory approaches and
uses tools and methods largely based on qualitative data, and it depends
to a lesser extent to quantitative extrapolation from past data and/or
known patterns of change. Extrapolation from past data may undermine
the anticipatory power of foresight analyses because it may fail to
capture uncertainties and transformative changes coming from weak
signals that can be detected and monitored by a thorough observation of
emerging changes in society, culture, and people’s behavior (Sutherland
et al., 2011; Bai et al., 2016; Bourgeois, 2017). Quantitative modeling,
however, has been increasingly used in combination with qualitative
methods to provide a more solid representation of plausible futures
(Mason-D’Croz et al., 2016; Lüdeke, 2013; Rinaudo et al., 2013;
Rosegrant et al., 2017). Other approaches such as the combination of
foresight methods with program theory analyses have been also proposed
(Glover et al., 2016). With regard to the type of knowledge source,
Popper (2008) has summarized different qualitative, semi-quantitative,
and quantitative methods based on creativity, expertise, interactions, and
evidence. Also, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European
Commission and the GFAR Forward Thinking Platform provide online
tools to share terminology and methodologies and to support the design
of a foresight process (JRC, 2018; GFAR, 2018).
In general, foresight starts with an analysis of the past to identify

driving forces, past breaks, and emerging patterns and how they interact
to shape the future of a given system. It usually involves target people
and stakeholders in analyzing problems and envisioning solutions and
strategies to their own challenges, an approach that aims at exploring
alternative views and perspectives through a democratic, inclusive, open,
and transparent process of public engagement (Amanatidou, 2017).

Foresight involves collecting and analyzing facts and data in order to
discern general patterns and trends. Then, it elaborates various
assumptions and determines possible futures while avoiding
preconceived ideas, irrelevant questions, and dead-end concepts. To
achieve these objectives, strategic foresight not only uses science and
reason, but also calls upon the imagination (Godet, 2008). As a result, it
generates a range of possible futures and strategic options to enhance
understating of key challenges and risks. For example, foresight could

contribute to meeting the challenges posed by the implementation of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including aligning development
visions, building anticipatory governance and strategic management,
supporting resilient policy planning, fostering innovation in policy and
public services, and addressing interlinkages and interdependencies
between SDGs (Nilsson et al., 2016; Nelson et al., 2016; Tully, 2016;
Spratt, 2017; Machingura and Lally, 2017).
2.3 A Brief Overview of Recent Foresight Studies on Food

Security and Agri-Food Systems
The landscape of foresight and future studies is heterogeneous in terms

of methodological approach and overall objectives. In recent years
foresight and future studies have been used to address many aspects of
agriculture and food systems (National Intelligence Council, 2017). They
are increasingly used to explore global trends and scenarios related to the
global economy (National Intelligence Council, 2017) and to food
system shocks (Maynard, 2015). Similarly, quantitative model-based
projections are regularly used to produce scenarios related to the
implications of demographic and economic trends for areas of global
concern and highly relevant to food security and food system analyses,
such as climate change, biodiversity, water, and the health impacts of
environmental pollution (Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012; Robinson
et al., 2015; OECD/FAO, 2016). Specific reports have also addressed
many other aspects of food security and food systems, ranging from the
links between food security and climate change (HLPE, 2012; UNEP,
2012; IIASA, 2017) to nutrition (HLPE, 2017)—all of which provide

relevant background for future studies (FAO, 2017a). To streamline the
discourse on foresight, recent outcomes, and future potential, the
following section will review the work of the past six years (2012–2017)
on food and nutrition security and closely associated fields (environment
and resources).
2.3.1 Methodological approach
A literature review was conducted using Scopus, Web of Knowledge,

and repositories of research institutions and international organizations
for the 2012–2017 time window. Scopus and Web of Knowledge
databases were searched by subject areas for the topic “food security”
(e.g., the subject areas for Scopus included agricultural, biological and
environmental sciences; for Web of Knowledge, relevant subject areas
were agriculture, environmental science, ecology, science technology,
food science technology, water resources, forestry, demography). A
refined search was conducted using the keyword “foresight” within each
subject area. Personal judgment was used to select relevant work to be
included in this review, with a focus on foresight and participatory
methodological approaches. Overall, 85 studies were reviewed and
grouped based on common themes (sections 2.3.2–2.3.7). Most of the
examined work on future food systems focused on nutrition and diets
(2.3.2) and resource scarcity and climate change (2.3.3) in the context of
population growth, demographic change, and technological change
(2.3.4). To a lesser extent, aspects related to forest, ocean, and marine
resources were also addressed (2.3.3 and 2.3.4). A few studies presented
new foresight methodologies (2.3.5) and participatory techniques (2.3.6)
for achieving broader and more proactive stakeholder involvement and
effective design of transition processes toward sustainable food systems.
Adaptation pathways in the context of foresight were also considered

(2.3.7).
2.3.2 Food, human nutrition, and diets

Nutrition and diets are gaining attention in food system foresight studies
because these factors have important consequences for both human
health and the environment (Meenakshi et al., this volume). The two-
way links between nutrition, foodborne diseases, and health particularly
affect some agricultural producers, especially the rural poor. Indeed,
specific to the agricultural sector, there are direct and indirect
relationships that should be considered: a first set of interactions
concerns the impact of food consumption and nutrition on health; a
second set concerns the impact of agricultural earnings on access to food

and health care. Undernutrition and low-quality diets lead to poor health
and inability to work, which further worsen the living conditions of rural
poor (Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition,
2016). As a result, malnutrition can nullify advances in global
agricultural production and trade. The consequences of malnutrition in
this context are probably underestimated (IFPRI, 2016; HLPE, 2017).
On the demand side, past and ongoing trends suggest that future
increases in food demand will include higher consumption of meat, with
consequences for the use of resources and environmental pressure. Diets
based on animal protein will affect the availability of crops for feeding
not only people, but also animals. Le Cotty and Dorin (2012) have
quantified the required increase in crop production for food and feed in
three contrasting scenarios built on diets with different levels of animal
product consumption by humans. Based on an aggregate animal
production model, it was anticipated that the amount of edible crops
necessary to feed livestock in 2050 is between 8% and 117% of today’s
need for animal products (based on diets without and with animal
products). These results are consistent with the literature showing that if
the entire world adopts the current protein-rich diet of the developed
countries, global production would have to double (Deepak et al., 2013).
Although the environmental consequences of this shift have been well
anticipated (Godfray et al., 2010; Foley et al., 2011), options to meet the
protein needs of the projected 2050 world population without increasing

the agricultural area and without substantially modifying current
cropping/livestock systems have been proposed (Billen et al., 2015).
Such options, however, would have a significant environmental impact—
nitrogen (N) contamination—and would increase international food and
feed trade. Because interregional trade is correlated with total surplus N
on arable soils, a scenario with reduced international trade may reduce

global N environmental contamination. Setting diets to a fraction of
animal protein not exceeding 40% of total ingestion of 4 kg of N per
capita per year1 and improving agronomic performance in underyielding
areas would lead to a global equitable human diet and reduced
environmental impact (Tilman et al., 2011; Billen et al., 2015).
Because current production of animal protein is highly resource
consuming, the search for alternative protein sources is an expanding
area of research. A recent foresight study by Glover and Sexton (2015)

assessed the potential of edible insects to ensure food security in future
global food systems. Economic power and resource availability were
used as critical drivers to build alternative scenarios. In each scenario,
insect-based food-feed depended largely on whether conventional meat
products remained an affordable and socially accepted option for
consumers.
Although most drivers, such as population growth, resource
availability, climate change, and technology, are recurrent in food and
nutrition security foresight studies, the combination and relative weights
of such drivers in scenario-building exercises can lead to different
narratives, results, and implications for future policies and research
priorities. In a foresight study of food safety and nutrition in the
European Union (EU) in 2050, economic growth, agri-food chain
structure, technology uptake, social cohesion, food values, climate
change, depletion of natural resources, and world population growth
were selected to build likely scenarios (Mylona et al., 2016). Among the
many possible futures addressed in this study, it highlighted that when
nutrition and health become the priority, there is a need to establish a
1This is the case because proteins contain N, and humans consume N in their diets
through proteins and other sources.
suitable system for monitoring food safety performance, especially when

trade (more or less globalized) is one of the key drivers. The incidence of
foodborne illness, the number of novel food technologies patented, and
the number of food recalls could serve as indicators to anticipate and
activate reactions and adaptations and improve the system’s resilience.
The social component of sustainable food systems is also gathering
increasing attention because the combination of drivers such as social

inclusion or exclusion and economic stagnation or growth may lead to
contrasting alternative worlds (Lorenz and Veenhoff, 2013).
Empowerment of consumers is emerging as a critical determinant of
sustainability pathways under both favorable and unfavorable economic
conditions. At the territorial level, it has been shown that consumers may
become true “consum’actors” and co-select pathways toward system
change (Raynal and Razafimahefa, 2014). Dedicated foresight exercises
have been proposed to address specific challenges such as the

heterogeneity of diets within countries and the resulting nutritional
outcomes, and the mechanisms by which food scarcity causes hunger and
malnutrition (de Haen and Réquillart, 2014).
Lack of education and learning are also critical bottlenecks for
delivering equitable and sustainable nutrition. There has been an urgent
call to invest in capacity in nutrition owing to the global shortfalls in the
quality, quantity, and geographic coverage of an effective workforce for
nutrition and diets (Fanzo et al., 2015). Nearly all countries in the world
are today affected by different forms of malnutrition, including
undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity.
Training nutrition workers, improving quality in the delivery of nutrition
services, and delivering appropriate geographic coverage of basic
nutrition services are essential to improve nutrition and meet the
Sustainable Development Goals. Capacity development is therefore a
fundamental aspect of nutrition that will require increasing attention in
the coming decades (Fanzo et al., 2015; Kenny et al., 2017).
2.3.3 Agro-environmental futures
By the middle of this century, world population will plateau at around 9

billion and will be accompanied by increased wealth, greater purchasing
power, and higher demand for processed food, meat, dairy, and fish.
These factors will all add pressure to the food value chain, including
natural resources such land, water, and energy (Godfray et al., 2010).
Agro-environmental issues and concerns are key aspects in global food
system analyses and among the most recurrent drivers determining future
scenarios. It is acknowledged in the literature that current and future food
systems should evolve based on principles of social, environmental, and

economic sustainability. With respect to economic sustainability, while
diet shifts, resource consumption, trade, and climate change can put
increasing pressure on the environment, they should also stimulate
innovation and business opportunities that can foster the creation of new
jobs oriented to the sustainability of future food systems (Hedden et al.,
2015; World Economic Forum, 2016). Areas of technological innovation
that have high problem-solving potential include water management,
climate protection, pollution control, soil conservation, biodiversity,

resource productivity, and the recycling economy (Weinberger et al.,
2012). These opportunities must be captured with the support of smart
policies and an overarching governance approach that links the food
system to environment, production, nutrition and diets, and energy and
puts social and ecological priorities at the center of redesigned food
systems. Business opportunities could be explored along the transition
pathways toward the so-called sustainable bioeconomy (SCAR, 2015;
Teagasc, 2016). This pathway toward sustainable food systems may lead
to the identification of specific research themes that need attention,
including the definition of new paradigms for primary production based
on ecological intensification, opportunities offered by the digital
revolution, resilience aspects of a sustainable bioeconomy (Birner and
Pray, this volume), the new energy landscape, business and policy
models, sociocultural dimensions, and governance (Pingali and Aiyar,
this volume).
Another study—a participatory exercise designed to identify trends
that may affect the world food situation in 2030—considered population
growth and overuse of natural resources key drivers (Maggio et al.,
2015). This study also functionally linked a renewed role for agricultural
production systems to the changing lifestyles and dietary needs of a
growing population. The enabling environment and the demand-driven
component of food systems were deemed critical determinants of

agricultural transformations and sustainable food security. Here the
emerging role of rural-urban interplay in creating business opportunities
(who is going to supply the cities with fresh vegetables?) was seen as a
major determinant of current and future food systems, especially in
developing countries. In other reports, international organizations have
noted how the two-way links between agriculture, the rural nonfarm
economy, manufacturing, and services can help reduce rural poverty
(IFAD, 2016; Wiggins, 2016).
Foresight analyses can also highlight the effects of different policies
on resource use and overall consequences on the environment. For
example, land use changes to 2050 can have different trajectories
depending on the complex interactions between indirect drivers (global
political, economic, and social context; climate change; and diets) and
direct drivers (urban-rural relationships, livestock systems, cropping

systems, farm structures, and forest systems) (CIRAD and INRA, 2016).
The available land could provide nutritional and food security to all by
2050 while preserving biodiversity, natural resources, and sustainable
income only if there is a true shift toward land use oriented toward food
quality and nutritious diets. Other scenarios that do not link production
with health and nutrition unavoidably involve an expansion of the
world’s agricultural land area to the detriment of forests. Independently
from each scenario discussed in CIRAD and INRA (2016), international
trade will be critical for ensuring food security for more than 9 billion
people by 2050. Based on work by Billen et al. (2015), this conclusion
implies that food security will likely be accompanied by global N
environmental contamination. Contrasting scenarios for 2050 based on
intensification of large-scale agro-industrial systems versus locally
sourced food systems have also highlighted that food policies should be
based on sustainable development criteria for both large-scale and small
local systems. This aspect seems to be insufficiently addressed in current
food policies (Rastoin and Ghersi, 2012).
Careful analysis of future scenarios for the environment may bring in
previously overlooked areas of debate. An analysis of 99 international
environmental foresight scenarios has shown that alternative scenarios
can have positive, neutral, or negative effects for the environment
depending on decision maker choices and priorities (de Menthière et al.,

2016). Interestingly, this analysis also highlighted that (1) the global
dimension of foresight studies often excludes local transformations based
on regional models of governance; (2) R&D is seen more as a solution to
problems than as an instrument for understanding environmental
degradation; and (3) most foresight studies looking at the environment
neglect impacts on forests, oceans, and coastal areas. Although oceans

and coastal areas are integral components of the environment, they are
generally studied in isolation and rarely fully integrated into food system
analyses. Only a few future studies look at oceans and marine resources
in the context of environmental concerns and provision of nutritious food
(Carrero et al., 2013; Lacroix et al., 2016; Hincapié et al., 2017). In
addition to offering business opportunities, oceans have tight links with
environmental changes and act as a driving force behind climate, the
water cycle, and people’s livelihoods (at least 3 billion people rely on the
ocean for their daily subsistence) (Ijff and van Voorst tot Voorst, 2016).
Oceans can heavily contribute to sustainable development and food
security in the context of the bioeconomy.
In the past five years, foresight studies in support of sustainable
management of natural resources have been conducted for several
countries and regions, including Afghanistan (Sheraz, 2014), Canada
(Vescovi et al., 2013), China (Lei et al., 2013), France (Vidalenc et al.,
2014), Greece (Doukas et al., 2014), the Netherlands (de Bruin et al.,
2015), Taiwan (Huang and Lee, 2016), and Tunisia (de Lattre-Gasquet
et al., 2017). Foresight approaches have also been applied to
conservation planning (Cook et al., 2014) and natural disaster risk
management (Aubrecht et al., 2013; Pankratova et al., 2014). And
foresight has served as a framework for discussion on how to respond
effectively to the challenge of resource scarcity, helping find common
ground especially when the issues are perceived differently among
stakeholders (e.g., threats of material exhaustion, concerns about rising
costs) (Van der Elst and Davis, 2014).
2.3.4 Technology and innovation for sustainable food systems
Several future studies have highlighted the role of technology and

entrepreneurship in sustainable and secure food systems (Farley et al.,
2017; Gokhberg et al., 2017). It has been argued, however, that
technological advances in production alone are unlikely to generate the
significant transformations required to construct more sustainable future

food landscapes (Davies, 2014). Innovation must respond to six grand
challenges: scarcity, climate change, demographic change, longer life,
global power shifts, and new connectivity (Scheerder et al., 2014). New
technologies for improving environmental sustainability could find the
highest potential for profits in the agri-food and ocean sectors. Whereas
some technological developments are directly linked to production—
including plant and animal genomics, smart farming and precision
agriculture, vertical agriculture, and new technologies for food

processing (Pielaat et al., 2013; Van Woensel and Archer, 2015; Avigdor
and Wintjes, 2015; de Wilde, 2016)—others such as 3D and 4D printing,
smart applications, and other digital innovations can improve services
and help address policy challenges in a wide range of areas, including
agriculture and food systems management (Leceta et al., 2017).
Anticipatory exercises can be useful for developing policies that
facilitate job creation in response to technological developments,
especially in the food and agriculture sector. Increasing employment
opportunities and boosting transformation technology are among the top
critical needs for African development (Sy, 2016). Sub-Saharan Africa
currently captures only 55% of its human capital potential compared with
a global average of 65%. New professions such as food technologists; 3D
designers; data-center workers; and care, education, and health workers
can absorb this underutilized human capital (World Economic Forum,
2017). Although technological innovation is a fundamental engine of
productivity growth, technology can also lead to unequal income
distribution, changes in the nature of skills demanded by labor markets,
and increases in social vulnerability. To counteract these disruptive
forces, governments and international organizations should influence the
processes of technological innovation and the integration of technology
into society with appropriate policies at local, national, and international

levels (DPAD, 2017).
2.3.5 Gaining insights into food system analyses through

combined quantitative modeling and qualitative
approaches
The complexity of food systems, and the interlinkages between multiple

components affecting the system, has increasingly emerged in most
recent studies. This has triggered an interest in refining foresight
methodologies so that they can better interpret such complexities (Tully,
2016). Combinations of quantitative and qualitative approaches have
delivered useful insights on sustainable food system developments.
Scenario-building exercises can be integrated with multiple models to

substantiate and quantify alternative scenarios (Mason-D’Croz et al.,
2016). Although models may not fully capture the multifaceted aspects
of the narratives built in scenarios, they can be instrumental in exploring
the complex trade-offs between agriculture and the environment under a
range of socioeconomic and climatic change assumptions that would be
more limited under more conventional scenario-building processes.
Concrete applications of this approach have been used to inform
investment proposal processes in Vietnam, to improve Cambodia’s
agricultural climate adaptation plan, and to inform Laos’s social
development programs (Mason-D’Croz et al., 2016). A similar approach
has been applied to assess diverse scenarios for sustainable energy
development in Brazil and highlight risks and technology options for the
country’s low-carbon transition (de Oliveira et al., 2016) and to assess
future irrigation water demands in southern France (Rinaudo et al.,
2013). Scenario exercises using models applied to water-resource
management have relied on narratives and expert knowledge to
overcome the limits of available databases (e.g., for describing cropping
systems) (Leenhardt et al., 2012). In some cases, combining qualitative
and quantitative approaches may also face the limits of quantifying
complex scenarios. However, it remains a valid approach to represent
feared and desired futures and discuss the costs and benefits of different
options.
Models for policy analysis have been combined with stakeholder
consultation workshops to develop projections of the business-as-usual
scenario in the fish sector (Chan et al., 2017). One added value of this
approach was to move beyond production per se (Fouilleux et al., 2017)
to the more multifaceted interactions of the fish sector with the regional
socioeconomic development of coastal and rural communities. These
interactions implied a need for stronger management and governance
models.
The need to integrate different approaches in foresight analyses was
also recently raised for the forestry sector (Hurmekoski and Hetemäki,
2013; Mora et al., 2014) and for health impact assessments, to better
focus on inequalities and uncertainties (Fehr et al., 2016).
2.3.6 Advantages of participatory techniques
One aspect of foresight methodologies that can help tailor strategic

planning to specific needs is the participation of key stakeholders in the
transformation process. Participatory schemes involving key
stakeholders in combination with back-casting techniques have been
proposed to support policy and planning at a national scale (Deep
Decarbonization Pathways Project, 2015; Schwoob et al., 2016). This
approach can be profitably used to identify organizational, institutional,
economic, and technological bottlenecks hindering transformation. Co-
shared processes of transformation can lead to concrete outcomes such as
the implementation of alternative production processes with both
economic and environmental benefits (e.g., in a pilot study in Uruguay,
improving pasture with legumes was shown to increase beef productivity
and decrease greenhouse gas emissions). Such processes can also help
identify actions to restructure food chains and food demand for
sustainability (e.g., reduction in waste and meat consumption; action to
influence consumption).
Participatory techniques can be useful for fostering coherence
between Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), concrete targets, and
sustainable development paths for each country. These pathways may
offer business opportunities in areas such as reduction of food waste in

value chains, ecosystem services, dietary switch, sustainable aquaculture,
and more. The implementation of the SDGs related to food represents a
potential market of more than US$2.3 trillion annually for the private
sector by 2030, compared with an investment required to achieve these
opportunities of approximately US$320 billion a year (AlphaBeta, 2016;
Lang et al., 2017). By 2030 these opportunities could generate up to 80

million jobs, mostly in developing countries, where small farmers and
rural entrepreneurs can heavily contribute to the supply chain (Jayne
et al., 2013; Reardon, 2016; Spann, 2017). This transformation may
generate many new opportunities. However, complex transitions
gradually create new conditions and interrelated pathways of change and
response at different social or spatial scales. These changes should be
preliminarily addressed to understand how past changes could provide
inspiration for new and transformative futures (Fazey et al., 2016).

Future scenarios can be remarkably complex owing to their
multidimensional nature (Foran et al., 2013). Participatory techniques
can help unravel this complexity (Kaivo-oja, 2017). For example,
participatory workshops, carried out over a five-year span in six Mekong
settings, were used to create narratives describing the future to see
whether an increased understanding of linkages between food, water,
energy, and poverty can affect decision makers’ approaches to achieving
desired development outcomes. Here the qualitative approach (scenario
and narratives) served as starting point to shape science and research for
a desired outcome. Participatory scenario analyses have also proven
useful when the full involvement of diverse stakeholders is needed and
when their trust must be gained. This was the case in discussions of
uncertain water demand by urban and agricultural water users as a water
management plan was being designed in Réunion Island (Graveline
et al., 2014). In this case, to involve decision makers in a completely
transparent and understandable approach, a deliberate choice was made
not to couple the qualitative approach with mathematical modeling.
Participatory analyses and actions may also encourage stakeholders to
shift from a passive attitude toward expected changes to a more proactive
approach toward resource management and climate change adaptation
(Siebrits et al., 2014; Faysse et al., 2014a, 2014b; Hertzog et al., 2017;
Bourgeois et al., 2017).
2.3.7 Adaptation pathways

Adaptation pathways are meant to provide an analytical framework for

short- and medium-term policy decisions within longer-term strategic
ambitions (Hermans et al., 2017; Saritas and Kuzminov, 2017). In this
respect, conceptualizing adaptation has been increasingly considered to
share structural and functional principles with foresight (Campeanu and
Fazey, 2014). Adaptation pathways look at people’s perceptions of
emerging changes and how they sense their vulnerability with respect to
them. The response of small rural communities to climate change could
bring added value to anticipation exercises and the study of adaptation

pathways (Shisanya and Mafongoya, 2017). In the context of forests,
understanding practitioners’ perspectives on management strategies for
climate change adaptation has contributed to the implementation of
effective measures (Delgado-Serrano et al., 2016; Nelson et al., 2016). In
the frame of adaptation, it is worth mentioning the concept of “attractors”
as a new approach in foresight for anticipating adaptation patterns in
food system analyses. Nonlinear dynamics make it virtually impossible
to predict the trajectory of adaptation of complex systems, and at the
same time they open up many possible futures. Attractors are situations
toward which a dynamic system evolves over time. Complex systems
may undergo multiple phase shifts, and these changes can be described
by attractors that represent milestones of change in adaptation patterns
(Kuhmonen, 2017). The study of adaptation pathways is gathering
increasing attention since these are considered proactive rather than
reactive processes and therefore more effective with respect to
anticipation strategies (World Economic Forum, 2017).
2.4 Relevant Drivers in Agri-Food System Analyses
A first step in foresight analysis is the identification of key drivers that

are likely to affect a system in a given time horizon. How these drivers
may shape the future is then the core of the subsequent foresight work
(Georghiou et al., 2008). The process of agreeing on key drivers is
necessary for further analysis because it forms the stakeholders’ and
experts’ understanding of what will likely drive and shape a system in a
certain time-frame. Of the 85 studies reviewed in sections 2.3.2–2.3.7, 12
studies had a more multidimensional and comprehensive approach to
food and nutrition security, with a clear indication of the drivers

considered in each of them. These studies were selected for further
analysis. The distribution of drivers in the 12 studies covering the 2012–
2017 window is reported in Figure 2.1. Although the number of studies
considered is limited, this representation identifies three clusters of
drivers (based on the number of times a driver appears in the 12 studies)
that are likeliest to shape food systems and food security in the years to
come. The recurrence of each driver in the 12 studies is an indicator of a
general understanding and/or evidence that some drivers will have a

higher impact on food systems than others.
The first cluster of drivers (which are the most represented) includes
natural resources availability, economic growth, climate change, dietary
changes, and demography. This cluster overlaps with the usual drivers
identified by Bourgeois and Sette (2017), which will affect the
transformation path in a somewhat predictable way (Koning, 2017). The
second cluster of drivers includes urbanization, technology and
innovation, trade and food prices, agri-food chain structure, and
globalization. These drivers are increasingly recognized as forces that
have the potential to shape the transformation to come (Hurlimann et al.,
2017; Smith et al., 2017; Gartaula et al., 2017). The third cluster includes
drivers related to actual food production (farm structure, production, and
production systems) and social and economic factors (social values,
policy and governance, poverty, conflicts). Some of these drivers are
obviously interlinked (Choithani, 2017; Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Kerr,
2017). For example, conflicts (cluster III) may be linked to climate
change and/or shortages of critical resources such as water (cluster I).
Similarly, urbanization (cluster II) is associated with demography and
population growth (cluster I), which may both lead to social inequality
and poverty (cluster III). Figure 2.1 shows a general consensus that
population growth and demographic changes, economic growth and
Fig. 2.1. Key drivers in each of 12 foresight studies on food and nutrition security were
counted. The 12 studies were Rastoin and Ghersi, 2012; de Haen and Réquillart, 2014;
Fanzo et al., 2015; CIRAD and INRA, 2016; SCAR, 2015; Wiggins, 2016; Global Panel
on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, 2016; Glover and Sexton, 2015; Billen
et al., 2015; Maggio et al., 2015; Mylona et al., 2016; Gokhberg et al., 2017. Drivers:
resource scarcity and availability; economic growth and power; climate change; diet
changes, food preferences, and values; demography; urbanization; technology, research,
and innovation; trade and food prices; agri-food chain structure; globalization; social
values and education; farm structure, production, and production systems; policy and
governance; poverty; and conflicts.
purchasing power, dietary changes, climate change, and natural resource

shortages (cluster I) are critical determinants of future food systems.
These drivers clearly define needs and challenges that must be addressed
and tackled (FAO, 2016). In contrast, social values (including education
and capacity building), causes of poverty (including shortages of jobs),
and conflicts, although recognized as important drivers in food system
security, are less represented in recent studies (Fouilleux et al., 2017;
Bourgeois and Sette, 2017). Moreover, relevant drivers for health and
nutrition, such as water and sanitation issues are missing entirely (Spears
et al., 2013). When we ran a search on Scopus (https://www.scopus.com)
using “food” and “foresight” as keywords, we found that none of the hits
focused on social values, poverty, and conflicts whereas most of them
focused on natural resources and sustainable production systems. This
raises the question of whether some of the less-explored drivers could

bring new insights into the current understanding of food systems and
indicate leverage points for mediating transitions to sustainability. To
explore this possibility, the following section compares the distribution
of key drivers in food security analyses (Figure 2.1) with a recent
megatrends assessment (Van Criekinge and Calenbuhr, forthcoming).
2.5 Megatrends and Less-Explored Areas in Food System

Analyses
Megatrend analyses in foresight studies are gaining attention as a

methodology that can provide qualitative insights to help identify new
horizons and changing values for large-scale, long-term driving forces
that are observable now and could have significant influence on the
future by affecting most human activities, processes, and perceptions. By
looking at a wider range of trends (i.e., social, technological,
environmental, economic, and policy related), it is possible to acquire a
holistic picture and identify less-explored impacts and linkages on a
given system, such as food systems and food security. Since megatrends
are slow yet overarching changes that influence a wide range of
activities, including food systems, it is important to highlight gaps
between megatrends and the drivers of food systems and food security
that have been considered in other recent studies (Figure 2.1). In other
words, are there underlying forces (megatrends) that may affect food
systems in the years to come and that have not been adequately
addressed or explored as potential sources of food system drivers?
A foresight knowledge-based infrastructure, the Megatrends Hub,2
has been created to foster thinking about the future and to strengthen the
development of an anticipatory culture to support policymakers in their
decision-making process. Within this working frame, a systematic
literature review of all major foresight and horizon-scanning sources
identified 14 megatrends (Van Criekinge and Calenbuhr, forthcoming).
The list of these trends was further consolidated through a series of
2TheMegatrends Hub is for the time being available only for the Joint Research Centre
(JRC). It will become widely available in 2018.
expert-based workshops and interactions with foresight and thematic

experts (Antal et al., 2016). Continually updated, the Megatrends Hub
offers a framework for systematically organizing and monitoring
potential factors of change influencing the megatrends.3
2.5.1 Fourteen megatrends identified through the Megatrends

Hub
1. Diversifying inequalities: Although global inequality between

countries, and the absolute number of people living in extreme poverty,
have been declining as poorer countries catch up with richer ones, the
gaps between the wealthiest and poorest segments of the population
within countries are widening. For the foreseeable future, the most
important social, economic, and political challenges will involve

addressing income disparities; gender inequalities; poor access to
education, healthcare, and technology; and the compounded effects of
these deficits.
2. Climate change and environmental degradation: Even if all
emissions from human activities suddenly stop, the climate will continue
to change. And if anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions continue
unabated, they will further increase global warming, ocean acidification,
desertification, and changing climate patterns. Aggravated by pollution,
overexploitation of natural resources, and environmental degradation,
3For each megatrend, the Megatrends Hub system provides a concise description and
includes information (with hyperlinks to original sources) on known developments in the
megatrend, qualitative and quantitative forecasts, projections on its evolution, and its
potential implications for policy and society. To continually review the literature to keep
the megatrends updated, the JRC horizon-scanning function is used to detect news that
might affect the megatrends and to track daily news (from European Media Monitoring,
EMM) selected by specific keywords for the respective megatrend. In addition, research,
projects, models, and other sources relevant for the European Community and related to
each megatrend are also available on the system. A new engagement tool based on the
megatrends has also been developed. The tool uses a set of cards and interactive
workshop-based processes to explore and analyze the potential implications of the
megatrends for particular policy issues and the policy actions that could address it. This
engagement tool is used to foster systemic understanding of possible implications
stemming from the entire set of megatrends, beyond the most obvious ones.
these emissions will lead to severe, pervasive, and irreversible changes

for people, assets, economies, and ecosystems around the world.
3. Increasing significance of migration: Although the share of
international migrants in the world population has not grown
significantly in recent decades, migration has intensified as a social and
political concern. Even though migration tends to have a positive impact
on economic and social development, in many parts of the world fear

seems to be growing that current levels and structure of migration are
unsustainable. Concerns about migration can result in public anxiety,
political disputes, and increasing security measures, with constraining
effects on civil liberties and freedom of movement.
4. Growing consumerism: By 2030 the consumer class is expected to
reach 5 billion people—2 billion more people with increased purchasing
power than today. Most of this growth will be in Asia: by 2030, China
and India together will represent 66% of the global middle-class

population and 59% of middle-class consumption. While the expanding
middle class could drive economic development, changes in
consumption patterns are expected to increase demand for food, water,
and energy by approximately 35%, 40%, and 50% respectively by 2030.
5. Aggravating resource scarcity: Global demand for materials
increased 10-fold during the 20th century and is set to double again by
2030 compared with 2010. Demand for water, food, energy, land, and
minerals will continue to rise substantially, given the increasing
purchasing power of a growing population. Bottlenecks in supply could
be aggravated by climate change, making natural resources increasingly
scarce and more expensive to source.
6. Increasing demographic imbalances: By 2030, the world’s
population is estimated to reach 8.5 billion, mostly getting older and
more urban than today. Change will be uneven across regions:
population growth will be rapid in many still-developing economies and
stalled—or even shrinking—in many developed countries.
7. Expanding influence of the East and global South: The shift of
global economic power from the established advanced economies in
North America, Western Europe, and Japan toward the emerging
economies in the East and South is set to continue. China overtook the
United States in 2014 as the largest economy in terms of purchasing
power parity (PPP). If present trends continue, by 2050 the economic and
political influence of the Group of 7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom) will steadily shift to
the E7 (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, and Turkey).
8. Accelerating technological change and hyperconnectivity:
Advances in genetics, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial
intelligence, photonics, quantum technologies, and other emerging

technologies, and the synergies among them, are accelerating. They are
changing the nature and speed of new scientific discoveries and are
challenging our understanding of what is possible. Hyperconnectivity,
the Internet of Things, augmented reality, and collective intelligence
systems, combined with falling costs of implementation of new
technologies, are transforming entire systems of production,
management, and governance.
9. The changing nature of work: By 2030 tech-savvy, hyperconnected

millennials will represent 75% of the workforce. Digitization, the entry
of new generations into the workforce, and longer-working older
generations are changing forms of employment, career models, and
organizational structures. Advances in technology and automation have
the potential to replace both routine and cognitive tasks while increasing
the need for new skills and creating unprecedented opportunities.
10. Diversifying education and learning: New generations and
hyperconnectivity are rapidly changing both educational needs and
modes of delivery. Advances in cognitive science, availability of
information, new pedagogical approaches, and an emphasis on lifelong
learning are diversifying interests and ways of learning, as well as access
to education. “I don't know” has become increasingly obsolete. The
historical link between education and school-based learning could
weaken in the future, with informal learning gaining more recognition.
This could have revolutionary as well as disruptive effects on the global
education landscape and the intelligence of future generations.
11. Shifting health challenges: Global health concerns are shifting.
Scientific advances and better living standards have led to longer and
healthier lives and reduced the incidence of infectious diseases.
However, obesity, malnutrition, antimicrobial resistance, and
noncommunicable diseases pose increasing health burdens.
Cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, cancer,

depression, and anxiety are only some of the symptoms of unhealthy
lifestyles, growing pollution, and other anthropogenic causes, combined
with reactive rather than preventive medicine.
12. Continuing urbanization: More than half of the world’s
population lives in cities. By 2030 the urban population share is expected
to reach 60%—some 4.9 billion people. Much of the growth in the urban
population is expected to take place in Africa and Asia. Cities
increasingly function as autonomous entities, setting social and economic
standards. Urban identity will grow in importance compared with
national identity.
13. Increasing influence of new governing systems: Governing
systems are multiplying and diversifying. The expanding influence of
nonstate actors, the emergence of a global consciousness, the prominence
of social media platforms, and the internationalization of decision

making are forming new, multilayered governing systems over
traditional decision-making structures.
14. Changing security paradigm: The nature, scope, and spectrum of
conflicts and security are changing. The emerging security paradigm is
framed by asymmetrical warfare, ever-easier access to increasingly
powerful weapons, violent extremism, conflicting motivations, and a
relatively chaotic organization of the parties involved. The
diversification of threats and actors is generating new challenges to the
defence and security communities, as well as to society as a whole.
In taking a systemic approach to the future, the 14 megatrends

consider social, technological, economic, environmental, and political
forces of change and potential disruptions that will progress over time
and may significantly alter the status quo. In taking such a broad array of
trends and examining their implications for the future of food systems,
poverty reduction, and sustainability, it is necessary to consider
implications and possible outcomes beyond the list of usual suspects.
The megatrend analysis suggests that future food and food security
systems will be also affected by trends (and/or relative drivers) that so far
have probably not been adequately explored.
Of the 14 megatrends, 6 have been well addressed by corresponding

drivers in most food system and food security foresight studies. These 6
megatrends are (1) climate change and environmental degradation; (2)
aggravating resource scarcity and growing consumerism; (3) accelerating
technological change, hyperconnectivity, and the nature of work; (4)
shifting the health challenges (diets); (5) demography and associated
demographic imbalances; and (6) continuing urbanization. (The

corresponding drivers are climate change, resource scarcity, diet
changes, demography, technology, and innovation, which all appear in
clusters I and II of Figure 2.1.) These trends are continuously evolving,
and their effects on food systems must be monitored (see other chapters
in this book). A second group of potentially game-changing megatrends,
however, is currently being insufficiently addressed in food system and
food security analyses. These include (1) diversifying inequalities
(poverty) (also in the context of continuing urbanization); (2) education

and learning; (3) the changing security paradigm; (4) the increasing
influence of new governing systems; (5) the increasing significance of
migration; and (6) the expanding influence of the East and global South.
This second group of megatrends partially reflects the less-represented
drivers in Figure 2.1, and it may require further attention in foresight
work on food and nutrition security.
2.5.2 Underexplored trends in recent foresight work
Addressing global inequality/poverty (megatrend 1; cluster III in Figure

2.1)—including income disparities; gender inequalities; lack of access to
education, healthcare, and technology; and the compounded effects of
these deficits—will continue to represent the most important social,
economic, and political challenges for the foreseeable future (de Haen
and Réquillart, 2014). With regard to food security, one of the most
prevalent inequalities exists between urban and rural areas; smallholder
and subsistence farm households are disproportionately affected by food
insecurity in comparison with urban households. The gender gap is also
particularly pronounced in rural areas, where female-headed households
are much more likely to be food insecure than male-headed households,
and where the former tend to depend much more heavily on agriculture
to secure their food supply (Tibesigwa and Visser, 2016). The issue of
inequality must also be considered in the context of continuing
urbanization (see Maggio et al., 2015) where urban food deserts (defined
as “poor, often informal, urban neighbourhoods characterised by high
food insecurity and low dietary diversity, with low levels of household
access to food” (Crush and Battersby, 2016, 13) are becoming an
increasing concern (Abebe et al., 2017).

There is a tight link between food system security and education, and
this relationship has been overlooked. Education and learning
(megatrend 10; cluster III in Figure 2.1) can play an enormous role in
counteracting emerging food-related health problems (O’Brien et al.,
2013; Fanzo et al., 2015, 2016; O’Keeffe, 2016), but at the same time
food and housing vulnerabilities may represent a critical barrier to the
academic success of university students (Silva et al., 2017). The
overarching goal of education in food and nutrition security has been

addressed in the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World
report (FAO, 2017b).
The nature, scope, and spectrum of security (megatrend 14;
“conflicts” in cluster III of Figure 2.1) also constitute an underestimated
trend in the context of secure food systems. Access to and availability of
natural resources that are essential for food security and food system
development can be the cause of conflicts. International agreements can
help prevent disputes over the use of transboundary groundwater (Müller
et al., 2017). When they occur, conflicts may cause unpredicted land use
changes, including expansion of cropland to formerly uncultivated areas,
cropland abandonment, and decreases in high-intensity cropland. What
drives conflict-related land use changes is unclear and certainly
underestimated in global food system analyses (Eklund et al., 2017).
Quantitative and qualitative assessments show that political factors play
an overwhelming role in food security in conflict zones. In contrast to the
general belief that natural resources availability and/or technological
progress are among the key drivers of food security, in conflict zones
economic, institutional, and political drivers are the main cause of food
insecurity (Woertz, 2017; Eklund et al., 2017; Jesmy et al., 2017). In this
respect, the fundamental role of governance (megatrend 13; cluster III in
Figure 2.1) in developing sustainable food systems has been
acknowledged (Candel, 2014; Maggio et al., 2015), but it deserves

further attention. The interplay between international, national, and local
institutions may cause inefficiencies and conflicts among policies if these
are not properly harmonized (Sidibé et al., 2018). This calls for strategic
thinking and fully integrating policy into food security governance
(Candel and Biesbroek, 2018). New actors (nonstate actors) and social
interests are becoming fundamental components of new forms of food

system governance, which are also developing through social media
platforms (Eakin et al., 2017).
Potential game changers that do not appear as food security drivers in
recent foresight work (see Figure 2.1) include the increasing significance
of migration (megatrend 3) and the expanding influence of the East and
global South (megatrend 7). These are also, to different extents, linked to
food security and food system scenarios (Choithani, 2017; Crush and
Tawodzera, 2017) and should be better integrated into foresight analyses.
2.6 Conclusions
The analysis in this chapter describes growing interest in foresight work

on food and nutrition security, yet it also highlights some issues that
merit further investigation and attention to better understand how to
ensure sustainable food and nutrition security. These issues may have
relevance for developing effective policies and research priorities. In-
depth foresight and strategic planning exercises could address some of
the knowledge gaps arising from this overview. Environment, resources,
consumerism, and population growth are essential components of the
security of future food systems. However, social factors—including
inequality, demographic imbalances, poverty, migration (international,
intranational, and regional), conflict, and poor governance—could
invalidate any progress in food and nutrition security. Therefore, new
research areas could emerge from a foresight-based analysis that
considers multiple components and highlights bottlenecks and
constraints in the transition from food insecurity to food security and
sustainable food systems. It is clear that a rapidly changing food security
environment must include more and increasingly diverse actors in
managing food systems and food security transitions and must develop a
strategy to encourage more and better stakeholder involvement.
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b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Part II
Food System
Threats and Challenges

b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Chapter 3
Migration, Demography, and

Agri-Food Systems
Aslihan Arslan, Eva-Maria Egger, and Paul Winters

3.1 Introduction
Migration is increasingly making the headlines as a result of geopolitical

drivers that have caused millions to migrate in the past decade.1 The
headlines mostly concern international migration from developing to
developed regions, which seem to lack organized ways of dealing with
the influx—although this type of migration makes up a small share of
global migration. More important, though less well documented, is
internal migration in developing regions, where rural-urban migration
comprises a large share of mobility (notwithstanding the different
definitions of “urban” and the reclassifications of sectors over time)
(Menashe-Oren and Stecklov, 2017). Rural-urban migration was
estimated to be four times more common than international migration in
the Human Development Report 2009 (UNDP, 2009). Assuming this
ratio still holds, we can estimate that there were around 1 billion internal
migrants in the world in 2015 (World Bank 2016a).2 It is projected that,
1The authors are indebted to David Suttie, who initiated this research, providing
invaluable insights. The authors further would like to thank two anonymous referees and
Rachid Serraj for comments on an earlier draft.
2The World Bank reported that there were 247 million international migrants in 2013 and
estimated this number to be 251 million for 2015. International migrants are defined as
87
in 2050, about 66% of the world population will reside in urban areas,
with significant differences across regions. Whereas Europe and the
Americas are expected to be over 80% urban in 2050 and Asia is
projected to be more than 60% urban, Africa will likely remain more
than 60% rural (UNDESA, 2015, fig I.3, p. 9).
The differences in demographic transition both between countries and
between rural and urban sectors within countries drive migration (among
other factors) and will continue to do so in the next couple of decades.
Aging population structures in developed regions, combined with
improved communication and mobility, increase international migration.
Recent projections show that expected international migration will be
driven almost exclusively by demographic forces, leaving a negligible
role to economic forces (Dao et al., 2018b). Demographic forces also
dominate internal migration: the demographic transition happens in the
urban sector before the rural sector, and during this transition the rural
working-age population provides the fuel for rapid urbanization
(Menashe-Oren and Stecklov, 2017).
Furthermore, internal migration is becoming cheaper. Improvements
in infrastructure not only increase trade and agricultural productivity, but
also ease the mobility of people between rural and urban areas. The
literature has further shown that migrant networks reduce the costs of
migration, and these networks grow in importance as more people join
them. With the decline in migration costs, it is expected that migration
increases, especially among the young and less risk averse. This trend is
further facilitated by improved access to information and communication
technologies (ICTs). In 2015, more than 7 billion mobile phone
subscriptions (corresponding to 98 per 100 people) existed around the
globe, making information flow faster and potentially increasing
incentives for migration by relaxing constraints on information on new
opportunities in migrant destinations (World Bank, 2016c). ICTs can
also decrease the costs of migration to the extent that mobile banking is
used to transfer remittances, which in turn could support further out-
migration of the rural population that may be otherwise cash constrained.
individuals that reside in a country different from their country of birth in the respective
year (World Bank, 2016a).
Migration, Demography, and Agri-Food Systems 89
All of these changes take place within the larger picture of structural
transformation. The transformation is characterized by increased
productivity in the agricultural sector and a growing rural nonfarm
sector, driven by urban populations with increased incomes and demand
for higher-quality and more-processed foods. This transformation has the
potential to increase farm income. Eventually, fewer people work in
agriculture and more move into higher-productivity sectors such as

manufacturing and services. Many countries in Asia and Latin America
provide successful examples of this transformation process (Suttie and
Vargas-Lundius, 2016). Many African countries, however, have
experienced urbanization without growth in per capita incomes, which
can lead to adverse outcomes such as urban poverty and inequality (Fay
and Opal, 2000; Proctor, 2014; Fox et al., 2013). Furthermore, social
norms in some regions restrict female out-migration. This leads to a
feminization of agriculture in rural areas, where women are often

constrained in terms of access to productive assets, potentially slowing
down the rural transformation process (Suttie and Vargas-Lundius,
2016). Migration into urban centers without the advancement of rural
and structural transformation thus generates major issues, but migration
within dynamic transformation is an essential ingredient toward higher
incomes for the whole population.
As part of the structural transformation process, agri-food systems
(AFSs) have become increasingly important in terms of their
contributions to GDP, food security, and livelihoods. This shift has been
prompted by structural changes in how the world economy is organized,
including globalization, technological change, urbanization, and dietary
change (IFAD, 2016; Reardon, 2015; Reardon et al., 2015). Agri-food
systems, which include farming, food and fiber manufacturing, and trade,
provide about 80% of the jobs in developing countries, where farming is
still the dominant employer. Farm size has declined in all developing
regions in recent decades, in contrast with the growth in farm size that
occurred during the transformation of today’s industrialized countries.
These small farms experienced rapid income growth—often described as
a “reverse transition”—owing to a shift in their production toward
higher-value produce and diversification into nonfarm work.3 Migration

is part of this diversification trend, as household members move to other
locations for permanent or temporary/seasonal nonfarm work. Other
households might not migrate but nevertheless become more mobile by
commuting into nearby growing small towns. Given the emerging
patterns of urbanization that increasingly connect rural-urban supply
chains (“the quiet revolution”), agri-food systems are projected to

maintain their significance in the next couple of decades, especially in
Latin America, Asia, and Africa, with implications for migration, among
other development outcomes (Reardon, 2015; Reardon et al., 2015).
Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa stand out from the rest of the world
because of their population age structures, poverty rates, and agriculture
dependence (i.e. early stages of rural transformation) and because they
are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts (IPCC, 2014; AGRA,
2016). Africa is projected to remain the youngest region in the world; the
median age will rise from 18 in 2015 to only 21 in 2035 and 24 in 2050.
In the rest of the world, the median age in 2050 will be more than 35
years old (and much higher in developed regions), creating a big age gap
that will drive demographic change and migration. More than two-thirds
of the rural young in Africa already work in agriculture, and they are
likely to remain dependent on agriculture even if the nonfarm sector
develops extremely rapidly (Fox et al., 2013; Filmer and Fox, 2014).
More than other regions, Africa and Asia therefore find themselves at the
intersection of major trends that will shape both their own and global
economic outlook in the next couple of decades.
Understanding the implications of major demographic and migration
trends for agriculture in general, and agri-food systems in particular, is
crucial for a successful research, investment, and policy agenda toward
2030 and beyond. Although international migration accounts for only
one in five migrants in the world, it is better documented and studied
than internal migration partly because of its political importance and
partly because of the relative ease of obtaining data. This chapter will
bring together existing knowledge and data on the latest trends in internal
migration to shed light on the emerging rural landscape and to help
3See chapter by Peter Hazell, this volume.

determine what research and investments are needed to ensure

sustainable rural development toward 2050. Given the challenges posed
by climate change to the sustainability of any forward-looking
investments or policies, it will also discuss the role of climate change in
shaping this outlook to the extent possible given data limitations and
inherent uncertainties.4
The next section of this chapter first describes the traditional

pathways of rural transformation and the role of rural-urban migration
within them, before proposing a conceptual framework for emerging
trends. Section 3.3 then documents demographic trends for rural and
youth populations in developing regions. In section 3.4, we explain the
data and methodology used to estimate future internal migration rates.
We present migration estimates by age group and gender, put them into
regional context, and relate them to trends in rural transformation. In
section 3.5, we review the evidence on climate change impacts on

migration patterns, and in section 3.6 we briefly discuss the nascent
literature on seasonal migration before concluding in section 3.7.
3.2 Traditional Pathways and Emerging Trends
The well-established literature on structural change and economic growth

posits that productivity growth in agriculture pushes labor out of rural
areas (Gollin et al., 2002; Michaels et al., 2012) and productivity growth
in the industrial sector pulls people out of agriculture into cities (Lewis,
1954; Hansen and Prescott, 2002; Lucas, 2004). Lewis’s classical dual-
sector model of the economy (1954) implies that because of surplus labor
in agriculture, population growth provides continuous labor to the
industrial sector, where investments can spur growth, while agriculture
plays no direct role in growth. Gollin et al. (2002) show, however, that
low agricultural productivity is related to delayed industrialization
theoretically and empirically. Thus, the role of agriculture cannot be
detached from industrial growth, and the conclusion of dual-sector
models that labor scarcity holds back industrial development does not
4Fora detailed description of climate vulnerability assessment in agriculture, see chapter

by Ruane and Rosenzweig, this volume.
hold empirically. Agriculture’s main role in industrialization in these

models is to supply labor while keeping food prices, and thus labor costs,
low (Lele and Mellor, 1981). This model works only if agricultural
output does not decline in response to out-migration of labor—an
outcome that can only be achieved through technological change in
agriculture. Consequently, agricultural productivity growth is a
precondition for growth in other sectors.

Rural-urban migration in these macro models was implied and not
necessarily dealt with explicitly as a force that can shape the
transformation and related welfare outcomes. As connectivity between
rural and urban areas increases and growing shares of populations live in
intermediate-size cities, seasonal and circular migration becomes even
more significant for agricultural transformation (Anh, 2003; Srivastava,
2005; Tacoli, 2011; Tacoli and Agergaard, 2017). Although most
traditional models of structural change and migration assumed labor

productivity in the agricultural sector to be lower than in the nonfarm
sector (e.g., Lewis, 1954; Kuznets, 1966), recent research has shown that
with better data on time use, along with analysis that takes into account
the seasonality of agriculture, the productivity differences can decrease
significantly or disappear (McCullough, 2017). Measuring agricultural
labor remains, however, difficult, and productivity might often be
underestimated (Arthi et al., 2018). Consequently, a final judgment on
productivity differences has yet to be made. Some productivity
differences might also be due to skill differences when more skilled
individuals select into migration leaving the rural areas (Hicks et al.,
2017). In other settings, migrant workers appear to be negatively selected
(have lower skills than those who do not migrate), with different welfare
implications for rural origins and urban destinations (Lagakos et al.,
2018). Combined with the ever-expanding role of the agri-food system in
the rural economy, as well as the magnitudes of internal migration and
climate change impacts, these trends call for a shift in attention in
migration literature toward internal migration as well as seasonal and
temporary mobility.
Migration literature had traditionally explained the decision to
migrate as an individual decision based purely on private economic
benefits of the action in two locations (Harris and Todaro, 1970;
Sjastaad, 1962). The impacts of migration on sending communities did

not matter, until the new economics of labor migration (NELM)
acknowledged that the migration decision, especially in rural areas, is a
household decision to deal with market constraints and that there are
costs and benefits that go beyond the individual in question (Stark and
Bloom, 1985). NELM also broke with previous thinking in explicitly
acknowledging the impact of migration on sending areas that are

primarily agriculture-dependent rural communities (Taylor 1999). The
incentives for migration and its impacts in the emerging rural/peri-urban
landscape can be analyzed within this framework.
The traditional push factors of migration (summarized in Figure 3.1)
are more likely to affect youth, who are usually constrained in terms of
access to land and financial resources and are more likely to be
unemployed (World Bank and IFAD, 2017). Some pull factors also
assert a stronger effect on youth as better infrastructure, access to

technology, jobs, and education attract them into secondary towns and
cities (e.g., Atnafu et al., 2014). The new urbanization patterns—with
increasingly important secondary towns and mid-sized cities, where agri-
food value chains create employment opportunities—decrease the
monetary and psychic costs of migration while increasing its benefits
(Christiaensen et al., 2013). This new landscape also makes seasonal
migration more likely.
Demographic change provides the backdrop of the above processes.
During the demographic transition, mortality declines before fertility,
and it does so first in urban areas. Rural fertility rates are the last to
decline, creating rural-urban migration incentives for specific age groups,
and these incentives can be gender differentiated depending on the
context (Menashe-Oren and Stecklov, 2017). As a consequence, the rural
sex and age structures become distorted and in some cases may result in
the “feminization of agriculture.”
In places where female mobility is restricted by social norms, the
majority of migrants tend to be male, leaving women to take over farm
management. Although this process could potentially empower women
by giving them control of the production process (e.g., Etzold et al.,
2015), in a setting of restricted access to resources for women, it can
have negative implications for productivity. For Asia, evidence suggests
that women reduce their labor force participation as a result of

disincentives created by remittances or social norms restricting
employment outside their home while their husband is absent. Some
studies show women’s increased engagement in both off-farm and on-
farm work, whereas other studies indicate an increase in hired labor to
take over the “male” activities (Mueller et al., 2015). Feminization of
agriculture can also lead to changes in production arrangements, from

sharecropping to rental arrangements, with often lower productivity
(Lahiri-Dutt and Adhikari, 2016). Restricted access to resources such as
credit or land can eventually lead women to follow their husbands and
migrate as a form of escape (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007) especially in
contexts of environmental distress (Gray and Mueller, 2012) or lack of
opportunities in off-farm work.
These traditional and emerging spheres of rural-urban migration are
conceptualized in Figure 3.1 within the context of structural change,

demography, and current trends in agri-food system value chains.
Moving from top to bottom, the duality in the traditional rural-urban
spheres is being increasingly blurred by the emerging importance of mid-
sized cities and towns and the radiation of the agri-food system
boundaries toward the rural space. This blurring of the rural-urban divide
also facilitates seasonal migration (Tacoli et al., 2015), a topic in serious
need of attention from research and investment communities. Climate
change is placed in the middle as it affects all the factors and actors in
this landscape in various ways that also need to be accounted for in a
forward-looking conceptual framework.
Fig. 3.1. Changing spheres of rural and urban migration in the context of rural
transformation, demographic change, and climate change.
Note: AFS = agri-food system.
3.3 Demographic Trends: Rural and Youth Population

Projections
Rural transformation is a key ingredient for economic development, and

it can contribute to poverty reduction. The transformation process is
shaped, on the one hand, by modernization of agriculture and, on the
other, by changes in the workforce driven by demographic transition and
labor mobility across sectors. In this section, we document projected
trends in rural and urban population projections of country groups by
income and region. Specific attention is given to the projections of the
youth population (15 to 24 years old; UNDESA, 2011), which is
expected to grow further in some regions with poor rural employment
prospects. Youth are less likely to be employed than adults, and they
often work in vulnerable jobs (World Bank and IFAD, 2017), therefore
play an important role in rural-urban migration trends to be analyzed in

the next section.
Of equal interest are gender differences in migration patterns, which
are also incorporated in the analysis of the next section. Young women in
particular face constraints to their mobility and to their participation in
economic activities owing to social norms, potentially leading to a
double burden based on age as well as gender. Including the large

number of rural youth of both genders in the transformation process is a
key challenge of the coming decades.
Figure 3.2 shows rural population projections based on UN World
Urbanization Prospects data grouped by income levels (UNDESA,
2015).
Fig. 3.2. Rural population projections by income status.
The world’s rural population is projected to slowly decline from 3.4

million in 2015 to 3.2 million by 2050, but it will continue to grow in
some countries, especially in those with lower incomes. While expected
to increase until 2030 before declining in lower-middle-income

countries, the rural population is projected to continue to decline in
upper-middle- and high-income countries. Regionally, rural population
growth is expected to continue in Africa, while slowing and declining in
Asia as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean (see Figure 3.3).5
Fig. 3.3. Rural population projections by region.
Similar regional growth patterns are projected for the youth

population in general—i.e., without the rural-urban distinction (Figure
3.4). Especially for African countries, which fall primarily into the low-
income and lower-middle-income groups, this “youth bulge” yields an
immense opportunity, though not without challenges. It is important to
note, however, that this bulge is only relative to other regions; in absolute
terms, the share of youth in the total population has been declining in
Africa (Tschirley and Reardon, 2016).
5See Tables A.1 and A.2 in Appendix A for a list of countries in each income category
and geographical classification, respectively.
Fig. 3.4. Youth population projections by region.
During the process of structural and rural transformation, new

opportunities emerge in both the agri-food system and the nonfarm
sectors of rural areas, with the potential to absorb the youth bulge in
productive employment, though meeting the skills demanded in these
sectors remains a challenge. Furthermore, increasing rural-urban linkages
are expected to provide incentives for both permanent and seasonal rural-
urban migration.
3.4 Rural-Urban Migration Trends
3.4.1 Data gaps and challenges
Several initiatives were undertaken in the past to improve data collection

on international migration,6 but data limitations remain a major
constraint for research on internal migration (see de Brauw et al., 2014;

UNDESA, 2011). Population censuses can offer information on internal
migration, but such data remain sparse in developing countries or they
are inconsistent in terms of definitions and measurements across
countries and regions (Bell et al., 2015; UNDESA, 2015).7
In the absence of recent and comparable data on rural-urban
migration in the developing regions of the world, we draw on population
data and demographic methods. The data on rural and youth populations
used to compute rural-to-urban migration rates come from the Population
Division within the Department of Economic and Social Affairs in the
United Nations (UNDESA). For estimates of youth migration, we rely on
World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, which provides
population by age in the urban and rural sectors for the years 1980 to
2015 (UNDESA, 2015). Projections of total population and rural
population up to 2050 come from the same source, and we employ the
medium-variant projections to compute rural-to-urban migration rates
and project youth migration rates. World Population Prospects: The
2017 Revision (UNDESA, 2017) offers projections of population by age
applying a medium variant, which we use to project youth migration
rates. From the same source, we obtain the total fertility rate in 2015 to
define the stage of the fertility transition for each country. Data on life
expectancy at birth in 2015 from World Development Indicators are used
6See, for example, the United Nations Global Migration Database, the World Bank’s
Global Bilateral Migration Databank, the International Migration Database of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International
Organization for Migration’s (IOM’s) Displacement Tracking Matrix, and the IOM
Missing Migrants Project.
7The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC) initiative makes Latin America and the Caribbean an exception; census data
collected in most countries there now include modules on migration (UNDESA, 2011).
to define differences in survival rates across income categories (World

Bank, 2016c).
We combine the above data with data on rural transformation
compiled for the Rural Development Report 2016 to analyze the
differences in demographic and migration trends by the stage of rural
transformation (IFAD, 2016).
3.4.2 Methodology
3.4.2.1 Projections of migration rates
Population data and projections disaggregated by sector (rural/urban) are

available for a long time period, and combined with a demographic
methodology, they offer an alternative to standard rural-urban migration

estimates. We apply the survival ratio method (SRM) to compute
migration rates for every five years from 1985 to 2050 (see Menashe-
Oren and Stecklov, 2017; UNDESA, 2002).
The survival ratio is the observed population in a given period
relative to the population in the previous period. Under some simplifying
assumptions, the expected rural population is computed by multiplying
the past observed rural population with the rural survival ratio. This
predicted rural population is then compared with the observed rural
population. The difference between expected and observed rural
populations is defined as rural net-migration. If more people were
expected to live in rural areas than observed in the data, we can deduce
that more people moved from rural to urban areas than the other way
around. A technical description of this method appears in Appendix B.
The implied assumptions are threefold. First, it is assumed that
survival in rural areas lies below that in urban areas owing to
documented higher mortality in rural areas (UNDESA, 2001). Second,
the observed difference is assigned only to internal migration and not to
reclassification of rural areas as urban. Third, this approach does not
account for international migration. In most countries, it is much less
likely for people to migrate internationally from a rural area than from an
urban area (Liu, 2013). Given the focus of this chapter on movements out
of rural areas, this limitation is not expected to affect our analysis

significantly, even less so for youth migration as demonstrated by
Menashe-Oren and Stecklov (2017) for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Our methodology requires separate survival rates for rural and urban
areas. Some studies assume the rural survival rate to be 25% lower than
the urban rate (Menashe-Oren and Stecklov, 2017; UNDESA, 2001), but
we allow this factor to vary by the development status of a country.

While existing studies looked only at Sub-Saharan Africa, we include
other regions, where mortality is known to be lower than in Sub-Saharan
Africa. We assume that the rural survival ratio in low-income countries is
75% of the urban survival ratio following the literature. For countries in
other income groups, we use the factor by which life expectancy in 2015
was higher than that of low-income countries and multiply this by the
75% of the urban survival rate. As a result, the rural survival ratio we use
is 18% lower than the urban survival ratio in lower-middle-income

countries, 9% lower in higher-middle-income countries, and 2% lower in
high-income countries. This procedure is applied to the data from 1980
to 2050 for the total population. There are no population projections for
the rural and urban sectors by gender, so we can compute gender-
differentiated rural survival rates only up to 2015.
3.4.2.2 Youth migration rates
Although the UN provides population projections for urban and rural

areas, these projections do not differentiate between age groups in these
sectors. We therefore project rural-urban youth migration rates using
population data by age group in rural areas for the years 1980 to 2015.
We first calculate the implied youth migration rate based on the cohort
survival for this period. From this, we extract youth migrants as a share
of all migrants in that period. Future youth migration rates are then
predicted by multiplying this youth migrant share by the projected total
migration rates.
Naturally, the future share of youth migration depends on the overall
youth share in the rural population. This share strongly relates to a
country’s stage in the fertility transition and its progress in rural
transformation. We therefore group the countries by their stage in the
fertility transition. The fertility transition groups are based on a country’s

total fertility rate in 2015. Those countries with high fertility rates are
expected to experience increasing shares of youth among migrants,
whereas this share is likely to be small and declining for countries with
low fertility rates. A linear relationship is fit to the share of youth
migration over the observed period from 1980 to 2015, and from this we
predict the expected trend of youth migrant shares until 2050 for each
country group by fertility transition stage.8 The expected youth migration
is therefore the predicted youth migrant share multiplied by the predicted
total number of migrants. The migration rate can then be computed by
dividing the number of youth migrants by the rural population in the
previous period.
We follow the UN definition of youth, which includes people aged 15
to 24 years. We compare them with adults, who are the aggregated group
of everyone 25 years old or older. While acknowledging that migration

trends probably look different for specific age groups within this broad
definition of adults, we do not further disaggregate by age given the
focus of this study on the mobility of rural youth. Furthermore, our focus
on youth implicitly allows us to draw conclusions about the sectoral
concentration of older age groups in the future, because the youth of
today will be the adults of the coming decades in our projections.
3.4.2.3 Aggregation of migration rates
To draw a global picture of rural-urban migration, we aggregate country

migration rates to the regional level and to the level of income groups,
following the World Bank definitions (see Appendix A for the complete
list of countries by category). Instead of using simple averages, we use
lowess smoothing in our graphs, running robust locally weighted
regressions (Cleveland, 1979). The weights are based on the centrality of
an observation, meaning that observations farther away from the data
8Azose et al. (2016) show that probabilistic population predictions are barely different
from those allowing for migration uncertainty in Africa, Asia, and globally, whereas they
are different in Northern America and Europe. We can, therefore, assume that our
projections for middle- and low-income countries would not look significantly different if
the underlying population projections were produced based on a model that allows for
migration uncertainty.
point of interest obtain lower weights and vice versa. This process is
repeated for each data point, and then the predicted values can be
connected. This approach allows for a smoother display of the data
compared with a linear or polynomial fit, which could result in
excessively simplistic lines or extreme ends, respectively.
3.4.2.4 Methodological assumptions and their implications
The computation of rural survival rates as described above is based on

strong assumptions. One is that the rural survival rate lies below the
urban one—an assumption based on the empirical observation of higher
mortality in rural areas. This assumption also implies that for our
projections, this relationship remains constant over time. It is, however,
plausible that with income growth over the coming decades rural
mortality will decline. This change would lead to an overestimation of

rural out-migration. The population projections assume a medium variant
of mortality and fertility trends but do not differentiate between rural and
urban mortality. Considering that mortality changes before fertility and
that mortality affects the older cohorts, we are less concerned about our
estimates for youth migration rates.
Another potential issue is that mortality rates might vary by age
group, with higher mortality differentials between sectors for young
children and lower differentials for older adults. Menashe-Oren and
Stecklov (2017) demonstrate that this would not affect the migration
estimates for young cohorts, who are the focus of this study.
It is important to emphasize that the method applied to project
migration rates cannot differentiate between migration and the
reclassification of rural into urban areas. Theoretically, the documented
patterns therefore can also capture urbanization—for example, through
the growth of small cities. However, the projections up to 2050 are based
on the latest available administrative boundaries—thus a constant
classification of rural and urban areas. In some cases it was not possible
to create consistent rural-urban boundaries for past population data
(UNDESA, 2015), so our estimates partially capture reclassification. One
should, therefore, read the migration estimates as a combination of rural-
urban migration and to a small extent urbanization of previously rural
areas. The age profile of migration is not expected to look different for
low or high reclassification rates (Menashe-Oren and Stecklov, 2017).
3.4.3 Projections of rural-urban migration rates

3.4.3.1 Global view
The overall rural-urban migration rate averaged over five-year periods is

projected to decline globally from around 2.5% between 2010 and 2015
to 1.8% between 2045 and 2050. In spite of this decline, 175 million
people are still expected to migrate out of rural areas between these two
years.
Fig. 3.5. Rural-to-urban migration trends by age group and geographical region from
1985 to 2050. Note: MENA = Middle East and North Africa.
Figure 3.5 depicts the rural-to-urban migration trends for youth and
adults by geographic region. Given the expected growth rate of the youth
population and the total rural population in the African continent, youth
migration from rural to urban areas is projected to increase rapidly in

Sub-Saharan Africa as well as in the Middle East, North Africa, and
Central Asia. In Sub-Saharan Africa, adult rates of internal migration
remain steady at a low level of 1%, whereas young people in this region
are expected to reach a migration rate of 2% by 2050. While youth and
adults in Africa had similar migration rates at the beginning of the study
period, youth are already forming a faster-growing share of internal

migrants and are expected to form the most mobile group of migrants in
the coming decades.
In the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, migration rates
had dropped in past decades but are projected to increase again to 2% for
youth and about 2.5% for adults. In Asia and the Pacific, youth and adult
migration rates have declined and are expected to stabilize around 2%
and 2.5%, respectively. In Latin America and the Caribbean, migration
rates have already declined and are projected to remain under 2% for
young people in the next decades, but a slight increase to about 2.5% is
expected for adult migration. In these regions, in contrast to Sub-Saharan
Africa, adult migration rates exceed that of youth.
Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, North Africa, and Central
Asia are the two regions projected to see a rapid increase in rural-urban
migration rates, but it also appears that migration rates were lower in
these regions than in the other two regions until 2015. Migration rates
have been especially low in Sub-Saharan Africa. Another interesting
finding is that youth migration rates in Sub-Saharan Africa exceed those
of adults and are diverging, whereas in other regions youth migration
rates are below adult rates and follow similar patterns (with the exception
of Latin America and the Caribbean, where adult migration rates are
increasing).
These patterns of adult and youth migration are also reflected in the
income levels of most African countries (see Figure 3.6). Low- and
lower-middle-income countries are expected to see an increase in youth
migration out of rural areas, and they lie above adult migration rates in
low-income countries, where they grow fastest. Low-income countries
are also expected to see a significant divergence between youth and adult
migration rates. This contrasts with the steady level of migration into
urban areas in upper-middle-income countries and the decline of
migration in high-income countries—two country groups where youth

migration rates remain below those of adults. These patterns confirm the
inverted U-shaped relationship between migration and income as
suggested by Zelinsky (1971), extending it to internal migration by
different age groups.9 In line with the demographic transition stages,
rural survival rates increase with income, and thus rural-urban migration
rates decline at high income levels.

Fig. 3.6. Rural-to-urban migration trends by income group from 1985 to 2050.
African countries in particular will need to embrace the opportunity

of a large and mobile youth population that could reap the benefits of
improved rural-urban linkages within the agri-food system. Previous
studies suggest that migration into urban areas due to lack of
opportunities in the rural sector is prevalent in Africa and may cause
9Zelinsky (1971) introduced the “mobility transition” curve, where the out-migration rate
is low at low levels of development owing to financial constraints; it increases toward the
middle as economies develop, increasing the ability and incentives to migrate; and it
starts decreasing after a threshold (see Dao et al. [2018a] for an empirical test of this
theory for international migration).
increased urban poverty, inequality, and unrest (Suttie and Vargas-

Lundius, 2016). Hence, the integration of rural and urban sectors in the
agri-food system is especially important for these countries in order to
foster rural transformation and avoid adverse outcomes for future
generations.
Fig. 3.7. Rural-to-urban migration trends of men and women, youth and adults, by region
from 1985 to 2015. Note: MENA = Middle East and North Africa.
3.4.3.2 Rural-urban migration by gender
Migration propensity out of rural areas can vary by gender owing, for
example, to social norms, which may assign the role of income provider
to males, who move away to earn money if needed. In some countries
relatively more women might move for marriage than men. Figure 3.7
shows that these patterns are not generalizable and that significant
heterogeneities exist across regions and age groups in terms of gender-
differentiated internal migration rates.
Globally, male migration rates have been minimally higher than those
of women. This gap is most pronounced in MENA and Central Asia and
has increased in the past decade, likely because of very strict norms
around gender roles that constrain women’s mobility in this region. Sub-
Saharan Africa shows lower female migration rates, moving parallel with
those of men. This gender gap is larger among young people than among
adults. In Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, there does not
seem to be a large difference between the gender groups, but it is
interesting to observe that the female migration rate slightly exceeded
that of males in Latin America and the Caribbean until 2000, with a
small uptick again by 2015. This pattern appears stronger among young
migrants.
3.4.3.3 Trends in agri-food systems and rural-urban migration
Measuring the modernization of agri-food systems in a global

comparison is challenging given that it implies the availability of
comparable data on agricultural output, food processing, transport, retail
management, mid-sized city growth, and rural nonfarm employment.
Given the lack of such data for the sample of our migration analysis, we
first review existing evidence based on regional or country-level analyses
that investigate the relationship between modernizing agri-food systems,
demography, and employment. Then we document some indicative
trends for which data are available.
In a general equilibrium calibration, Dorosh and Thurlow (2012)
simulate the role of towns in contrast to cities in Ethiopia and Uganda
under a scenario of increased rural-urban migration. With higher
urbanization, the rural-urban wage gap declines, benefiting farmers, who
can sell at higher prices and face lower underemployment. Uganda, with
a large agro-processing sector, experiences faster agricultural GDP
growth. Investment in the rural sector is projected to lead to higher
migration as workers seek employment in urban industries and can do so
as agricultural production increases. These results suggest that the
benefits of secondary towns depend on the economic structure of the
countries investigated. With respect to the role of urban centers for
agricultural development, Vandercasteelen et al. (2016) find that
agricultural production in Ethiopia significantly benefits from proximity

to a big city, owing to improved access to formal factor markets, lower
transaction costs, and better information.
The modernization of the agri-food system is driven by a growing
urban middle class demanding higher-value and mostly processed foods
(Reardon et al., 2015). Employment trends based on full-time labor
equivalents show a decline in farming’s share of total employment in

nine African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda,
Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) since 2000. In contrast, the agri-food
system segments of employment are rapidly expanding (Kwame-Yeboah
and Jayne, 2017).
Social norms often restrict women’s access to resources, services, and
training that would enhance their productive participation in agri-food
systems (Hussein and Suttie, 2016). Despite that, Tschirley et al. (2015)
report that 4.2 million women are employed in nonfarm jobs in Sub-
Saharan Africa compared with 3.6 million men, underlining the
importance of this sector for female employment, especially in contexts
where manual farm work is considered “male” work (Proctor, 2014).
Case studies document women’s engagement in food preparation away
from home (e.g., Reardon et al., 2015) as one of the most common
female activities in agri-food systems.
Opportunities in agri-food systems are especially relevant for youth.
Youth unemployment is higher among women than men, especially in
the Middle East and North Africa (World Bank and IFAD, 2017).
Economic inactivity is high among young Africans—this is mostly due
to pursuit of higher education, but for young women it is also due to
child bearing and rearing in this age group (Kwame-Yeboah and Jayne,
2017). This situation could have negative implications for women’s
employment prospects when they want to return to the labor force,
demonstrating the double burden faced by young women.
Tschirley et al. (2015) use data from six countries in East and
Southern Africa (Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and
Zambia) to project changing demand structures for processed food and
implications for employment in farming, nonfarm portion of the agri-
food sector, and other nonfarm sectors under fast (4.5%) and slow (2%)
economic growth scenarios for the years 2025 and 2040. In the baseline
period, agri-food system jobs comprise 80% of total employment, 90%

of rural employment, and 60% of urban jobs. Under the fast-growth
scenario, the farm workforce grows, but its share falls and nonfarm
sectors account for most job growth (66%) by 2025, of which nonfarm
agri-food sectors capture around 18%. By 2040 farming will account for
only 23% of employment, and nonfarm agri-food jobs for 19%. With a
more modest expectation of growth at 2%, this result changes to about

50% and 14%, respectively.
Overall, these analyses demonstrate that, while the nonfarm agri-food
sector contributes little to overall job growth because of its small starting
share, the overall amount of employment in nonfarm agri-food systems
more than doubles. Further, the results reflect the process of structural
transformation, where overall labor productivity grows fast as workers
move out of farming and into higher-productivity sectors.
Using data from the Rural Development Report 2016 (IFAD, 2016),
we investigate the relationship between migration rates and several
variables used as indicators of agri-food system transformation. One of
these indicators—the share of employment in the non-agricultural
sector—is positively correlated with rural-urban migration rates for the
past two decades globally and for all regions.
We also look at the relationship between the value added per worker
in agriculture and rural-urban migration rates (Figure 3.8). This indicator
reflects another important aspect of changing agri-food systems: in line
with the theories of structural and rural transformation, we find that
higher migration rates are positively correlated with a more productive
agricultural sector.
Fig. 3.8. Correlation of the value added per worker in agriculture and rural-urban
migration rates by region. Note: MENA = Middle East and North Africa.
We use the rural transformation typology (i.e., slow versus fast

transformers) of the 2016 Rural Development Report and display the
projected rural out-migration rates by age group for countries in these
two categories in Figure 3.9. A fast-transforming country is one that
experienced average agricultural productivity growth (measured by the
agricultural value added per worker) greater than the regional average
over the period 1990–2014 (IFAD, 2016).
The countries that have so far transformed only slowly can expect to
experience a rapid increase in migration into urban areas, whereas in
those countries that transformed fast, the rural exodus of the population
is slowing. The internal migration rates of both groups seem to be
converging to around 2% in the long run.
This expected growth in rural out-migration is dominated by a higher
youth migration rate that has been above adult rates in slow-transforming
countries so far. In contrast, the fast transformation was accompanied by
fast-growing migration rates, especially of adults. Youth migration rates

increased as well, but to a lesser extent.
Fig. 3.9. Projected migration rates by speed of rural transformation, 1985–2050.
Another interesting result is that the slow-transforming countries have

displayed not only higher youth migration rates, but also a larger gender
gap in the mobility of youth (Figure 3.10). There is no difference
between the migration rates of male and female adults, irrespective of the
speed of transformation.
According to these projections, rural-urban migration is expected to
increase alongside the rural transformation process. The countries that
transformed fast in the past experienced a similarly steep increase in the
migration rate during that transformation; the same pattern is projected
for the slow transformers in the coming decades, suggesting a
convergence process. The indicators used here to reflect the transforming
rural sector are somewhat limited, because part of the value added within
the agri-food system is attributed not to agriculture but to manufacturing
or services. The positive relationship between non-agricultural

employment and migration mentioned above supports the argument that
migrants find opportunities off the farm, but it is not possible to
determine whether these opportunities are within agri-food systems or
outside of them, or in rural areas, small towns, or large cities. Kwame-
Yeboah and Jayne (2017) demonstrate that agri-food system jobs are
expected to grow, but their share remains relatively small (for nine
African countries). Evidence is lacking on the capacity of agri-food
sectors to absorb youth workers and how much of this capacity requires
these workers to be mobile. The forthcoming Rural Development Report
on rural youth will address these issues (IFAD, forthcoming).
Fig. 3.10. Estimated migration rates of men and women, youth and adults, by speed of
rural transformation, 1985–2015.
To summarize the presented relationships between regional clusters,

rural transformation speeds, and migration rates, the alluvial graph in
Figure 3.11 displays these connections. Each flowing bar between two
categories represents the number of countries that fall into this category
by its size.
Fig. 3.11. Alluvial graph of countries by categories: region, average migration rate
projected for 2020 to 2050, and rural transformation speed up to 2015.
Note: APR = Asia and the Pacific; LAC = Latin America and the Caribbean; MENACA =
Middle East and North Africa and Central Asia; SSA = Sub-Saharan Africa. Graphs were
produced using the application from rawgraphs.io.
The graph reveals the heterogeneity within regions regarding the level
of demographically driven rural-urban migration rates expected for the
next decades.10 Countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central
Asia are highly diverse, some with very low rates of migration and others
with migration rates higher than 5%. Relatively more countries in Asia
and Latin America and the Caribbean have migration rates of 4% or
higher, but a few countries are still expected to have very low levels of
migration. Despite our projections of increasing migration rates in Sub-
Saharan Africa, rates remain at low levels in global comparison. More
10Note that the migration rate in this graph is for the whole population (youth, adults, and
children combined) and therefore differs from the figures in previous graphs. The total
projected migration rate is converging toward 5% globally.
than half of the countries in this region are expected to see migration
rates of only up to 3%, and another large group of countries is projected
to have migration rates between 3 and 4%. More than half of the
countries that have been experiencing faster rural transformation than
their regional average are expected to have levels of migration rates of
3% or more. The pattern for slow transformers is similarly diverse. This
finding confirms the heterogeneity in the experience of rural

transformation within regions, where Sub-Saharan Africa stands out as
the only region with a majority of slow-transforming countries.
The projection exercise demonstrated in this chapter cannot account
for pathways that diverge from past patterns, whether through major
shocks to economies or fertility that may be caused by conflict or natural
disasters, or through slow-onset changes resulting from climatic change
and their interactions with the agri-food system. Based on existing
studies, it can be assumed that climate and environmental factors

influence migration decisions and will do so even more in the coming
decades. We discuss these interactions in the next section.
3.5 Climate Change, Migration, and Demography
Climate change affects both urban and rural sectors, and how these
impacts compare depends on the type of change brought about by
climate change. While extreme weather events may have higher costs in
urban centers given the high population densities (and the fact that most
cities are around oceans, seas, or rivers), slow-onset changes, such as
increased temperatures, decreased rainfall, and shifting seasonal patterns,
are more likely to affect rural livelihoods that depend on agriculture. In a
comprehensive study, Rigaud and coauthors estimate that
just over 143 million people … could be forced to move within their own countries
to escape the slow-onset impacts of climate change (Rigaud et al., 2018, p. xix).
In spite of the alarming tone of “climate refugee” discussions, the

verdict on whether climate change will significantly increase migration is
still unclear in empirical literature—mainly because of the inherent
nonlinearities that have been overlooked. Migration decisions are as
much a function of the ability to migrate as incentives to do so, and

climate change decreases the former while it increases the latter
(Gemenne, 2011; Black et al., 2011). These effects interact with the
established inverse-U relationship between out-migration and income
levels—i.e., the migration transition curve—further complicating these
types of studies (Zelinsky, 1971). Climate change depresses agricultural
incomes, making it harder to afford migration but also increasing the

need to look for other income sources. These effects are challenging to
disentangle empirically, especially when they stem not from an extreme
weather event, such as a hurricane, but from slow-onset changes over a
long period. The more recent and growing literature on climate
variability and migration finds that increased temperatures significantly
increase international and rural-urban migration at the country or
subnational level, and this effect is more pronounced in agriculture-
dependent countries (Missirian and Schlenker, 2017; Cattaneo and Peri,

2016; Cai et al., 2016, Barrios et al., 2006).
Micro-econometric studies on climate change and migration have
also multiplied recently thanks to the availability of climate and panel
household data (Jessoe et al., 2016; Mastrorillo et al., 2016; Dallmann
and Millock, 2017). Though most of this literature does not analyze
youth separately, a micro-econometric study using 16 censuses from
eight countries in Latin America and the Caribbean finds that youth (15–
24 years old) are much more likely to migrate in response to disasters
(droughts and hurricanes), and they primarily choose destinations closer
to their origin (Baez et al., 2017). This finding likely reflects the
combination of their high mobility and willingness to migrate with their
limited ability to do so. It is not possible to separate temporary and
permanent migration in response to disasters in this study, but we may
expect disasters to be more likely to affect temporary migration whereas
slow-onset changes in climate affect permanent migration. For example,
an increase in temperature and variations in rainfall in Indonesia are
shown to affect permanent (internal) out-migration (not age
differentiated) more than natural disasters (Bohra-Mishra et al., 2014).
However, the perception of environmental change might be stronger for
sudden-onset events, such as floods, than for long-term changes in
climate, making the migration decision more likely to be a response to

disasters (Koubi et al., 2016).
Baez et al. (2017) as well as Thiede et al. (2016) estimate the effect
of monthly weather shocks on migration in Central America and in South
America respectively, differentiating between men and women. They
find that although there is no effect for men, young and unskilled women
respond significantly to these short-term shocks by moving away. This

result could indicate an increasingly important role of women in income
diversification in the face of environmental change, whereas male
migration has been a household strategy for decades and thus is less
responsive to such shocks. Alternatively, it could indicate that women
are often more vulnerable to disasters and environmental risks in areas
with disproportionate male out-migration owing to their restricted access
to services and resources (Adger et al., 2015).
Another strand of the literature explores how other natural hazards,

such as sea-level rise, affect rural livelihoods and migration decisions. In
Viet Nam, for example, farmers in the Mekong River delta are leaving
the area, as their livelihoods are no longer viable because of seawater
intrusion that ruins fields and crops (Chapman and Tri, 2018; Thi Kim
and Minh, 2017).
Rural-to-urban youth migration is projected to increase over the next
decades in the African continent, where increasing temperatures imply a
combination of overall reduced and more variable crop productivity in a
region where agricultural productivity is already the world's lowest
(IPCC, 2014). Thus, faster, inclusive rural transformation and the
improvement of rural-urban linkages are pressing development needs if
the continent is to avoid a rise in food insecurity and poverty.
Given that mid-sized cities play an increasingly important role in
shaping demographic movements, agri-food value chains, and
development especially in Africa and Asia, it is also important to
understand how climate change is expected to affect this new landscape.
Again, the impacts should be analyzed separately for slow-onset and
extreme events. Small and mid-sized cities are found to be most
vulnerable to extreme events (including droughts, floods, hurricanes, and
earthquakes), most of which are expected to get worse owing to the
impacts of climate change (Birkmann et al., 2016). Increasing the
resilience of urban centers to such extreme events will directly protect

agri-food systems that are highly dependent on these urban centres that
act as intermediaries.
At the same time, these urban centers can counteract the vulnerability
of rural smallholders to slow-onset impacts of climate change. Gibson
et al. (2017) showed that the growth of small and medium-sized towns
significantly helped reduce rural poverty in India. They ease access to

local, national, and even regional supply chains and offer nonfarm
employment opportunities, especially for seasonal farm workers (Tacoli
and Agergaard, 2017).
Most existing studies analyze the impacts of urbanization, improved
agri-food value chains, or both on rural welfare, without explicitly
focusing on migration. Climate change makes these already complex
linkages even more complex, and in unexpected ways. Therefore there is
still a gap in the literature on how climate change may affect the rural-
urban landscape that is being transformed under the economic,
demographic, and migratory pressures discussed here.
3.6 Seasonal Migration: A Nascent Literature
Seasonality is an inherent characteristic of agriculture, as is migration for

seasonal work opportunities. Even though seasonal migration is not new
for millions of farmers and rural workers, and such diversification is
associated with higher incomes, there is little economic research on it.
The major challenge is the lack of data resulting from the temporary
nature of seasonal migration. Most household surveys, even if they are
panel studies, return to the same individuals or households only after one
or more years. Most seasonal migrants move for only a few months and
thus are not identified as migrants in the data. Only the inclusion of
specific questions about seasonal work sheds some light on this type of
mobility. Census data showing migrants’ rural or urban origins have
been used to get an indication of some circular migration patterns in
cases with a high rate of urban-to-rural migration (Potts, 2006). Other
data sources might also help reveal short- or long-term mobility patterns,
as demonstrated by Lu et al. (2016) with anonymous mobile phone data

from Bangladesh.
Deshingkar and Farrington (2009) document the reality of seasonal
migration in the poorest areas of India, where seasonal migration was
shown to be more common than permanent migration but driven by
similar distress factors (Parida and Madheswaran, 2015). Some empirical
studies provide evidence on the impacts of seasonal migration on rural

households. De Brauw (2010) finds that while Vietnamese households
with seasonal migrants changed their farming strategies from labor- to
land-intensive crops, there was no change in their productivity or capital
investments for production. Seasonal migration was, however, shown to
significantly contribute to poverty reduction in rural areas of the country
(de Brauw and Harigaya, 2007).
Despite estimates of potential gains from seasonal migration, it is less
common in some areas than one would expect. Imbert and Papp (2018)
find that a public works program reduces short-term migration from rural
areas owing to high migration costs caused by higher living costs in
urban areas and variability of migrant earnings. At the same time, lower
migration into urban areas increases the wages there for temporary jobs
(Imbert and Papp, 2017). This points at the complex interplay between
rural and urban areas and workers’ mobility, which policy makers must
account for when designing seasonal work programs.
Gibson and McKenzie (2014) review the literature on temporary
work programs for international seasonal migrants: such bilateral
agreements number in the hundreds and are increasing, although
evidence on their impact is still scarce. The most recent evaluation of a
seasonal work agreement for agricultural workers concerns Haiti and the
United States (Clemens and Postel, 2017). The program was designed to
match Haitian workers to seasonal jobs in agriculture in the United States
and to provide the workers with temporary work visas for these jobs. The
findings suggest that economic benefits are large, equally shared between
the origin and destination, and well targeted to poor Haitian households.
A better understanding of seasonal work patterns and food needs can
inform policy, as shown by a project in Bangladesh fighting seasonal
famine. Following a successful randomized control trial by Bryan et al.
(2014), smallholder farmers from poor families were offered a small
amount of money that covered the travel cost to the next urban center in
the lean season, enabling one household member to earn money in the
city to ensure the food security of their family during this period. Initial
findings reported that the additional seasonal earnings in cities allowed
poor rural households to provide an additional meal for every member of
their family for three months. A higher rate of seasonal migration also
led to increased agricultural wages and more work hours in the villages
of origin, increasing the agricultural incomes of farm workers during the
lean season (Akram et al., 2017). Furthermore, prices for food increased,
but the case study showed that the average welfare gains of such a
seasonal migration program were still larger for the poorest households
than the gains from unconditional cash transfers (Lagakos et al., 2018).
All of the forces within the conceptual framework shown in Figure
3.1—which illustrates the blurring rural-urban divide thanks to rapid
transformation in the agri-food sector, urbanization patterns, and ICTs, as

well as climate change—reinforce seasonal and temporary migration in
various ways. Given the data limitations for this nascent literature, much
remains to be done by research and investment communities to better
understand and harness the potential role of seasonal and temporary
migration in improving rural livelihoods.
3.7 Conclusions
This chapter combined existing data and methods in a new analysis to

demonstrate that expected demographic trends in rural and urban areas
until 2050 translate into expected increases in rural-urban migration rates
in low- and lower-middle-income countries (primarily in Africa). Using
age-differentiated data, it also documented that this trend is even more
pronounced for youth migration. Although projected rural-urban
migration rates are decreasing in other parts of the world outside of Sub-
Saharan Africa, they are stabilizing around 2% for both youth and adults,
which seems to be a rate toward which all regions are converging in the
long run. These findings underline the need for caution in interpreting
trends in rural-urban migration, considering that such migration still
affects only a small share of the total rural population and that natural
population growth remains the main driver of urbanization. Less well

documented but perhaps at least as prevalent is seasonal migration, or
migration in other directions than from rural to urban areas, including the
return of migrants to their rural origins. These aspects of mobility are
invisible in the figures presented in this chapter. Conflict, political
unrest, and disasters are well-known drivers of migration. Although they
were not considered in this chapter, it should be noted that these events
can significantly affect demographic trends and hence change the
migration patterns presented here.
Higher migration rates up to 2015 have been correlated with higher
shares of non-agricultural employment and higher productivity in
agriculture. Migration rates are expected to increase as rural
transformation unfolds increasing productivity in agriculture, and
eventually converge to migration rates observed in fast transforming
countries. This suggests that rural-urban migration is part of the rural

transformation process, and understanding and harnessing its potential
within this transformation remains a challenge for public and private
investors. One important task for policy is to integrate youth in the
changes in agri-food systems and ICTs that are reshaping the rural-urban
landscape, with implications for rural-urban migration. Such policies
should also consider differences in mobility and access to resources
between men and women, as the evidence suggests that young women
are at a particular disadvantage. Agri-food systems offer opportunities
for these groups, but their participation is likely to require active
facilitation.
Designing effective policies and investments ultimately rests on
sound evidence based on research. Although there is a growing literature
on the rural transformation and agri-food value chains, especially in
Africa and Asia, the implications of these processes for internal
migration remain under-researched because of data limitations. Another
research gap concerns the linkages between climate change and internal
migration, although some recent studies have started to address this gap
thanks to the availability of better climate and household data. Given the
projections that climate change will change seasonal patterns and hence
increase the risk to rural incomes dependent on agriculture, we can
expect seasonal and temporary migration to play an increasingly
important role in the future. Research gaps on seasonal migration and its
implications for rural, peri-urban, and urban livelihoods under projected
demographic and climatic pressures require critical attention.
Appendix A: Country Groupings

Table A1. Countries by income-level classification (World Bank, 2016c).

High-income countries
Andorra Croatia Kuwait San Marino
Antigua and Curação Latvia Saudi Arabia
Barbuda Cyprus Liechtenstein Seychelles
Aruba Czech Republic Lithuania Singapore
Australia Denmark Luxembourg Sint Maarten (Dutch
Austria Estonia Malta part)
Bahamas Faroe Islands Monaco Slovakia
Bahrain Finland Nauru Slovenia

Barbados France Netherlands Spain
Belgium French Polynesia New Caledonia Sweden
Bermuda Germany New Zealand Switzerland
British Virgin Gibraltar Northern Mariana Trinidad and Tobago
Islands Greece Islands Turks and Caicos
Brunei Greenland Norway Islands
Darussalam Guam Oman United Arab Emirates
Canada Hungary Poland United Kingdom
Cayman Islands Iceland Portugal United States of
Channel Islands Ireland Puerto Rico America
Chile Isle of Man Qatar United States Virgin
China, Hong Israel Republic of Korea Islands
Kong SAR Italy Saint Kitts and Nevis Uruguay
China, Macao Japan
SAR
Upper-middle-income countries
Albania Costa Rica Jordan Romania
Algeria Cuba Kazakhstan Russian Federation
American Samoa Dominica Lebanon Saint Lucia
Angola Dominican Republic Libya Saint Vincent and the
Argentina Ecuador Malaysia Grenadines
Armenia Equatorial Guinea Maldives Serbia
Azerbaijan Fiji Marshall Islands South Africa
Belarus Gabon Mauritius Suriname
Belize Georgia Mexico TFYR Macedonia
Bosnia and Grenada Montenegro Thailand
Herzegovina Guyana Namibia Turkey
Botswana Iran (Islamic Republic Palau Turkmenistan
Brazil of) Panama Tuvalu
Bulgaria Iraq Paraguay Venezuela (Bolivarian
China Jamaica Peru Republic of)
Colombia
Table A1. (continued ).

Lower-middle-income countries
Bangladesh Honduras Morocco Sudan
Bhutan India Myanmar Swaziland Syrian Arab
Bolivia Indonesia Nicaragua Republic
(Plurinational Kenya Nigeria Tajikistan
State of) Kiribati Pakistan Timor-Leste
Cabo Verde Kyrgyzstan Papua New Guinea Tonga

Cambodia Lao People's Philippines Tunisia
Cameroon Democratic Republic of Moldova Ukraine
Congo Republic Samoa Uzbekistan
Côte d'Ivoire Lesotho São Tome and Vanuatu
Djibouti Mauritania Principe Viet Nam
Egypt Micronesia (Fed. Solomon Islands Yemen
El Salvador States of) Sri Lanka Zambia
Ghana Mongolia State of Palestine
Guatemala
Low-income countries
Afghanistan Democratic Republic Madagascar Sierra Leone

Benin of the Congo Malawi Somalia
Burkina Faso Eritrea Mali South Sudan
Burundi Ethiopia Mozambique Togo
Central African Gambia Nepal Uganda
Republic Guinea Niger United Republic of
Chad Guinea-Bissau Rwanda Tanzania
Comoros Haiti Senegal Zimbabwe
Dem. People’s Liberia
Republic of
Korea
Table A2. Countries by geographical classification.

Sub-Saharan Africa
Angola1 Democratic Republic of Malawi1 Senegal1
Benin1 the Congo1Djibouti Mali1 Seychelles1
Botswana1 Equatorial Guinea Mauritania1 Sierra Leone1
Burkina Faso1 Eritrea Mauritius Somalia1
Burundi1 Ethiopia1 Mayotte South Africa1
Cabo Verde1 Gabon1 Mozambique1 South Sudan
Cameroon1 Gambia1 Namibia1 Swaziland1
Central African Ghana1 Niger1 Togo1
Republic1 Guinea1 Nigeria1 Uganda1
Chad1 Guinea-Bissau1 Réunion United Republic of
Comoros1 Kenya1 Rwanda1 Tanzania1
Congo1 Lesotho1 Saint Helena Zambia1
Côte d'Ivoire1 Liberia1 São Tome and Zimbabwe1
Madagascar1 Principe1
Table A2. (continued ).

Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia
Algeria Iraq1 Morocco1 Tunisia1
Armenia1 Israel Oman Turkey1
Azerbaijan1 Jordan1 Saudi Arabia Turkmenistan
Bahrain Kazakhstan1 State of Palestine1 United Arab Emirates
Cyprus Kyrgyzstan1 Sudan1 Uzbekistan1
Egypt1 Lebanon Syrian Arab Republic1 Western Sahara

Georgia Libya Tajikistan1 Yemen1
Asia and Pacific
Afghanistan1 Dem. People’s Republic Lao People’s Papua New Guinea1
Bangladesh1 of Korea India1 Democratic Philippines1
Bhutan1 India Republic1 Republic of Korea
Brunei Indonesia1 Malaysia1 Singapore
Darussalam Iran (Islamic Republic Maldives1Mongolia1 Sri Lanka1
Cambodia1 of)1 Myanmar Thailand1
China1 Japan Nepal1 Timor-Leste1
Pakistan1 Viet Nam1
Latin America and the Caribbean

Anguilla Caribbean Netherlands Guadeloupe Saint Lucia1
Antigua and Cayman Islands Guatemala1 Saint Vincent and the
Barbuda Chile1 Guyana1 Grenadines
Argentina Colombia1 Haiti1 Sint Maarten (Dutch
Aruba Costa Rica1 Honduras1 part)
Bahamas Cuba1 Jamaica1 Suriname1
Barbados Curação Martinique Trinidad and Tobago1
Belize1 Dominica Mexico1 Turks and Caicos
Bolivia Dominican Republic1 Montserrat Islands
(Plurinational Ecuador1 Nicaragua1 United States Virgin
State of)1 El Salvador1 Panama1 Islands
Brazil1 Falkland Islands Paraguay1 Uruguay1
British Virgin (Malvinas) Peru1 Venezuela (Bolivarian
Islands French Guiana Saint Kitts and Nevis Republic of)1
Grenada
Note: The following entities were excluded from analysis owing to outlier data: Hong
Kong SAR, Kuwait, Macao SAR, Puerto Rico, and Qatar.
1These countries were used to classify fast and slow rural transformation (see Figure 3.9).
Appendix B: Methodology for Projections of Rural-Urban

(Youth) Migration: Survival Ratio Method
B.1 Total Population
To compute rural-urban migration rates, the survival ratio method (SRM)

is applied. This method assumes that without international migration, the
difference between the observed population in a rural area and the

predicted rural population based on survival probability is net migration.
First, the survival rate, SR, is computed for the total population (Pop) as
the relative increase in population from one period t to the next, t+5, as
we have data for every five years:
𝑆𝑅 𝑃𝑜𝑝 𝑃𝑜𝑝 ⁄𝑃𝑜𝑝 (B.1)
Assuming that rural mortality is higher than that of the total population,
the rural survival ratio can be defined as
𝑆𝑅 𝑋 ∗ 𝑆𝑅 (B.2)
where the superscript r indicates a rural sector, and (1–X) is the factor by
which rural survival is lower than in urban areas. Menashe-Oren and
Stecklov (2017) and UNPOP (2001) assume a factor of 0.75, meaning

mortality in rural areas is 25% higher than in urban areas for a sample of
Sub-Saharan countries. We apply the same factor to low-income
countries and then define the factor to be higher for middle- and high-
income countries based on how much higher life expectancy at birth is
for these groups. Table B.1 presents the country groups by income level,
the life expectancy at birth, by how much it is higher than that of low-
income countries, and in which factor that results for the rural survival
ratio.
With the rural survival ratio, one can predict the rural population based
on survival probabilities:
𝑃𝑜𝑝 𝑆𝑅 ∗ 𝑃𝑜𝑝 (B.3)
Table B.1. Life expectancy across income groups and rural survival factor.
Factor, by which life

Life expectancy Rural relative
expectancy is higher
Income group at birth, total to urban
than in low-income
(years) survival (X)
countries
High-income 80.8 1.31 0.98
Upper-middle-income 74.9 1.21 0.91
Lower-middle-income 67.4 1.09 0.82
Low-income 61.7 0.75 (assumed)
The rural net migrants are therefore the difference between predicted and
observed rural population:
𝑀𝑖𝑔 𝑃𝑜𝑝 𝑃𝑜𝑝 (B.4)
Positive values of 𝑀𝑖𝑔 mean that more people left rural areas to live
in urban areas than the other way around, and vice versa for negative
values. The migration rate, MR, is computed relative to the rural
population in the period preceding the migration:
𝑀𝑅 𝑀𝑖𝑔 /𝑃𝑜𝑝 (B.5)
B.2 Youth Migration

To project the rural-urban migration of youth for the period 2020–2050,

we first compute the migration of youth for the years up to 2015, for
which data are disaggregated by age and rural and urban sector. We
follow the same steps from equation (B.1) to (B.4) as described above,
with one important change: application of the survival ratio method to a
specific cohort.
For youth, the population aged 15 to 24 years, the population in period
t+5 is those individuals who were 15 to 24 years old in t and are now
five years older. Given the data at hand, we compute how many of the
15- to 24-year-olds are 20 to 29 years old in the following period:
𝑆𝑅 , 𝑃𝑜𝑝 , 𝑃𝑜𝑝 , 𝑃𝑜𝑝 , (B.6)
The predicted youth population is hence
𝑃𝑜𝑝 , 𝑆𝑅 , ∗ 𝑃𝑜𝑝 , (B.7)
And the number of youth migrants is the difference of these predicted

youth survivors and the observed youth population as in equation (B.4).
For 2020–2050 we then project the share of youth migrants based on the
past computed share of youth among migrants in the years 1980 to 2015.
The youth share of migrants is defined as
𝑠𝑀 , 𝑀𝑖𝑔 , ⁄𝑀𝑖𝑔 (B.8)

The future share of youth migrants is predicted by fitting a linear

prediction in a simple regression model for country i:
𝑠𝑀 , , 𝛼 𝛽𝑡 𝜀 (B.9)
The predicted values are disaggregated by the stage of the fertility

transition that countries were in in the year 2015 in order to allow
different trajectories resulting from larger or smaller expected rural youth
population (Menashe-Oren and Stecklov, 2017). The stages are defined

as in Table B.2, but we group the countries in the pre- and early stage of
fertility transition because there are few observations.
Table B.2. Ranges of total fertility rates assigned to stages of the fertility transition.
Transition stage Total fertility range

Pre / Early 7+ / 6–6.9
Early/mid 5–5.9
Mid 4–4.9
Mid/late 3–3.9
Late 2.1–2.9
Post 0–2.0
Finally, youth migration rates can be computed relative to the total rural
population:
𝑀𝑅 , 𝑀𝚤𝑔 , /𝑃𝑜𝑝 (B.10)
While the linear prediction of youth migrant shares is not a perfect fit in
the regression, the distribution of the error terms for each subsample
appears close enough to a normal distribution. Only the sample of
countries in the pre- and early transition stage appears not to provide a
good fit (Figure B.1). The resulting predicted youth migrant shares over
time are presented in Figure B.2.
Fig. B.1. Kernel density distribution of residuals from linear regressions of youth migrant
shares on years by subsamples at different fertility transition stages.
Fig. B.2. Linear predictions of youth migrant shares by fertility transition stage.
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219–249.

b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Chapter 4
Urbanization, Agriculture, and

Smallholder Farming
Peter B. R. Hazell
4.1 Introduction
Agriculture is changing rapidly around the developing world.1

Agriculture’s share in regional and national economies is shrinking fast,
and the share of the workforce in agriculture is also declining as workers
move into other sectors like services and industry. Populations are
becoming more urbanized and more removed from agricultural
production, and their diets are changing to include more livestock and
horticultural products as well as more processed and precooked foods.
Despite some occasional blips, the cost of staple foods in the average
household budget has shrunk with rising incomes and declining real food
prices. Agricultural value chains are increasingly driven by urban actors,
and much more value is added beyond the farm gate. International trade
plays an ever more important role in moving agricultural production
from surplus to deficit regions around the world, making many countries
less dependent on their own food production and increasing export
opportunities. In this changing context, many past assumptions about the
importance of agriculture and small farms in developing countries might
1Theauthor is grateful to Stan Wood, Prabhu Pingali, and three anonymous reviewers for
comments on an earlier draft.
137
reasonably be questioned, particularly as one looks toward the year 2030

or 2050.
Yet agriculture still plays important roles. In absolute terms, the value
of agricultural production is higher than ever, and it must keep growing
if it is to keep pace with growth in demand. Alexandratos and Bruinsma
(2012) estimate that feeding a world population of 9.1 billion people in
2050 will require raising global food production by about 60% from its
average 2005/07 level. Africa will need to about double its supply of
food to feed a projected population of some 1.75 billion by 2050.
Although the share of the workforce in agriculture is shrinking, it still
employs most of the workforce in most developing countries. Moreover,
agriculture’s share in employment is falling much more slowly than its
share in GDP, implying a widening per capita income gap between the
agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Agriculture is also home to
most of the rural poor and nearly half a billion small farms smaller than 2
hectares (ha). For many poorer countries, agriculture is one of the few
sectors that offer sizable pro-poor growth opportunities, given rising
demand for its output and significant remaining potential to raise
productivity.
This chapter explores some of the trends affecting agriculture in the
developing world and considers what these trends mean for smallholder
development and international public agricultural R&D. It shows that
large numbers of smallholders are likely to persist over at least the next
decade or two, and they will continue to play important roles in
agricultural development for many countries. But there will be a sharper
differentiation among small farms in terms of their livelihood strategies,
contributing to widening disparities between them. Assistance policies
and agricultural research will thus need to be better targeted to the needs
of different types of smallholders.
Urbanization, Agriculture, and Smallholder Farming 139
4.2 A Changing Context for Agriculture
4.2.1 Increasing urbanization
Developing countries—even many that have yet to experience an

industrial revolution—are urbanizing rapidly. In 2014 the urban
population was estimated to have reached 40% of the population in

Africa, 47.5% in Asia, and 79.5% in Latin America and the Caribbean
(Table 4.1). The UN projects that urbanization will increase faster than
total population in all three continents, and by 2050 the urban population
shares are expected to reach 55.9% in Africa, 64.2% in Asia, and 86.2%
in LAC. Continuing population growth and urbanization are projected to
add 2.5 billion people to the world’s urban population by 2050, with
nearly 90% of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa. By 2050,

82.4% of the world’s urban population will be based in less-developed
regions.
Table 4.1. Trends in urban populations, 1970 to 2050, Africa, Asia, and Latin America
and the Caribbean (LAC).
Continent 1970 1990 2014 2030 2050

Urban population (millions)
Africa 83 197 455 770 1,339
Asia 505 1,036 2,064 2,752 3,313
LAC 164 314 496 595 674
Urban population (%)
Africa 22.6 31.3 40.0 47.1 55.9
Asia 23.7 32.3 47.5 56.3 64.2
LAC 57.1 70.5 79.5 83.0 86.2
Source: United Nations (2015).
Urbanization is not just about megacities. In fact, close to half of the

world’s urban dwellers reside in relatively small settlements of fewer
than 500,000 inhabitants, whereas only about one in eight live in
megacities of more than 10 million inhabitants. This enables many rural
and urban households to combine farm and nonfarm activities from a
farm base. Urban-based farmers often have not made a physical move
but rather live in formerly rural areas that have been reclassified as
urban.
4.2.2 Changing food value chains

In many developing countries, rapid urbanization and rising incomes are

leading to more diverse national diets characterized by increased per
capita demand for livestock and horticultural products and processed and
precooked foods and reduced per capita demand for traditional food
staples (McCullough et al., 2008; Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012).
This change has been accompanied by the rapid transformation of
national food systems. Although there is considerable variation between
countries, overall there has been a huge increase in the volume of foods
that pass through the food system. The lion’s share of food costs to urban
people is now incurred in the post-farm-gate segments of the supply
chain (Reardon et al., 2014; McCullough et al., 2008). These changes
have been matched by a quiet revolution in supply chains, with large
numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) investing in
trucking, wholesaling, warehousing, cold storage, first- and second-stage
processing, local fast food, and retail trade (Reardon et al., 2014). Larger
agribusinesses, both national and foreign firms, have made significant
investments as well. Private agrodealers have also expanded into the
marketing of modern farm inputs, like seeds, fertilizers, veterinary
medicines, and agricultural machines. The World Bank estimates that
postharvest value addition in Africa’s agrifood system accounts for about
20% of total GDP and projects that by 2030 it will grow to be worth
about $1 trillion a year, in 2010 prices (World Bank, 2013).
This transformation offers new opportunities for smallholders who
can successfully link to modern value chains. For example, the
production of many higher-value livestock and horticultural products—
which offer high returns per hectare and are employment intensive—is
well suited to small farms. Many small farms are unable to exploit these
opportunities, however, because they are too far from markets given
prevailing rural infrastructure or they have difficulty gaining access to
inputs, technologies, finance, and cold storage and meeting the quality
and credence requirements of urban markets (Hazell et al., 2007; Devaux

et al., 2016; AGRA, 2017).
4.2.3 Growing international trade
Since the widespread adoption of market liberalization policies in much

of the developing world, international trade in agricultural products has

come to play a significant role in meeting food needs (Alexandratos and
Bruinsma, 2012). Despite occasional shocks like the world food crisis of
2007, international trade in agricultural commodities has soared, growing
by 3.5% a year from 1995 to 2014, when it reached $1 trillion (Beckman
et al., 2017). The most rapid growth in agricultural imports occurred
among emerging economies, which have increased their dependence on
food imports. These imports have been especially important for countries
that have a limited agricultural land base and adequate export earnings to
pay for their food imports. But some countries with limited export
earnings have failed to invest sufficiently in their own agriculture and
have become more import dependent than they can afford while losing
out on important agricultural growth opportunities. This is true of many
African countries (AGRA, 2017); in aggregate Africa now has an annual
food import bill of about US$35 billion, which is estimated to rise to
US$110 billion by 2025 (Adesina, 2017).
4.2.4 Changes in the distribution of land
Globally, there are more small farms than ever and the average owned
farm size is declining (Table 4.2). At last count, the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated that
there are about 570 million farms in the world, of which about 475
million (about 84%) are smaller than 2 ha (Lowder et al., 2016). About
92% of all farms are located in developing countries. Farms smaller than
2 ha are concentrated in Africa and Asia and are home to some 2 billion
people, including the majority of people living in absolute poverty
(IFPRI, 2005).
Table 4.2. Census- and survey-based estimates of trends in average farm size.
1960s–1980s 2000s Change

Countries (ha) (ha) (%)
Small-farm developing countries
Sub-Saharan Africa (N = 14) 2.9 1.9 -32
Land abundant SSA (N = 9) 3.0 2.9 -2.1

Land constrained SSA (N = 5) 2.3 1.2 -46.9
India 2.7 1.2 -57
Other South Asia (N = 4) 2.5 1.1 -56
Indonesia 1.0 0.8 -20
China 0.7 0.6 -17
Other Southeast Asia (N = 4) 1.6 4.2 158
Middle East and North Africa (N = 9) 7.6 5.4 -29
Commercialized agricultural economies

South Africa 965.6 288.3 -70
Argentina 383.3 582.5 52
Brazil 70.7 68.2 -3.6
Other South America (N = 7) 97.3 89.7 -8
Western Europe (N = 16) 14.7 20.8 41
Canada 187.5 315.0 68
United States 157.6 169.3 7
Australia and New Zealand 1,468.5 2,070.3 41
Note: N denotes number of countries included in the calculation.
Source: Headey (2016).
Although the overall trend is toward more small farms, changes in the
distribution of land vary regionally:
 In China, average farm size is finally starting to rise (from 0.57 ha in
2005 to 0.60 ha in 2010), as it is in parts of Southeast Asia, but the
general pattern across South Asia is still toward more small farms.
This is also true of operated farm sizes (Otsuka 2013). In India, for
example, both the average owned and operated farm sizes about
halved to around 1.2 ha between 1971 and the early 2000s, and the
number of farms smaller than 2 ha doubled.
 African countries vary widely in their population densities, and

average farm size in highly populated countries is about half what it is
in less populated countries. Average farm size has also shrunk more
in highly populated countries (from about 2.3 ha in the 1970s to 1.2
ha in the 2000s) than in less densely populated countries (from 3.0 to
2.9 ha) (Table 4.1 and Jayne, 2013).
 In LAC, small family farms are typically larger than in Africa and
Asia. Small farms, as defined by Berdegué and Fuentealba (2014),
total about 20 million in the region, of which 5 million are smaller
than 2 ha. Their numbers are increasing in Central America but seem
more stable across much of the rest of Latin America.
Small farms account for medium to large shares of the total farmed
area in many Asian and African countries but small shares in much of
LAC (Lipton 2009; Thapa and Gaiha 2014; Berdegué and Fuentealba
2014). Recent time-series data showing changes in the land shares held
by different farm-size groups are scarce, but data from the 1990s and
early 2000s shows that smaller farm-size groups have typically increased
their land share in many Asian countries at the expense of larger farms,
while there has been little change in LAC (Lipton 2009; Thapa and
Gaiha 2014; Berdegué and Fuentealba 2014). Less evidence is available
for Africa, but based on recent surveys in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and
Zambia, Jayne et al. (2016) found a sizable shift in the distribution of
operated land between farm-size groups in recent years. Although the
number of farms with less than 5 ha of operated land has increased, their
share of the total land area has shrunk (except in Kenya), offset by a
growing number of medium-sized farms, some of which are operated by
urban-based investor farmers.
Many small farms have become too small to provide a full-time living
for a household, leading farm households to diversify into off-farm
sources of income. In China, nonfarm income shares for farm households
increased from 33.7% in 1985, to 63% in 2000, to 70.9% in 2010 (Huang
et al. 2012). This is an extreme example, but nonfarm income shares
have reached 40% or more in many other Asian and Sub-Saharan
African countries and are often much higher for the smallest farms
(Haggblade et al. 2007). On average, this diversification is higher in Asia
than in Africa, but there is considerable variation within each continent.
Such diversification has been enabled by the rapid growth of small and
middle-sized towns and the nonfarm opportunities they create for farm-
based workers.
4.3 The Future of Small Farms

What do all of these changes mean for the future of small farms? Will
they continue to grow in number, or will they begin to disappear as
farmers find better alternative opportunities elsewhere, much as they did
during the earlier economic transformation of today’s industrialized
countries? How will the small farms that remain craft viable livelihoods
given their diminishing size? How many will succeed as commercial
farmers within the context of more urbanized and agribusiness-
dominated value chains? How many will slip into poverty and
subsistence farming?
4.3.1 A “reverse” transition
Despite growth—sometimes quite rapid—in national per capita incomes

and urbanization in the developing world, we do not yet see the patterns
of farm consolidation that occurred during the economic transformation
of most of today’s industrialized countries (Dorin et al., 2013). Rather,
continuing subdivision of land leading to more small farms and more
diversified farm livelihoods might best be described as a “reverse
transition” (Hazell and Rahman, 2014).
Many factors are driving this reverse farm-size transition:
 An important driver is growth in rural population, especially working-
age adults. Other than China, few countries are generating enough
jobs in urban-based manufacturing, historically the primary absorber
of rural-urban migrants. Instead, many workers are moving into
service-sector jobs, many of which are based in medium- and smaller-
sized towns, not just big cities, and this shift enables many rural
households to diversify into nonfarm employment from their farm
base.
 Rapid urbanization and a shift toward more diverse diets are creating
opportunities for some small farms to prosper by growing and
marketing high-value, labor-intensive livestock and horticultural
products.
 The increasing use of subsidies and other agricultural support policies
make small-scale farming more attractive than its real economic
worth. China and other Asian countries have introduced farm support
policies of various kinds, much as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan
did during their economic transformation (Otsuka, 2013).
 Many country-specific institutional and cultural constraints also act to
keep people on the farms, including
o constraints on rural-urban migration, such as language, racial,
and cultural barriers and legal restrictions on resettlement (e.g.,
in China);
o inheritance systems that lead to subdivision of farms among

multiple heirs;
o restrictions on land market transactions, such as caps on farm
size (India) or indigenous land rights systems that limit
opportunities for land consolidation (Africa);
o religious and cultural constraints on women’s employment
opportunities other than farming; and
o inadequate social security systems, so that farms are kept as a
retirement hedge.
Many of these drivers are powerful and seem unlikely to diminish in
the near future. For example, rural populations in Africa are projected to
nearly double by 2050, so the pressure on land will keep growing (Jayne,
2013). In much of Asia, however, rural population growth is slowing and
will approach a tipping point by 2030, when the number of small farms
may stabilize or even begin to reverse. This has already happened in
Bangladesh and China and may be happening more widely within other
countries in dynamic regions with good market access (Masters et al.,
2013).
4.3.2 Prognosis
Should we expect a different pattern of farm-size transition over the next

two to three decades? Much will depend on rates of urbanization,
national economic growth, and the non-agricultural employment
intensity of that growth. But some of the constraints listed above mean
that economic growth does necessarily lead to rapid farm consolidation.

The experiences of the Asian Tigers (especially Japan, South Korea, and
Taiwan) suggest that small farms could dominate even as countries enter
middle-income status (Otsuka 2013). In Japan, for example, average
farm size started to increase only recently, despite the country’s rapid
economic takeoff in the 1960s. Average farm size was still only 1.8 ha in
2005, and the percentage of farms smaller than 3 ha was still 90.5%.
Unlike workers in the early Asian Tigers and then China, most of the
workers leaving agriculture in Africa and South Asia are moving into a
burgeoning service sector rather than into industrial or manufacturing
jobs (Rodrik, 2014). Many of these jobs are in informal services, where
labor productivity is little if any higher than in agriculture and that hence
seem less likely to attract the levels of farm exits experienced in the
Asian Tigers and China. Indeed, many service sector jobs are located in
small and medium-sized towns and filled by workers who continue to
live on farms. Moreover, future developments in artificial intelligence
and robotics might transform national economies in ways that add to the
difficulties of farm workers hoping to transition out of farming into
urban-based jobs, slowing the exodus of small farms even further. Unless
service jobs continue to grow in small and medium-sized towns, many
small-scale farmers may find it increasingly difficult to diversify into
nonfarm sources of income and may be trapped in farming with stagnant
or declining living standards.
Climate change will add to the pressure on many small-scale farmers,
especially those living in drought-prone regions or dependent on
irrigation water from diminishing sources. Although climate-smart
technologies can ease the transition, many farmers may eventually face
significantly lower levels of land productivity and much higher levels of
risk exposure. Given inadequate opportunities to exit farming, this
situation will add to increases in poverty and subsistence farming.
Revolutionary new agricultural technologies could help transform the

future prospects for small farms. Ongoing research on the development
of perennial grain crops, introduction of nitrogen fixation into non-
legume crops, and the re-engineering of the photosynthetic pathways of
different plants could bear fruit by 2050 (Foresight, 2011). As these
technologies mature and are adopted, they should lead to large gains in
land and labor productivity and reduced use of modern inputs like
fertilizer. A key question is whether these technologies will enhance or
worsen the prospects for small rather than large farms, and the answer
will depend largely on relative rates of adoption. If the new technologies
are capital intensive or riskier, or require larger scales of operation to be
profitable, then small farmers will be less likely to adopt them. If the
technologies lead to product differentiation in the market (e.g., can be
labeled as more environmentally friendly), they could also work against
small farms that adopt but are not organized to market their new
products. If, however, the new technologies are captured in the seed
(e.g., nitrogen-fixing cereal varieties), their adoption might be scale
neutral, much like the high-yielding wheat and rice varieties of the Green
Revolution. Technologies that reduce risk may also prove more attractive
to small farmers.
Because many new farm technologies affect market prices, they can
have impacts on farms that do not adopt, including those based outside
the regions in which the technologies are primarily adopted. For
example, many modern technologies lower production costs per unit of
output and hence contribute to lower market prices. This outcome harms
non-adopting farmers and regions whose production costs remain
unchanged, making them less competitive in the market. This shift can
be an important factor in widening disparities between farms in favored
versus less-favored areas.
Some future technologies might work to the relative benefit of small
farms, particularly those living in less-favored areas. For example,
nitrogen-fixing cereals may be especially attractive in regions with poor
infrastructure where fertilizer prices are high. The development of
drought-tolerant varieties might also be especially helpful to small
farmers in drought-prone tropical areas who depend on rainfed farming.
Second-generation biofuel technologies that use cellulose-rich biomass
may benefit small farmers in regions with low agricultural potential.

Although such technologies are beginning to emerge, their further
development and adoption at scale could be slowed by existing large-
scale agro-industrial investments in first-generation technologies, and
associated government support policies in many rich countries.
Projections about the direction and speed of the farm size transition
are uncertain, but real change is unlikely to occur within the next decade
or two. In the meantime, small farms will continue to play important
roles in agricultural development for many countries.
4.3.3 Diverging livelihood pathways
One development that seems likely in the future is a sharper

differentiation among small farmers’ livelihood strategies, which will

contribute to widening income disparities between them. To understand
this point, it is useful to have a farm typology that captures basic
differences in farmers’ livelihood strategies. The literature has offered a
variety of farm typologies to help describe this diversity and determine
the best types of assistance for each segment. Key criteria proposed for
segmenting farms include access to markets, household assets,
agricultural potential, and nonfarm income diversification. Drawing on
this work and on Dorward et al. (2009), Hazell and Rahman (2014)
proposed classifying smallholders into three groups:
 Commercial smallholder farmers are successfully linked to value
chains and run their farms as businesses. They may be full- or part-
time farmers.
 Small farms in transition have favorable nonfarm opportunities and
obtain much of their income from nonfarm sources. In the absence of
significant new opportunities in farming that can give a return to their
labor and capital as competitive as nonfarm opportunities, many
transition farmers are likely to leave farming altogether or, if they
continue to live on their farms, farm largely for their own
consumption.
 Subsistence-oriented small farms are marginalized for a variety of
reasons that are difficult to change, such as ethnic discrimination,
sickness, age, or being located in remote areas with limited
agricultural potential. Many of the same factors that prevent them

from being more successful farmers also prevent them from gaining
access to nonfarm jobs and becoming transition farmers. Subsistence-
oriented farms frequently sell small amounts of produce at harvest to
obtain cash income but are typically net buyers of staple foods over
the entire year.
Hazell et al. (2017) have refined this typology as shown in Table 4.3.
Here commercial farms are defined as farm households that sell high
shares of their agricultural output. They can be further differentiated into
specialized commercial farms that have low nonfarm income shares
and diversified commercial farms that have high nonfarm income
shares. They also distinguish pre-commercial small farms. These are
specialized farms with low nonfarm income shares that sell part of their
agricultural production but are less successfully linked to markets than
specialized commercial farms and sell only medium shares of their farm
output. Many pre-commercial farms might, with appropriate assistance,
aspire to become more successful commercial farmers and could make a
particularly attractive target group for farm business assistance programs
and policies. Subsistence farms are defined as those selling low shares
of their farm output and having low shares of nonfarm income.
Transition farms are those that have high nonfarm income shares and
sell low to medium shares of their farm output.
Table 4.3. A typology of small farms.
Importance of nonfarm Importance of farm sales

income (share of crop production sold)
(nonfarm income as share
Low Medium High
total household income)
Specialized
Subsistence Pre-commercial
Low commercial
farms farms
farms
Diversified
High Transition farms commercial
farms
Source: Hazell et al. (2017).
How important are these small farm groups today? Little research has
been done to answer this question, even for other typologies. One
relevant study estimates that only 35 million of the world’s 475 million
smallholder farmers (or 7.4%) participate in tight value chains, meaning
that they are generally less poor, operate at least 2 hectares of land, and
take a more business-like approach to farming than other smallholders
(Christen and Anderson, 2013). Using household survey data from

Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania, Hazell et al. (2017) obtain a more
encouraging result for Africa (Table 4.4). They developed boundary
conditions for defining each group (see note to Table 4.4) and found that
30–40% of farms smaller than 4 ha can be classified as commercial
(specialized plus diversified) in Ghana and Tanzania, but only about 12%
in Ethiopia. Specialized commercial farms are slightly more dominant
than diversified commercial farms in all three countries. Pre-commercial
farms account for another 15% in Ghana and Tanzania but 32% in
Ethiopia. Transition farmers are the dominant group in all three
countries, ranging from 39% to 50%. Subsistence farmers are a relatively
small group, less than 10% in Tanzania and Ghana and 17% in Ethiopia.
Table 4.4. Share of small farms (≤ 4 ha) by livelihood strategy, Ethiopia, Ghana, and
Tanzania (%).
Type of livelihood strategy

Country/ Pre- Specialized Diversified
survey year Subsistence Transition commercial commercial commercial Total
Ethiopia, 17.2 39.4 32.0 6.8 4.6 100.0
2013/14
Ghana, 8.1 38.9 14.5 22.6 15.9 100.0

2012/13
Tanzania, 5.1 49.9 15.8 14.7 14.6 100.0

2012/13
Notes: Farms were classified according to the schema in Table 4.3 using the following
boundary conditions: Share of agricultural sales in total agricultural income: low = < 5%,
medium = 5–50%, high = > 50%. Share of nonfarm income in total household income:
low = < 33%, high = > 33%.
Source: Hazell et al. (2017).
Looking to the future, Table 4.5 shows the kinds of transitions that
would be desirable for each type of small farm over time, shown as a
move from period t to period t + 1. Ideally, subsistence farms should
become transition, pre-commercial, or commercial farms or exit farming
altogether; transition farms should become commercial farms or move to
the nonfarm economy; commercial small farms should either prosper as
such or consolidate into larger farms with some leaving farming; and
pre-commercial farmers should either succeed in becoming commercial
farmers or diversify and become transition farmers or leave farming. To
be avoided are situations where many small farms revert to or remain
trapped in subsistence farming, or where transition farms fail to find
successful exits to the nonfarm economy.
Table 4.5. Desired transitions for small-farm groups.

Period t + 1
Pre- Exit
Period t Subsistence Transition commercial Commercial farming
Subsistence O X X X X
Transition O X O X X
Pre-commercial O X O X X
Commercial O X O X X
Note: X = desired transition; O = undesired transition.
The prospects for achieving desirable transitions will depend on

regional and national contexts as well as the types of supporting policies
and investments made by governments and other agents of change. In a
less-favored region of a slow-growing country—the worst of all possible
worlds, and a situation all too prevalent in parts of Africa—there will be
relatively few opportunities for market-oriented farms, and many small
farms will be trapped in subsistence-oriented farming, including those
who are trying to transition out of farming but cannot because of a
shortage of productive off-farm opportunities. At the other extreme, in a
dynamic region of a dynamic country—such as some of the coastal areas
in China—many small farmers will be able to produce high-value
products for the market or transition into better-paid opportunities in
urban areas or in their local nonfarm economy. Relatively few
subsistence-oriented farmers will remain, and these will often be the
elderly or the infirm. Many other regions, of course, will fall somewhere
between these two extremes. Public investments in rural infrastructure
and small towns, and supporting policies that help improve smallholder
access to key technologies, inputs, and markets, will have the potential to
make more regions dynamic.
As the transformation proceeds, there are likely to be widening
income disparities between smallholders following different livelihood

strategies. In particular, incomes will diverge between (1) part-time
farmers who successfully diversify into nonfarm sources of income
versus more specialized commercial or subsistence farmers, and between
(2) small farms in favorable areas with good market connectivity versus
those in poorly connected and often marginal areas who are more likely
to remain in subsistence farming.
The income disparity between specialized farm households and their
more diversified cousins is already emerging. In Ethiopia, Ghana, and

Tanzania, for example, the average incomes of transition and diversified
commercial farm households are already substantially higher than the
incomes of more farm-dependent households (Hazell et al., 2017). These
income gaps are likely to widen further in more dynamic and urbanized
regions that create more nonfarm income-earning opportunities along
agricultural value chains, and in the rural nonfarm economy more
generally (Haggblade et al., 2007).
In marginal (or lagging) regions, average per capita incomes are
generally lower than in the rest of a country, while poverty rates tend to
be higher (World Bank, 2007, 48). In theory, these gaps should close
over time through regional convergence in accordance with the inverted
J-curve hypothesis first proposed by Williamson (Williamson, 1965).
However, the World Development Report 2009 identified the turning
point for such convergence at about $10,000 GDP per capita (purchasing
power parity [PPP], in constant 2000 US dollars), after which the
disparities in living standards attributable purely to geography diminish
(World Bank, 2008). This threshold is well beyond the level of income
expected in many developing countries by 2050. This lack of
convergence also holds for agriculture, as illustrated for India in Table
4.6. Not only did the low-potential rainfed farming areas have the lowest
land and labor productivity in 1970, but the gap had widened by 1994.
Table 4.6. Land and labor productivity over time by type of agriculture, India.
Type of agriculture
Irrigated High-potential Low-potential
Indicator/year rainfed rainfed
Land productivity
1970 2.21 1.52 1.0
1994 2.59 2.20 1.0

Annual growth 2.88 3.78 2.19
rate, 1970–1994
Labor productivity
1970 1.27 1.16 1.0
1994 1.56 1.66 1.0
Annual growth 1.13 1.76 0.25
rate, 1970–1994
Source: Calculated from Fan and Hazell (2000).
4.4 Implications for Small Farm Policies and Agricultural

Research
4.4.1 Implications for assisting small farms
Many small farm assistance programs in the past have taken a one-size-
fits-all approach, with some disappointing results (e.g., with rural credit
programs). One advantage of a farm typology based on livelihood
strategies is that it can help craft assistance programs that are more
suitably targeted to different kinds of farm households (Dorward et al.,
2009).
Hazell and Rahman (2014) discuss the kinds of interventions that
may be relevant within each of the five small-farm groups defined in
Table 4.3. Commercial and pre-commercial farmers with viable market
prospects need to be supported as a business proposition. In addition to
good rural infrastructure, they need access to improved technologies and
natural resource management (NRM) practices, modern inputs, financial
services, and storage facilities, as well as secure access to land and water.
They also need to be better organized for marketing if they are to
successfully link to modern value chains, and this may require more
collective action in the form of cooperatives or other types of farmer
organizations. Much of this assistance will need to be geared toward
high-value production and provided on a commercial and financially
sustainable basis. If more subsistence and pre-commercial small farms
are to become successful commercial farms, they may need special help
in acquiring necessary knowledge and skills and becoming better

organized to link to modern value chains. This may be especially
important for many women and young farmers.
This strategy, however, may not be appropriate for other types of
farm households. Given higher income-earning opportunities in the
nonfarm sector, many transition farmers may simply not be that
interested in expanding their commercial farming activities, so unless
significant new opportunities exist in farming, assistance targeted at
commercializing their farms may not be productive. They may gain more
from assistance in developing their technical and entrepreneurial skills
and assets in ways that help them succeed in the nonfarm economy and
develop their own nonfarm businesses. Again, such help may be
especially important for women and young people.
Subsistence farmers are predominantly poor and may benefit most
from some form of social assistance, such as productive safety programs,
support for food gardens, cash transfers, and training that facilitates their
exit from agriculture. Many subsistence-oriented farmers are too poor or
too remote from markets to become successful commercial farmers
without long-term subsidies, but assistance that helps them improve the
productivity of their farms (e.g., better technologies and NRM practices)
can improve their own food security and perhaps provide some cash
income. But subsistence farmers have limited ability to pay for modern
inputs or credit, so intermediate technologies that require few purchased
inputs may be needed, or inputs will need to be heavily subsidized (e.g.,
basic amounts of seeds and fertilizer). Subsistence farmers are typically
the most exposed and vulnerable to climate risks, and in addition to
safety nets, they need help developing resilient farming systems.
4.4.2 Implications for agricultural research
Some implications for future priorities for agricultural research can be

summarized as follows:
1. Research aimed at commercial small farms will need to give
increasing attention to high-value crops and livestock that can
yield high returns to a limited land base. Food staples are not very
profitable crops to grow for market except at scale, so many small
farms will need to diversify into high-value agriculture if they are
to escape poverty and prosper. The best opportunities for high-
value farming are likely to lie in areas with good access to urban
markets. Additional research is also needed on the best ways of
linking more small farms to urban markets that are becoming
increasingly integrated and that demand higher quality and safety
standards.
2. Research on food staples is needed for all types of farms.
Research for medium-sized and large farms will be more critical
in the future for supplying food staples for agroindustry and urban
populations, while research targeted at small farms will be helpful
for facilitating their own food security.2 Such research can often
be an important first step toward agricultural diversification,
enabling a farm household to meet its food security needs using
less land, thereby freeing up labor, land, and other resources for
alternative uses (Pandey et al., 2006).
3. Research aimed primarily at benefiting the poor should focus on
subsistence-oriented farms, pre-commercial farmers, and lagging
regions. Production of food staples plays an important role in the
food security of many poor households and in lagging regions.
There are many opportunities to intensify production in
2Small farms play a diminishing role in feeding rapidly growing urban populations. A
recent study by Herrero et al. (2017) using spatial referenced data for 2005 shows that, on
average, small farms smaller than 2 ha produce only about 30% of total cereals in Africa
and Asia (excluding China), 10% in West Asia and North Africa, 15% in Central
America, and negligible shares in South America). Farms of 2–20 ha are more important
producers everywhere, except China, and farms larger than 20 ha dominate in Central and
South America. Similar regional findings also hold for the production of other food
staples like roots and tubers.
sustainable ways through greater use of improved varieties and

fertilizers, particularly if complemented by expansion of the
irrigated area (e.g., through investments in tubewells, ponds, or
the landscaping of catchment areas to harvest seasonal rainfall).
Research on climate-smart agriculture will also be important to
help sustain food production on small farms in many adversely
affected areas. Research on some high-value products that are

more constrained by market access than agroclimatic conditions
(e.g., poultry and milk production and many horticultural
products) will also be important, as a way of both improving poor
farmers’ nutrition and raising their cash incomes. In India, for
example, many lagging regions have now diversified into high-
value agriculture, though not to the same extent as many more
favored areas (Joshi et al., 2007, chapter 8). Research aimed at the
poor needs to be integrated with other assistance programs for the

poor, such as safety nets, social transfer programs, and training
programs for nonfarm activities.
The roles of private and public agricultural research will need to
adjust. The division of labor between the two is still in flux, especially
for developing countries. It seems likely that the private sector will
undertake more of the research needed for commercial farms, especially
the larger ones, and for high-value agriculture, where returns and
proprietary rights are highest. The public sector will be left to focus on
areas that the private sector will not address, such as poorer small farms
and lagging regions, as well as on research that leads to broader
environmental and social benefits that cannot easily be captured by the
private sector. Much of the work of the international agricultural research
centers (IARCs) has already moved in this direction, as evidenced by
some of their ongoing systemwide research programs, their geographic
targeting, and their reporting framework that prioritizes short- to
medium-term poverty impacts. One unknown is the extent to which
research on germplasm improvement, NRM technologies, and
socioeconomic policies targeted to the poor will continue to have
spillover benefits for other types of farms. With the bifurcations among
farm types anticipated in this chapter, there may be less commonality in
benefits and greater trade-offs between farm types. If so, understanding
these trade-offs, and determining the priority target groups for the IARCs
are key issues for future discussion.
4.5 Conclusions
Urbanization and the changing nature of the agri-food system offer new
opportunities for small farms that can successfully link to urban-driven
value chains on a commercial basis, but they also impose access and
quality barriers that many other small farms will not be able to
overcome. The pressures on small farm livelihoods will be further
compounded in much of Africa and South Asia by continuing rural
population growth that leads to further subdivision of landholdings and
by climate change. Despite these challenges, small farms are unlikely to
diminish much in number by 2030, primarily because there will be too

few exit opportunities in the nonagricultural economy. A few small
farmers will succeed as full-time commercial farmers, whereas others
will either diversify extensively into nonfarm sources of income, where
such opportunities exist, or retreat into subsistence production,
particularly in more remote and less-favored areas.
Assistance programs for small farms, including agricultural research,
will need to be better targeted to meet the changing needs of different
types of farm households as their livelihood strategies diverge. Farm
assistance will also need to be better integrated with other kinds of
assistance, such as help diversifying into nonfarm activities and social
transfer programs for the poor. The private sector will likely play a
growing role in meeting the technology and value chain needs of
successful commercial farms of all sizes, leaving the public sector with
more freedom to focus on helping pre-commercial farms become
integrated into modern value chains; helping farm households exit
agriculture though diversification or migration; and helping subsistence-
oriented farmers, many in lagging regions, escape poverty. It can also
work to improve sustainability, resilience to climate change, and farm-
related environmental services.
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Chapter 5
Climate Change Impacts

on Agriculture
Alex C. Ruane and Cynthia Rosenzweig

5.1 Introduction
Agricultural systems are currently undergoing rapid shifts owing to

socioeconomic development, technological change, population growth,
economic opportunity, evolving demand for commodities, and the need
for sustainability amid global environmental change.1 It is not sufficient
to maintain current harvest levels; rather, there is a need to rapidly
increase production in light of a population growing to nearly 10 billion
by mid-century and to more than 11 billion by 2100 (FAO, 2016; UN,
2017; Popkin et al., 2012). Current and future agricultural systems are
additionally burdened by human-caused climate change, the result of
accumulating greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions, ecological
destruction, and land use changes that have altered the chemical
composition of Earth’s atmosphere and trapped energy in the Earth
system (IPCC, 2013; Porter et al., 2014). This increased energy has
already raised average surface temperatures by ~1ºC (GISTEMP Team,
1The authors appreciate the contributions of Meridel Phillips on data processing and
visualization, Greg Reppucci and Shari Lifson on graphical development, Erik Mencos
for research assistance, and Prabhu Pingali and Rachid Serraj for their leadership in the
CGIAR Foresight exercise that motivated this work. We also thank the many climate and
agricultural modelers who contributed to AgMIP and CMIP5 for the projections analyzed
here. This work was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Agency Science
Mission Directorate (WBS 281945.02.03.06.79).
161
2017; Hansen et al., 2010), leading early on to the term “global

warming,” but this phenomenon is now more accurately referred to as
“climate change” because it also modifies atmospheric circulation,
adjusts regional and seasonal precipitation patterns, and shifts the
distribution and characteristics of extreme events (Bindoff et al., 2013;
Collins et al., 2013).
Food and health systems face increasing risk owing to progressive

climate change now manifesting itself as more frequent, severe extreme
weather events—heat waves, droughts, and floods (IPCC, 2013). Often
without warning, weather-related shocks can have catastrophic and
reverberating impacts on the increasingly exposed global food system—
through production, processing, distribution, retail, disposal, and waste.
Simultaneously, malnutrition and ill health are arising from lack of
access to nutritious food, exacerbated in crises such as food price spikes
or shortages. For some countries, particularly import-dependent low-

income countries, weather shocks and price spikes can lead to social
unrest, famine, and migration.
Although previous actions have already guaranteed a human finger-
print on Earth’s climate system, the extent to which the climate will
change in coming years will depend on future emissions, land use, and
technological innovations. Furthermore, the extent to which climate
changes will affect agricultural systems and dependent populations will
be determined by our ability to anticipate risks, diagnose vulnerabilities,
and develop mitigation and adaptation strategies that lessen agricultural
sector damages.
Climate change impacts on agriculture must be understood in the
context of the intertwined systems that affect food security and
agricultural trade, including biological, socioeconomic, and political
processes. Rapid gains in socioeconomic development around the world
may give the mistaken impression that climate change is not detrimental,
but in many of these regions climate change impacts act as an additional
burden holding back the pace of development. In addition to the
biological impact of changing climate conditions on farms, future
agricultural production will be affected by economic and policy
incentives across a wide variety of stakeholders and actors both locally
and interacting through global markets (Valdivia et al., 2015). Figure 5.1
Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture 163
Fig. 5.1. Climate is one of the complex and interacting systems comprising agriculture
and food security, and its effects on any given farming system will be distinguished by
society’s pathway of emissions and land use, shifts in mean climate, changing climate
extremes, and regional patterns owing to geography and exposure resulting from farm
management. Source: Figure adapted from Rosenzweig and Hillel (2018).
illustrates how the current and future state of these systems dictate the
extent of vulnerability to physical climate risks, which for agriculture in
any given location are determined by a combination of the following:
1. Societal pathway – the net future impact of policies and actions
that determine total global greenhouse gas emissions, aerosol
emissions, and land use changes, in addition to the development
and implementation of adaptation technologies (Moss et al.,
2010; O’Neill et al., 2015).
2. Mean climate changes – the amount by which mean climate

change variables (e.g., temperature, precipitation, sunlight, winds,
relative humidity) are altered by the global climate change signal
(Flato et al., 2013).
3. Changes to climate extremes – the extent to which extreme
climate events (e.g., droughts, floods, heat waves, frosts, tropical
cyclones, hail) alter their magnitude, frequency, duration, and

geographic extent (Seneviratne et al., 2012).
4. Patterns of local agro-climate exposure compared with global
signal – the ways in which geographical characteristics (e.g.,
latitude, mountains, coastlines, land cover) and growing season
exposure lead to local climate changes affecting agriculture in a
manner that is distinct from the overall global and long-term
climate signals (Ruane and McDermid, 2017).
This chapter provides foresight into the ways in which climate change
will shape future agricultural systems, seeking to anticipate new
challenges and opportunities so that new technological and policy
strategies may be developed for a more resilient and productive future.
The chapter focuses primarily on foresight into major crops (maize,
wheat, rice, and soy), which together account for about 43% of global
dietary calories; soybean is the primary oilseed for human and livestock
consumption (FAO, 2013). These areas of emphasis reflect the focus of
the scientific literature but fall short of meeting the diverse needs of
agricultural sector planners. Priority areas for continuing foresight
development include the creation of models for more crop species
(notably perennials, fruits and vegetables, oil crops, and tropical cereals)
and plantation crops (such as coffee, tea, cacao, and wine grapes, where
yield quality may be more important than yield quantity). Tools capable
of simulating more complex systems would also allow testing of creative
interventions for intercropping, crop rotations, mixed crop-livestock
systems, and aquaculture.
Climate changes will also affect elements of the agriculture and food
system beyond the farm, including economic risks to elements of the
value chain such as storage facilities, processing plants, and transporta-
tion, as well as political risks should government policies shift toward or
away from environmental sustainability (Figure 5.1). Other chapters in

this volume specifically address the context in which future agricultural
systems will be affected by climate change, evaluating trends in
socioeconomic conditions, demand for agricultural products, characteris-
tics of future food systems, resource sustainability, and agricultural
technology trends, among other topics.
The most prominent recent assessment of the scientific literature on

climate change and food security was conducted by the IPCC (Porter
et al., 2014), with additional notable assessments about vulnerability and
opportunities provided by the CGIAR (Beddington et al., 2012), the
United States Department of Agriculture (Brown et al., 2015), and the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2016).
Here we provide an overview of climate trends affecting agriculture
(section 5.2), projected risks from future agro-climatic changes (section
5.3), the nature of differing impacts among regions and farming systems
(section 5.4), and a foresight framework that identifies vulnerabilities
and prioritizes adaptation strategies using major developments within the
Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP;
Rosenzweig et al., 2013) (section 5.5).
5.2 Agro-climatic Trends and System Responses
The signal of ongoing climate change trends affecting agriculture is

difficult to isolate amid significant changes in technological adoption and
socioeconomic development. These changes include trends and step
changes stemming from the introduction of hybrid and dwarf varieties,
proliferation of mechanical equipment, application of herbicides and
pesticides, installation of water resources infrastructure, and increased
interconnection of markets, as well as social conflicts that punctuate the
historical production record. In many regions, climate is not the primary
limiting factor for production—in the developing world, for example,
farm nitrogen levels, labor shortages, or lack of pest, disease, and weed
controls often cap yields. Additionally, heterogeneity in farming systems
and gaps in surveys and reported agricultural information make
observing direct climate impacts at large scales difficult.
5.2.1 Observed changes to agricultural climates
Rising mean temperatures are the most direct and observable signal of
climate change for agricultural regions around the world; many regions
show robust trends that are distinct from the signal of natural variability
(Hartmann et al., 2013). Figure 5.2a presents more recent trends in
annual temperature changes from the GISTEMP dataset (GISTEMP

Team, 2017; Hansen et al., 2010), comparing the 1980–2010 period
against the previous 30 years (1951–1980). Surface warming is amplified
at high latitudes owing primarily to feedback associated with melting of
snow and ice, as well as at higher elevations and in arid regions where
excess energy is more efficiently transferred into near-surface heat.
Many of these most rapidly warming areas have little agricultural
production at present. Growing seasons for maize, wheat, rice, and soy
(Fig. 5.2b–e) have been exposed to slightly different climate changes

from the annual average, tending to avoid the larger increases in winter
and dry season temperatures while taking advantage of a higher portion
of annual rainfall coming during the wet season (Ruane et al., 2018a).
Increases in daily minimum (nighttime) temperature appear to be
outpacing the warming of daily maximum temperature, resulting in an
uncertain reduction in diurnal temperature range (Hartmann et al., 2013)
that may lead to nighttime crop respiration stresses.
Observed precipitation trends in any given location are often difficult
to separate from natural variability. Large-scale trends noted by the IPCC
(Hartmann et al., 2013), however, have largely exacerbated historical
patterns by making wet areas wetter and dry areas drier (Trenberth,
2011). Higher temperatures are expected to enhance the overall water
cycle, but thus far increases in atmospheric moisture have tracked
increases in saturation limits, resulting in nearly constant relative
humidities (Hartmann et al., 2013). Changes in photosynthetically active
radiation (PAR) are also uncertain, as climate shifts affect different types
of clouds, and the circulation patterns that steer them, in unique ways.
Extreme events (e.g., heat waves, cold snaps, droughts, floods, severe
storms), by definition, are rare, and therefore it is difficult to assess
robust trends with limited observational records. Gauging the severity of
a 1-in-100-year event, for example, is challenging in regions where the
Fig. 5.2. Recent (a) annual, (b) maize, (c) wheat, (d) rice, and (e) soy growing season
observed mean temperature changes (GISTEMP Team, 2017; Hansen et al., 2010).
Growing seasons for each ½×½-degree gridbox were drawn from the AgMIP Global
Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison (Elliott et al., 2015), and grid boxes that harvested
less than 10 ha of a given crop species were omitted to focus on regions with substantial
production (You et al., 2014).
consistent historical record is around 100 years long or shorter,

particularly when the underlying distribution of extreme events is also
responding to long-term climate trends.
The IPCC recently undertook a review of observed changes
in extreme events (Seneviratne et al., 2012), and both models and
observations provide more robust signals for temperature extremes (e.g.,
increases in warm days) than for hydrologic extremes (e.g., heavy

precipitation events became more frequent in many regions even as other
regions displayed the opposite trends) (Hartmann et al., 2013). Even in
cases with clear increases in the frequency of extreme events, it may be
difficult to determine whether this is a result of a shift in the overall
distribution or an additional fundamental shift in the shape of the
distribution (Hansen et al., 2012).
There are no clear observational trends in major modes of climate
variability such as the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, the North Atlantic

Oscillation, or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (Hartmann et al., 2013).
5.2.2 Direct climate impacts on agricultural systems
Direct impacts of climate, including atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2)

concentrations, on agricultural systems include effects on plant
development, grain productivity, and mortality. Table 5.1 summarizes
the main drivers and mechanisms of climate impact on cropping systems.
Notably, direct climate impacts include both damage and benefits as well
as opportunities for farm-level adaptations. In assessing vulnerabilities
and opportunities of farming systems, it is also important to recognize
that C3 plants (e.g., wheat, rice, soy, potato, and peanut) generally react
more strongly than C4 plants (e.g., maize, sugarcane, sorghum) to both
increases in temperature and CO2.
Characteristics of direct climate impacts have been investigated using
a variety of chamber and field experiment approaches, although
published studies have focused more on mid-latitude and high-input
cereals while direct impacts on tropical cropping systems, perennials,
fruits, and vegetables have persistent uncertainties (Porter et al., 2014;
Long et al., 2006; Tubiello et al., 2007a,b; Ainsworth et al., 2008; Boote
et al., 2010). Interactions between soils and climate changes are crucial,
Table 5.1. Overview of main drivers and mechanisms for direct climate change impacts
on cropping systems. Further detail provided by Bongaarts (1994), Rosenzweig et al.
(2001), Boote et al. (2010), Kimball (2010), Porter et al. (2014), and Myers et al. (2017).
Biophysical
Climate driver mechanism Overview of direct impact on agriculture
Increased Accelerated Warmer temperatures cause plants to develop at
mean maturity an accelerated pace, leading to an earlier

temperatures maturity before sufficient biomass has been
gained and therefore reducing overall yields.
Increased Shifts in suitable Warmer temperatures generally extend the
mean growing seasons growing season in areas that are currently limited
temperatures by cold temperatures while restricting growing
seasons in regions limited by high temperatures.
Extreme Heat stress, Extremely hot temperatures cause plants to
temperatures leaf loss, and reduce photosynthetic activity, with prolonged
mortality exposure leading to leaf loss and potentially full
crop failure (Asseng et al., 2015).

Heat wave Pollen sterility The impacts of heat waves depend on a plant’s
during flowering developmental stage; heat waves during
stage flowering (anthesis) can cause pollen to be
sterile, leading to reproductive failure and low
grain numbers.
Elevated CO2 Enhanced Higher CO2 concentrations benefit photo-
primary synthesis, resulting in higher productivity
productivity (Rosenzweig et al., 2014).
Elevated CO2 More efficient Plants in high-CO2 environments have more
water use efficient stomatal gas exchanges, which reduce
transpiration and improve water retention
(Deryng et al., 2016).
Elevated CO2 Reduction in Yield from crops in CO2-rich conditions contains
nutritional a lower percentage of key nutrients including
content protein, iron, and zinc (Müller et al., 2014;
Myers et al., 2014; Medek et al., 2017).
Decreased Increase in Excessive transpiration demand causes plants to
precipitation water stress and reduce gas exchanges for photosynthesis,
mortality conserving water at the expense of primary
production. Plant water loss can lead to wilting
and mortality.
Increased Reduction in Areas that regularly experience drought
precipitation water stress conditions likely stand to benefit should mean
precipitation increase.
More severe Plant damage High winds and hail can knock down, break, or
storms uproot crops, leading to potentially severe losses.
as the full benefits of higher CO2 cannot be achieved by farms expe-

riencing nitrogen stress.
Panel regressions and other statistical methods have also identified
statistically significant climate signals within reported yields (Lobell and
Burke, 2008; Schlenker and Roberts, 2009), with resulting models
suggesting that climate changes have already led to decreases in wheat
and maize production since 1980 (Lobell et al., 2011).
5.2.3 Indirect mechanisms for agro-climatological impacts
Climate change impacts on other biophysical systems are likely to have

indirect impacts on agricultural systems. These include the following:
 Sea-level rise: Glacial melting and thermal expansion of the oceans
could lead to sea-level rise of up to a meter or more by 2100 (Church

et al., 2013), potentially inundating low-lying coastal regions with
saltwater in a process exacerbated by extreme storms. Mega-deltas
(e.g., the Ganges-Brahmaputra in Bangladesh, Nile in Egypt, or
Mekong/Red in Vietnam) are particularly vulnerable and contain
some of the world’s most productive breadbaskets as well as high
densities of smallholder farmers.
 Inland flooding: Inland freshwater flooding may also be exacerbated
by mean precipitation increases, more severe storms, and a higher
proportion of precipitation falling as rain rather than snow (Dettinger
and Cayan, 1995). Higher rainfall totals could also increase the
occurrence of waterlogging and field conditions that are too wet for
the use of heavy farm equipment.
 Water resources: Water resources for irrigation are projected to face
increased stress owing to long-term reductions in mountain snowpack
that reduce the natural reservoir capacity of a river basin for irriga-
tion; this effect could be particularly challenging for semi-arid areas
irrigated by surface water in snow-fed river systems (Döll, 2002;
Mote et al., 2005).
 Pests: Shifting climate zones will also affect agro-ecological zones
(Fischer et al., 2002) and alter the potential extent and timing of
damaging agricultural pests, diseases, and weeds (Ziska and Runion,
2006; Rosenzweig and Tubiello, 2007).
Direct and indirect agro-climatic effects can be long-term and wide-

spread (e.g., elevated temperatures, CO2 effects, water resources supply)
or temporally and regionally acute (e.g., drought, heat wave, coastal and
inland flooding, pests). Climate change may also indirectly affect
agriculture and food systems through economic and political disruption.
Prominent examples include a consistent and extended decline in sea ice
that would allow for transportation of agricultural commodities through

the Northwest Passage, more frequent disruption of major trading ports
due to sea-level rise and more intense hurricanes, and the potential for
social unrest and migration following extended agricultural droughts.
5.2.4 Agricultural system influences on the climate system
The agricultural sector is not only vulnerable to weather and climate

hazards, but also a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions and
land use changes that drive climate change (IPCC, 2014). Historical
deforestation was motivated in large part by demand for more lands for
crops and grazing, and agricultural systems are a net greenhouse gas
emissions source owing to exchanges with carbon and nitrogen stocks in
soils and fertilizers as well as methane from paddy rice and livestock
enteric fermentation. Together the agricultural sector accounts for just
under a quarter of total greenhouse gas emissions (Smith et al., 2014),
resulting in a mandate for a substantial agricultural system role in overall
societal mitigation. Socioeconomic and biophysical pathways evaluated
by the chapters in this foresight volume will also determine the total and
relative contribution of agricultural sector emissions and land use
changes that alter the future climate system.
5.3 Projected Climate Changes for Agricultural Regions
Projections show that climate change in agricultural regions will be

characterized by slow, long-term changes in mean conditions punctuated
by acute extreme events.
Figure 5.3 presents end-of-century mean temperature changes
according to the median of 29 global climate model (GCM) ensemble
drawn from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5
(Taylor et al., 2012; Ruane and McDermid, 2017), and Figure 5.4 shows
corresponding projected changes in mean precipitation. Warming across
the GCM ensemble is clear, while the direction of precipitation shows
strong regional variation but is more uncertain overall. The magnitude of
regional changes depends strongly on future pathways of socioeconomic
development, land use change, and greenhouse gas emissions (Moss
et al., 2010; O’Neill et al., 2014), with projections for the higher-
emissions pathway doubling the extent of climate changes projected for
the lower-emissions pathway in many regions. Patterns of these mean
changes are similar to the recent climatic trends shown in Figure 5.1,
with the largest warming projected over high latitudes and during winter
months and an exacerbation of wet and dry regions, particularly around
major monsoon circulations (Trenberth, 2011). These climate changes
are driven by substantial increases in CO2 concentrations (with positive
direct effects on agricultural systems), which would rise from about 400
parts per million (ppm) today to 532ppm or 801 ppm by 2085 under the
lower- or higher-emissions pathway, respectively (Ruane et al., 2015).
Climate model projections of changes in the characteristics of extreme
events are less certain than the mean changes, but shifts toward more heat
waves, dry spells, and extreme precipitation events (when storms do occur)
are strongly supported by theory and emerge from ensemble model
analyses even as uncertainty in individual models and regions remains
substantial (Flato et al., 2013; Pendergrass and Hartmann, 2014). Analysis
of the paleoclimate record and climate model projections also indicates an
increasing probability of regional “mega-droughts” with magnitudes and
durations unlike anything observed in modern times (Cook et al., 2015).
5.4 Ramifications of Climate Change on the Agricultural

Sector
Climate change threatens agricultural production, which in turn is

expected to alter the geographic extent of major farm systems, shift trade
flows, and drive major investment in adaptation and mitigation within
the agricultural sector.
Fig. 5.3. (a,f) Annual, (b,g) maize, (c,h) wheat, (d,i) rice, and (e,j) soy growing season
projected mean temperature changes for the end of the 21st century (2070–2099)
compared with the 1980–2010 baseline period. Projections are for (a–e) a low-emissions
pathway and (f–j) a high-emissions pathway (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 in Moss et al., 2010).
Growing seasons and cropped areas are defined as in Figure 5.2, and hatching indicates
regions where at 70% or more of the GCM projections indicate the same direction of
change.
Fig. 5.4. (a,f) Annual, (b,g) maize, (c,h) wheat, (d,i) rice, and (e,j) soy growing season
projected mean precipitation changes for the end of the 21st century (2070–2099)
compared with the 1980–2010 baseline period. Emissions pathways, cropped area, and
growing seasons are as in Figure 5.3, and hatching indicates regions where at 70% or
more GCM projections indicate the same direction of change.
Fig. 5.5. Projected rainfed maize yield changes, compared with the 1980–2009 period,
under the higher-emissions scenario in the (a) 2020s, (b) 2050s, and (c) 2080s.
Projections driven by climate scenarios drawn from the UK HadGEM2-ES climate model
(Rosenzweig et al., 2014). Grid cells with 10 ha of maize area or less were omitted as in
Figure 5.3.
Figure 5.5 displays an example of the changes in projected rainfed

maize yields under the higher-emissions scenario simulated by a global
gridded crop model (Elliott et al., 2014). Regional yield impacts can be
substantial even in early decades, although their magnitudes and exact
projected location is subject to uncertainty from climate and crop models
as well as internal climate variability (Wallach et al., 2015). The long-
term yield impacts of climate change more clearly emerge from
variability in the middle and end of the 21st century, with considerable
variation across region, and with maize and wheat systems generally
more vulnerable than rice and soy (Rosenzweig et al., 2014).
As a C4 crop, maize stands to benefit less from elevated CO2 concen-

trations, while wheat struggles to meet vernalization requirements as
temperatures rise (Bassu et al., 2014; Asseng et al., 2013). All crops
show more pessimistic yield changes at lower latitudes and in semi-arid
regions where agriculture is already limited by high temperatures and
water stress. Yield changes are more optimistic at high latitudes where
cold temperatures are most limiting, although the potential for poleward
expansion is hindered by shallow soils with poor drainage as well as vast
forests that are important in efforts to mitigate climate change risk.
Agricultural vulnerabilities to climate change are quite robust across
methods (Zhao et al., 2017), having also been identified in meta-analyses
of crop model projections (Easterling et al., 2007; Challinor et al., 2014)
as well as statistical model applications (Schlenker and Roberts, 2009).
Agro-climatic risk is also sensitive to scale, as yield changes can show
large differences over small geographic scales owing to emerging storm

tracks, mountains, coastlines, and land cover (Porter et al., 2014). Yield
impacts may also contrast strongly across different growing seasons
(e.g., short and long rains in tropical climates; Zubair et al., 2015; Ruane
et al., 2012) and management systems (Ruane et al., 2013), and even
areas with average rainfall increases may see a higher risk of drought
(Trenberth, 2011).
Direct climate impacts are also expected to affect aquaculture, wild
fisheries, and livestock, although most investigations of livestock
impacts have focused on productivity changes of their grain feedstock
(Porter et al., 2014).
Climate-induced changes in regional yields will have repercussions
throughout the agricultural sector and heighten pressure for adaptation
(Figure 5.6; Wiebe et al., 2015). Agricultural prices will rise in light of
production shortfalls, leading to an expansion of agricultural area in
order to meet food and fiber demands. Agricultural regions will face
increased pressure where hot and dry conditions currently prevail, with
potential movement toward wetter zones, high latitudes, and elevated
regions following the movement of shifting agro-ecological zones.
Coupled with the potential collapse of ground- and surface water
resources in regions with substantial irrigation (e.g., in northern India
and Pakistan; Rodell et al., 2009), this could lead to the degradation of
Fig. 5.6. Overview of climate effects on the agricultural sector and their downstream
ramifications based on results of a multi-model climate-crop-economic analysis
performed by Wiebe et al. (2015). Climate change leads to biophysical impacts that
affect economic systems driven by strong consumer demand, leading to price, land use
change, and farm system responses.
some breadbaskets even as others emerge. The impacts of price changes

will be felt in different ways by vulnerable populations: farmers in
regions that are not severely affected are likely to obtain better prices for
agricultural commodities whereas urban populations will bear the brunt
of higher costs. Changes in regional production may also affect
competitive trade balances and alter the flow of market goods.
Changes in yields and prices will galvanize adaptation across the
agricultural sector, with more transformational adaptations spurred by
climate shocks or the accumulating impact of more frequent poor
harvests (Yadav et al., 2011; Rickards and Howden, 2012; Howden
et al., 2007; Rosenzweig and Tubiello, 2007). Proactive adaptation
planning may be integrated into ongoing investment and rehabilitation
cycles with an aim to build resilience. This can be accomplished through
new breeding programs, irrigation infrastructure, management strategies,
and farming systems, as well as enhanced diversification, shifts in

growing seasons, pest, disease, and weed control, protection against
extreme events, insurance programs, and stock building. The develop-
ment and implementation of early-warning systems also stands to
increase the efficiency of planning and response.
Efforts to mitigate climate change are also likely to acutely affect the
future of global agriculture (IPCC, 2014). Efforts to replace fossil energy

sources with biofuels and incentives for afforestation will both increase
competition for land, potentially squeezing out the production of food for
both subsistence and market trade. Policies and related technologies to
control industrial pollution are also likely to reduce overall aerosol
loading and surface ozone concentrations, with likely benefits for
agricultural systems.
Mitigation in agriculture and food systems could come from a
reduction in the intensity of emissions from agricultural lands (e.g.,

emissions/harvested crop weight) or from a reduction in demand for
agricultural products (e.g., from dietary pathways with a lower emissions
footprint). Many mitigation practices (such as reduced tillage) were
originally developed as “best practices” for agriculture; sustainable
management of carbon, nitrogen, and water stocks help raise production
and build resilience against climate variability in addition to mitigating
(or even reversing) greenhouse gas fluxes into the atmosphere
(Rosenzweig and Tubiello, 2007). Corporations and development
agencies are increasingly organizing efforts around “climate-smart
agriculture” (CSA), a systematic approach to agricultural development
intended to address the dual challenges of food security and climate
change from multiple entry points, from field management to national
policy. CSA aims to guide public and private investments to (1) improve
food security and agricultural productivity and (2) increase the resilience
of farming systems to climate change by adaptation, while (3) capturing
potential mitigation co-benefits. Dickie et al. (2014) review an array of
mitigation strategies, although it is important that these be considered in
the context of socioeconomic and political systems (FAO, 2009).
5.5 Agricultural Modeling for Climate Vulnerability

Foresight
Providing agricultural system stakeholders and adaptation planners with

foresight on climate change’s cascading impacts requires an assessment
of multiple scales, disciplines, and systems that interact in a complex
manner (Figure 5.1). Responsive actions are likewise spurred by a

diverse set of motivations and priorities, and all of this is occurring in a
highly uncertain setting owing to data limitations, model differences, and
dependence on socioeconomic decisions in the coming years. The
Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP),
an international transdisciplinary community of modelers and
practitioners, has developed a number of modeling frameworks that may
be used to envision and plan for future challenges, allowing us to test
policy and adaptation strategies in a virtual setting before more costly

development, trial, and at-scale rollout (Rosenzweig et al., 2013, 2015;
Ruane et al., 2017).
AgMIP has developed teams to investigate farm-level impacts,
vulnerability, and adaptation using process-based crop models. AgMIP-
Wheat (Asseng et al., 2013, 2015; Martre et al., 2015; Ruane et al.,
2016; Wang et al., 2017), AgMIP-Maize (Bassu et al., 2014; Durand
et al., 2017), AgMIP-Rice (Li et al., 2015), AgMIP-Potato (Fleisher
et al., 2017), and AgMIP-Sugarcane (Marin et al., 2015) have each
investigated core responses to climate changes and provided benchmarks
for model-based applications oriented around genetic and management
improvements for resilience.
AgMIP’s Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison (GGCMI;
Elliott et al., 2015; Müller et al., 2017) takes these models to a global
scale, elucidating regional differences and aggregate production changes.
Additional activities in progress include focus on soils and crop rotation,
water resources, livestock modeling, and pests and diseases.
AgMIP as a community is also developing frameworks to understand
impacts and trade-offs in the wider socioeconomic system at local to
global scales. The AgMIP Global Economics Team explores the
ramifications of climate changes on production, land use, commodity
markets, and vulnerable populations around the world (Nelson et al.,
2014; Wiebe et al., 2015). Regional integrated assessment modeling adds

a sharper perspective on heterogeneous populations even in a small
region, allowing evaluation of costs, benefits, and trade-offs between the
current systems and those associated with climate, adaptation, and policy
shifts (Antle et al., 2015). Socioeconomic foresight is aided by the
development of representative agricultural pathways (RAPs) that can be
used in integrated assessment modeling at global, regional, or local

scales (Valdivia et al., 2015). Table 5.2 shows an example of the types of
information contained in RAPs produced for nine countries in South Asia
and sub-Saharan Africa. These RAPs were produced through a
Table 5.2. Selected elements of RAPs for nine countries in South

Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Driver type RAP element

Sustainability Soil degradation
Water availability
Agricultural technologies Resilience to pests and diseases

Livestock productivity
Resilience to extreme events
Socioeconomic Farm size

Household size
Herd size
Fertilizer prices
Fertilizer use
Use of improved crop varieties
Labor availability
Off-farm income
Policy Subsidies (for farm inputs)

Public investment in agriculture
Agricultural extension Information availability
Source: Adapted from Valdivia et al. (2015).

Note: RAPS = representative agricultural pathways. The RAPs were
created under illustrative “green road” (sustainability-oriented) and
“gray road” (economic development–oriented) pathways.
stakeholder-driven exploration of current and future trends in sustain-

ability, agricultural technologies, socioeconomic factors, policies, and
agricultural extension that will determine the future systems that climate
change will affect. RAPs are the primary mechanism for agricultural
models to represent the types of foresight elements detailed in other
chapters in this volume (e.g., on resource constraints, value chains, farm
technologies, societal demand).

AgMIP recently launched a new initiative on coordinated global
and regional assessments (CGRA), which link AgMIP activities to
consistently incorporate biophysical and socioeconomic assessments
across spatial scales while also seeking integrate nutrition and food
security metrics (Figure 5.7; Rosenzweig et al., 2016, 2018; Ruane et al.,
2018b). One of CGRA’s main aims is to facilitate an assessment of the
ways in which climate shocks affect biological and social systems
throughout the agricultural sector, as well as the likely behavioral

responses of actors who may be in a position to intervene in or
exacerbate the resulting challenges. The CGRA framework also allows
for the tracking of various sources of uncertainty that may form
bottlenecks in our ability to project future conditions (Ruane et al.,
2018b). Further integration of agricultural model projections with
integrated assessment models will also shed light on how agricultural
sector impacts (e.g., as discussed in other foresight topic chapters in this
volume) affect other sectors and the overall interactions between society
and the natural environment (Ruane et al., 2017). In the longer run the
CGRA framework could become more comprehensive with the addition
of elements such as livestock, fisheries, value chains, diet shifts, and
nutrition.
Persistent monitoring of long-term challenges and the use of foresight
tools for planning are important elements of building a more productive
and resilient future. By anticipating challenges, we can identify
vulnerabilities and opportunities with enough time for society to develop,
disseminate, and implement promising strategies for mitigation and
adaptation.
Fig. 5.7. Schematic describing the core interactions captured by the AgMIP coordinated
global and regional assessments (CGRAs). Careful simulation of regional farm system
production allows insight into the individual elements of a global agricultural production
system represented by global gridded crop models. Regional production drives global
economic and agricultural trade models that simulate land use and prices for food and
farm inputs with effects on regional markets, in turn driving decision-making and
investment that can be modeled when simulating regional farming systems. The dynamic
CGRA modeling framework connects across scales and disciplines to understand
agriculture and food security under a number of scenarios and future pathways.
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b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Chapter 6
Environment and Natural

Resources
Kristel Van der Elst and Alex Williams

6.1 Introduction
Food is a resource in constantly increasing demand, highly related to

increases in population and income and to changes in diets, like
increased meat consumption. Food production has increased to respond
to the increased demand. In the past, growth in world agricultural
production has outpaced growth in world population. At global level and
on average, there are no food shortages, but the distribution of those
resources is unequal, and globally it is estimated that between a third and
half of food is wasted. Moreover, whereas there were about 815 million
undernourished individuals in the world in 2016, more than 1 billion
people are overweight; among those people, one-third are obese (FAO,
2015, 2016a).
Agri-food production systems are highly diverse, ranging from
subsistence farming where just enough food is produced to provide for
the farmer’s family—as is the case, for example, for about 70% of
the non-wealthy African population—to agribusiness involving large
corporate organizations.
By 2050 food demand is expected to increase by about 60–100%,
depending on sources and assumptions underlying the projections. This
projected growth in demand is driven mainly by expected population
growth—the United Nations (UN) projects that world population will
193
reach 9.8 billion by 2050, compared with 7.3 billion people currently and
1.8 billion people in 1915—and by expected rising income levels in
developing countries.
As people and countries become wealthier, dietary changes will have
a major impact on the agri-food system. It is expected that per capita
food demand will increase, and the mix of demand will include more
meat, sugar, and processed products (USNIC, 2013). By 2050 the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expects
annual demand for meat products to increase by 76% compared with
2005 levels (Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012), while other sources
forecast a 120% increase (IAASTD, 2009). This shift toward meat-heavy
diets is said to exceed population growth as the dominant driver of
changes in land use because meat production requires five times as much
land as plant-based food production per nutritional value unit. Beef, for
example, requires 20 times the amount of water required by cereals. And

by 2050 livestock will consume more food than all humans together
did in 1970 (Tudge, 2003). Despite the rise in more “ethical” or
“sustainable” diets and the call for meat-free diets as part of the
sustainability agenda, such diets are expected to remain a niche choice.
Increasing food production to feed the world will be a major
challenge. The FAO expects 77% of increased production to come from
increased yields, compared with 9% from expansion of cultivated land
and 14% from increased cropping intensity. Across crops, output
yields—i.e., the amount of food produced per unit area of land—have
increased on average and globally through a combination of increased
irrigation, chemical inputs, mechanized farming, and higher-yield crop
strains or seeds. They are expected to continue growing in the future,
albeit at a slower pace than in the past. It is commonly understood that
yield improvements alone, though crucial, will not be sufficient to feed
the world by 2050. Cropping intensity—the sum of all harvested areas by
crop divided by arable land—has historically risen and is expected to
increase in both rainfed and irrigated systems. Cultivated land expansion
will occur mainly in developing countries—especially in sub-Saharan
Africa and Latin America—and will be partially offset by declines in
developed countries. Beyond crops and livestock, countries have in past
Environment and Natural Resources 195
decades also turned to the ocean for food resources, both through fishing
of natural reserves as well as through fish farming or aquaculture.
Despite all of these areas of potential growth, experts warn that the
supply of food might be insufficient to match future demand, generating
price spikes and social and political instability (MoD, 2014).
Beyond issues such as technological advances, policy directions, and
politics, as well as issues related to food access and distribution, the

capacity of the agri-food system to respond to the challenge of feeding
the world depends on the availability of essential natural resources and
the functioning of natural ecosystems. As we think about the future of
the agri-food system, it is essential to think about the future evolution of
freshwater, land, marine resources, energy, terrestrial and marine
ecosystems, and climate change. These are strong drivers of change for
the agri-food system because they affect the potential for yield increases,
crop intensification, fertile land availability, and marine resources.

Inversely the agri-food system is also a major driver for those natural
resources and ecosystems.
There are multiple frameworks linking agri-food systems to
environmental and natural resource domains. This nexus thinking was
first brought to the attention of decision-makers through the World
Economic Forum’s 2011 Risk Report (see Figure 6.1). In the following
years, a variety of organizations built on this approach to develop their
own nexus concepts to analyze the future trajectories of those domains
and develop policy ideas. The World Business Council for Sustainable
Development (WBCSD) brought forward the important impact of
climate, while the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)
also highlights the importance of land and ecosystems. It is also worth
noting the approach of the FAO, which includes sustainable food and
agriculture in its goals of eradicating hunger, reducing poverty, and
sustainably managing and using natural resources and ecosystems.
Given the interconnections and feedback loops between natural
resources, natural ecosystems, and human activity, we can see that
achieving the aspirational Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2015)—
balancing the Zero Hunger goals, which aim for total food security,
sustainable agricultural practices, and improved nutrition with other
goals such as good health and well-being, clean water and sanitation,
responsible consumption/production, climate action, life below water,

and life on land, to name a few—will be a balancing act. The
achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals as a whole will
require not fixes but transformations, including in the global agri-food
system.
Fig. 6.1. Water-energy-food nexus framework. Source: World Economic Forum (2011).
Supporting the reflections on the future of the global agri-food system

to 2050, we will explore trends and expected futures related to
freshwater, land, phosphorus, marine resources, and terrestrial and
marine ecosystems (for climate change, see chapter 5; for energy, see
chapter 14). We will also highlight relevant alternative futures.
Given the complexity of and the fast pace of change in the global
agri-food system and its broader context, along with genuine uncertainty
about the evolution of some of the major drivers of change and the exact
interactions and impacts of the different domains on each other,
forecasting the future is impossible. Foresight—the assessment of what
might happen or be needed in the future—can help us better appreciate
the interdependencies and uncertainties.
Whatever the future reality, it will be different from today, and agri-
food systems need to have foresight. Solving the complex challenge of
feeding the world, within natural resource and environmental constraints,
in a peaceful and inclusive manner will require significant transformations.
6.2 Freshwater
Water is a vital natural resource and an essential resource for the agri-
food system. Agriculture accounts for about 70% of global water
usage, compared with 11% for domestic/municipality use and 19% for
industrial activities. Water use in the agri-food system takes many forms.
Crops are produced through rainfed farming or through irrigated soils
where the water comes from a variety of sources such as groundwater,
surface water, treated wastewater, or desalinated water. Irrigated land is

more than twice as productive as rainfed cropland. The water footprint of
other agricultural products is also diverse; livestock production, for
example, is a heavy consumer, taking up nearly one-third of the world’s
water as of 2013. Figure 6.2 shows how annual demand for freshwater is
expected to evolve by 2050, by geographic location and by end use.
Fig. 6.2. Annual demand for freshwater in 2000 and projected demand in 2050, by
geographic location and end-use category. Source: OECD (2012, #13).
Only 2.5% of the world’s total water resources are freshwater. Of this
freshwater, 70% consists of ice caps and glaciers, 30% is groundwater,
and 0.3% is surface water. Demand for water has risen strongly over the
past decades, driven by a broad set of factors including population

growth, economic development, urbanization, changes in diets, and
changing agricultural and energy production systems. Freshwater
withdrawals are estimated to have increased globally by about 1% per
year since the 1980s. By 2014 one-fifth of the global population lived in
conditions of water scarcity or water stress (WWAP, 2016). Water stress
refers to a situation where demand for water exceeds the amount of water
available, owing to actual water scarcity or to conditions restricting the
use of the available water, such as poor water quality or inaccessibility.
Currently it is estimated that a third of large global groundwater
basins are under serious stress (Richey et al., 2015) while 24% of river
basins worldwide have been drained to the point of severe water stress
(Arup, 2015). By 2030 and across all purposes, water demand is
expected to exceed water supply by 40%, and when taking into account
business-as-usual assumptions for increases in water supply and water

productivity, 60% of that gap will remain (2030 Water Resources Group,
2009). A recent UNESCO study estimates that by 2050 half of the
world’s projected 10 billion people will suffer from water scarcity for at
least one month of the year.
Beyond global scarcity, it is also relevant to look at local and regional
context. Differences in the geographic distribution of water and
population densities, as well as local specificities related to water use
and management, provide a highly diverse picture. A World Resources
Institute projection for 2040 has mapped water stress assessments by
country based on business-as-usual scenarios. Bringing together global
agricultural production and water stress data reveals that 28% of
production on all cropland will be under high or extremely high stress,
while on irrigated cropland that share rises to 56% (Gassert, 2013).
In the future, water issues will become increasingly pervasive, and
competing demands for water between domestic, industrial, and
agricultural consumption will sharpen (Comprehensive Assessment,
2007). By 2050 this competition could generate an 18% reduction in
water available for agriculture (Strzepek and Boehlert, 2010).
Groundwater depletion is estimated to become a major threat to
agriculture and urban water supply in many regions. For example, given
that agricultural irrigation accounts for about 60% of groundwater use
and that aquifer pumping rates in about 20 highly populated countries are
unsustainable, it is estimated that currently productive arable lands may
sit above nullified groundwater reserves in less than 20 years (Yang
et al., 2015; Yardley, 2007).
Not only is the agri-food system affected by the availability of
freshwater; it also contributes to it. Agricultural practices—especially
irrigation and the use of nitrate- or phosphate-containing fertilizers—are

a major cause of water pollution that causes eutrophication (Scheffer
et al., 2001), acidification, toxic contamination, and pollution by micro-
pollutants. This in turn impacts soil quality and crop yields. Salinization
of soil is also highly linked with use of low-quality water in irrigation,
which in turn limits the productivity of agricultural crops. These
consequences can be irreversible (Rozema and Flowers, 2008). Given the
future pressure to increase yields and the linked projections for fertilizer
consumption (Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012), the agri-food system is

likely to be negatively affected by a self-reinforcing feedback loop of
increasingly degraded freshwater and lower yields.
Other water-related evolutions in the agri-food system that might
intensify in the future are the relocation of industrial agricultural
operations to places with less water stress, land grabbing—which is said
to actually be water grabbing—and trade in virtual water (water that is
virtually embedded in traded products and services).
6.3 Land
Like water, land is an extremely important resource in the agri-food

system. Looking to the future, both the quantity and quality of the land
available for the agri-food system matter, as does the ownership of that
land.
Urbanization has long been an important factor in land use in the
agri-food system, and it is expected to have a rather negative effect going
forward. In the past urbanization has been spurred by the agricultural
sector as it industrialized (Kuznets, 1960). A century ago about 10–15%
of the global population lived in urban areas, by 2010 this had increased
to 50%, and by 2050 it is expected that two out of three people will be
living in cities. This urbanization, which will occur mainly in developing

economies (UN, 2012), is expected to generate a 1.8–2.4% loss of highly
productive croplands by 2030 (Global Harvest Initiative, 2017).
Beyond urbanization, land use change will also be influenced by
demand for feed, animal-based food, and bioenergy. For example,
depending on sources of biofuel and the development of second-
generation biofuels, the need for land to meet this increasing demand is
estimated to be between 2.5 and 20 times the current area designated for
biofuel production (USDA, 2008).
Currently about 12% of the world’s land is cropped, which is about
36% of land suitable for crop production. As such it seems there is space
for expansion. Unfavorable conditions (Bruinsma, 2011) and socio-
economic and technological limitations (Alexandratos and Bruinsma,
2012), however, restrain this potential.
Figure 6.3 shows OECD-projected global food crop area to 2050.

The FAO estimates global arable land to increase by 4.5% by 2050
(Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012). Both organizations project that
arable land will decrease in developed countries and increase in
developing countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
Another study estimates that though the quality of land by 2045 will be
significantly degraded, the global arable land area remain will quasi
stable (Lobell et al., 2013).
By 2050 it is estimated that rainfed agriculture will grow globally
by 2.8%, accounting for 57% of total crop production (Bruinsma,
2011). Irrigated land will expand by 6.6% between 2005 and 2050
(Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012)—mostly in Africa and East and
South Asia—to account for 43% of total crop production. A majority of
this expansion in irrigated land will come from turning rainfed land into
irrigated land and from irrigating arid and hyper-arid land (Bruinsma,
2011).
Environment and Natural Resources

201
Land degradation—defined by the FAO as a change in soil health

status resulting in a diminished capacity of the ecosystem to provide
goods and services for its beneficiaries—is also important to future food
production. The degradation is due to overexploitation of fertile grounds,
inappropriate irrigation techniques, overfertilization with chemicals, soil
salinization, and neglect of soil health. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
estimates that over the past three decades about 30% of land has been
degraded worldwide; this is composed of one-third grasslands, one-
quarter croplands, and nearly one-quarter forests (WWF, 2016) (see
Figure 6.4). For example, across the African continent about 75% of
originally fertile land has been severely depleted of nutrients, while
worldwide about 50% of nutrients taken by crops are replaced (FAO,
2009). Another example is the estimated 20% of irrigated land that is
salt-affected owing to inappropriate water withdrawal and overirrigation
(Qadir et al., 2014). At present soil degradation is happening 40 times

faster than new soil formation (National Intelligence Council, 2017).
Sustainable land management will be required to curb the current
trajectories.
Fig. 6.4. World soil degradation. Source: WWF (2016).

Another important trend to watch is related to large-scale trans-

national acquisitions of land, commonly called land grabbing, mostly in
developing countries. This acquisition is carried out both by companies
and by countries aiming to secure their population’s food supply. The
grabbed land is mainly in Africa and Asia, which respectively account
for 47% and 33% of the land area “grabbed” globally. The grabbers are
mainly from Europe and the Middle East, as well as North America
and Southeast Asia (Rulli et al., 2013). The main impetus for this land
grabbing is to grab water because of the declining availability of
freshwater for agriculture.
Important to note is that as with other important below-ground
resources—such as cobalt, copper, phosphorus, and aluminium—demand
growth for water is strong. In an effort to keep up with demand and keep
prices from spiking, there is a tendency to explore more challenging
sources and to review the acceptability of practices in light of their

impact on the environment. Ethical and sustainability issues emerge as
analysts reexamine their views of acceptable waste and extraction
footprints to lower processing costs as well as considering extraction
from ecologically delicate environments such as the Arctic Circle, which
contains an estimated 15% of the world’s unexploited crude oil reserves.
6.4 Phosphorus
Beyond water and energy, another key natural resource in the agri-food
system is phosphorus, a nonrenewable fossil mineral that is mined from
rocks and used as a soil fertilizer. Phosphorus is a good example of the
difficulty of predicting the availability of resources key to the agri-food
system. Different perspectives on the future availability of phosphorus
exist in parallel and lead to very different conclusions (see Box 6.1 on
perspectives).
Phosphate rock reserves are mainly in the control of a few countries:
Morocco, China, and the United States. Demand is generally forecast to
rise owing to the pressure to produce sufficient food to feed the world.
The World Economic Forum study, however, shows wide variations for
projected demand, ranging from negative growth to more than 70%
growth between 2015 to 2030. Global phosphorus reserves are expected

to be depleted in 50 to 100 years, while there is a decrease in quality of
remaining reserves and mining and production costs are increasing
(Cordell et al., 2010). So all projections could be right. The future issues
regarding phosphorus are rising costs in the shorter term, material
exhaustion in the longer term, and long-term abundance if increased
research designed to meet sustainability objectives produces substitutes.

There is also a question of social injustice given that phosphorus is
concentrated in few places and not all farmers have access to it. In any
event, phosphates are increasingly treated as strategic resources; they
will play a growing role in global debates and be subject to international
policies. China, for example, is heavily decreasing exports to secure
domestic supplies, while the United States has less than 30 years of
supplies left (Rosmarin, 2004). Europe, which is totally dependent on
imports, has this issue included in its futures work from the European
Environment Agency (EEA, 2013a).
6.5 Marine Resources
Over the past decades fish has increased in prominence in diets. Fish
consumption has increased to account for 17% of worldwide human
animal protein intake and nearly 7% of all protein consumed (FAO,
2016b). As with food in general, the growth in global fish supplies for
human consumption over the past decades has outpaced population
growth. Over the past three decades, captured fish resources have been
complemented by fish farming or aquaculture (see Figure 6.5). Matching
supply with demand while striving to meet sustainability objectives will
be a challenge.
The future of fish resources is affected by overfishing, fish production
practices, and the health of the marine ecosystem. Of marine fish stock in
2013, 31.4% was overfished, 58.1% was fully fished—and thus have no
potential for increases in production—and 10.5% was underfished (FAO,
2016b). Even more important are the trends: the proportion of overfished
marine stock is increasing and the proportion of underfished marine
stock is decreasing. Overall the opportunities for increased food
production from marine capture fish are limited. Projections show that
unless catches are reduced to scale back overfishing, marine capture fish
and stocks will decline. This lack of potential growth in marine capture
fishing will spur increased demand from aquaculture, and the increase in
fish farming is a concern for ecosystems because fish farms have large
ecological footprints. It is also reported that by 2045 fish stocks in the
Arctic might be under pressure, potentially fueling tensions among

fishing countries in the area (MoD, 2014).
Fig. 6.5. World capture fisheries and aquaculture production. Source: FAO (2016b).
Not only is the quantity of marine fish stock a concern for the future, but
experts are also concerned by the decimation of about 90% of large fish
from the top of the food web (Gislason et al., 2010). For example,
around 73 million sharks are caught each year to meet demand for shark-
fin soup (Oceana, 2010). The imbalance created by taking out significant
parts of high-order predation severely stresses ecosystems (FAO, 2016b),
risking food web collapse.
6.6 Ecosystems
As the nexus frameworks clearly indicate, the environment and

ecosystems as a whole are key to agri-food systems. They support
nature’s capacity to deliver a range of services supporting human life.
The systems silently perform complex and irreplaceable planetary-

regulating actions, providing human benefit by maintaining the
hospitable aspects and qualities of our planet. Important functions
include replenishment of natural freshwater reserves, food production,
pollination, erosion control and soil formation, production of genetic
resources, ocean and climate regulation, and carbon sequestration. The
combined annual value of global ecosystem services has been estimated

at US$125 trillion (updated in 2011) (Costanza et al., 2014). The concept
of ecosystem services gained broader recognition in 2005, when the
United Nations published its Millenium Ecosystem Assessment. It stated
that we can no longer take for granted that the planet’s ecosystems have
sufficient ability to sustain future generations.
The planetary boundaries framework from the Stockholm Resilience
Centre is useful for reflecting on the state of the environment and
the ecosystems supporting food systems (Steffen et al., 2015). The

framework presents nine planetary boundaries humanity should respect
to continue to prosper. At present, four boundaries are in the zone of
increased or high risk: climate change, biodiversity loss and species
extinction, biogeochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles), and
land-system change.
Recent insights from the WWF suggest that the planetary boundary
related to biodiversity has been breached on about 58% of the terrestrial
landmass and will decline a further 9% by 2020, while unsustainable
biogeochemical flows have led to more than 400 dead zones globally,
spanning more than 20,000 square kilometers of oceanic surface area
(WWF, 2016; Arup, 2011; WRI, 2017). The World Resources Institute
reports that during the past half century, amid fertile lands the flux of
nitrogen and phosphorous salts has increased two- and threefold
respectively (WRI, 2005).
It is said that the Earth has now entered an anthropogenic phase in
which human activities now have the dominant influence upon the state
of the environment. Looking ahead, human pressures on ecosystems are
likely to increase. For example, ocean acidification currently lies within
safe planetary boundary limits. However, the present rate of acidity
increase is about 100-fold greater than during any period within the
Holocene epoch (11,700 years ago to the present). Consequently, under
business-as-usual conditions, acidified oceans may rapidly exceed the

planetary boundary, affecting the available marine resources, among
other things.
Land-system change and biogeochemical flows are strongly linked to
the agri-food system. Land use changes like deforestation are strongly
driven by agriculture, while the biogeochemical cycle issues stem from
fertilizer overuse and subsequent freshwater contamination. The build-up

of nitrogen and phosphorus in water ecosystems can cause eutrophication
in both freshwater and marine systems. Given the projections of fertilizer
use (see Figure 6.6), planetary boundaries affected by it are likely to
become increasingly challenged. Control of biogeochemical cycles is
necessary to secure fertile landmass in the future.
Fig. 6.6. World population and fertilizer consumption, with projections to 2050. Source:
Alexandratos and Bruinsma (2012).
While the exact boundaries and ecosystem evolutions or potential

collapses are not yet fully understood, there are increasing concerns
about abrupt and irrevocable failures (Barnosky et al., 2012). In 2013,
the European Environment Agency (EEA) noted that ecosystems

might still be sufficiently within boundaries to meet future demand for
food, water, energy, and materials if value patterns and patterns in
consumption, along with innovative policies, create the required
transitions (EEA, 2013b).
6.7 Availability of Natural Resources: Scenarios
The World Economic Forum’s report The Future Availability of Natural

Resources: A New Paradigm for Global Resource Availability explores
the complexity and assumptions behind highly contested predictions
about the future availability of food, energy, water, and minerals. A
meta-analysis of projections made by reputable organizations on future
demand for four resources revealed a massive diversity of perspectives

(see Figure 6.7), and interviews with policy-makers and experts revealed
four distinct perceptions about the future availability of resources (see
Box 6.1). This diversity of opinions matters because these views
determine whether and how solutions are being considered, which in turn
determines the future availability of those resources.
Fig. 6.7. Estimate of 2030 resource demand. Source: WEF (2014).

Box 6.1: Four perspectives held by decision-makers and experts on the

future availability of natural resources (WEF, 2014)
 Material exhaustion and crash: Society faces hard limits, both physical and
environmental, as the decreasing supply of resources meets exponentially rising
demand driven by population and economic growth. As these limits are reached,
radical shifts in economies, infrastructure, and daily lives are needed to avoid a
catastrophic crash.
 Rising costs: Resources are not about to physically run out, but many are likely to
become significantly more expensive. This will result from increasing regulation,
riskier development sites, higher input costs, technical and skills issues, supply
chain fragility, low substitutability due to infrastructure lock-in, political
challenges, and lagging investment. Economic growth will be put increasingly at
risk.
 Long-term abundance: Markets ensure that resource scarcity will not exist in the
long term. Observed price rises result primarily from short-term imbalances and
temporary shortages for certain inputs, and are the exception, not the norm.
Competitive markets and technological innovation will bring supply and demand
back into balance. Long-term, real resource prices will again trend downward,
while rare, local resource shortages can be solved by introducing market pricing
mechanisms.
 Social injustice: The absolute availability of resources is a distraction—the relative

distribution of currently available resources is what really matters. Wealth and
access to resources have been skewed to create critical social and humanitarian
pressures, as well as pressures impacting development. Higher-income countries
and groups must become more fair and equitable in distributing natural resources
and their benefits. Part of the unfair distribution relates to who bears the costs of
the negative externalities of resource production and consumption, as poorer
countries and individuals are among the hardest hit.
To stimulate further reflections and to decipher which (if any) of the

polarized beliefs may be correct, scenarios were created to serve as
learning tools on how trends, disruptions, and actions might come
together to create different futures and to develop a more holistic
platform from which to create effective strategies to achieve future
resource availability (see Box 6.2).
Box 6.2: World Economic Forum Scenarios on Natural Resource

Availability (WEF, 2014)
6.8 Broader Context
As already alluded to, the availability of natural resources and the health
of the environment also depend on collective attitudes, political stances,
and policy directions. The state of global governance and relations
between countries will affect the availability of natural resources and the
health of the environment—for example, in relation to the world’s ability
to manage global commons. Also, agricultural markets and natural
resources are highly politicized as a result of actors’ attempts to protect
local markets or to secure availability or supply. We can expect that fear
that demand will outpace supply and expectations of increased and
volatile resource prices in the future—prices for certain resources could
double by 2050 (Nelson et al., 2010)—will dominate global policy
dynamics.
6.9 Conclusion
Demand for food will explode, and diets will diversify. For agri-food
systems, the challenge of feeding the world will be significant. To do so
within natural resource and environmental constraints will require

significant transformations. The trends and futures described in this
chapter could play out differently under scenarios that turn away from
business as usual. These might include transformative policies, products,
and technologies that allow the world to increase crop yields while
lowering the environmental impacts of agriculture.
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Chapter 7
Food Systems, Diets,

and Nutrition
J. V. Meenakshi and Patrick Webb
The nutrition and health landscape has changed dramatically over recent
decades across most of the world.1 Thanks in large measure to the spread
of Green Revolution agricultural technologies, fewer people face the
spectre of starvation or a chronic lack of food. Famine has largely
disappeared, other than in countries beset by catastrophic failures of
governance and armed conflicts combined with extreme weather (floods
or prolonged droughts) (FAO et al., 2017). Poverty has declined and
child and maternal mortality have fallen as literacy rates have risen for
women as well as men, and average life expectancy has never been so
high.
Nevertheless, malnutrition in its many forms represents continues to
worsen globally. While various manifestations of undernutrition (such as
child stunting, maternal underweight, and vitamin and mineral
deficiencies) are slowly declining, they remain stubbornly high in too
many countries. At the same time, other forms of malnutrition are rising
globally, including child overweight and diet-related chronic diseases of
adults (including heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension). So-called
double-duty policies and programs are needed everywhere to allow
governments to accelerate evidence-based actions against undernutrition
while simultaneously managing the growing epidemic of overweight and
obesity.
1Thanks are due to Claudia Ringler, Tingju Zhu, and Lakshmi Krishnan for their timely
inputs and to Saloni Chopra for research assistance.
215
This chapter discusses some of the agricultural and non-agricultural

pathways that are critical to improved nutrition globally, focusing
particularly on India as a case study of the “new normal” affecting the
world—that is, nutritional crises of many types taking place in the
context of agricultural plenty. This discussion draws on additional
evidence from low- and middle-income countries, particularly across
Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Challenges to and opportunities for

policy innovation that better links agricultural research with healthy diets
and good nutrition are explored.
7.1 The World’s Many Nutrition Challenges
Since the 1990s, there has been a marked decline in poverty, as well as
declines globally in rates of maternal mortality, communicable diseases,

and illiteracy (Global Panel, 2017). There has also been greater access to
food—the total number and share of chronically undernourished people
(those unable to access adequate calories) are lower than in the early
1990s (Table 7.1).
Malnutrition—as measured among individuals rather than in terms of
food availability—is an outlier. As of 2018, roughly one in three people
is affected by one of several forms of malnutrition: more than 800
million people are still undernourished, including 155 million children
who are stunted (too short for their age by international standards), and
50 million are wasted (too thin for their height) (UNICEF, WHO, and
World Bank, 2017). These levels and rates are considerably better than
they were several decades ago, but they continue to pose significant
public health challenges for large parts of the globe (Table 7.1). It should
be noted that India is home to the largest absolute number of stunted
children (47.5 million of the 154.8 million stunted children, as of 2016)
(UNICEF, WHO, and World Bank, 2017).
Food Systems, Diets, and Nutrition 217
Table 7.1. Number and prevalence rates of chronically undernourished, stunted, and
wasted, over time and by geography.
Number (millions) and prevalence (%) of:

Stunted Wasted
Undernourished (6–59 months) (6–59 months)
Region 1990–92 2014–16 1990–92 2014–16 1990–95a 2014–16

World 1,010 (19) 795 (11) 254 (40) 155 (24) 50 (9) 52 (7)
Sub-Saharan
176 (33) 220 (19) 38 (42) 59 (32) 8 (7) 14 (7)
Africa
Asia 742 (24) 512 (12) 190 (48) 88 (25) 40 (11) 36 (10)
Latin
America and 66 (15) 34 (6) 14 (26) 6 (12) 2 (3) 1 (1)
Caribbean
Oceania 1 (16) 1 (14) <1 (36) <1 (38) <1 (6) <1 (9)
Sources: Undernourished: FAO, IFAD, and WFP (2015); stunting and wasting: UNICEF,
WHO, and World Bank (2017); de Onis and Bloessner (2003); de Onis et al. (1993).
aThere is no global dataset available for wasting estimates covering the early 1990s. The
data presented here for 1990–1995 were calculated by de Onis et al. (1993) and by de
Onis and Bloessner (2003) for developing countries only.
At the same time, more than 2 billion individuals face vitamin and
mineral deficiencies, while problems of overweight and obesity are
growing fast, fueling an epidemic of diet-related noncommunicable
diseases (UNICEF, WHO, and World Bank, 2017). Indeed, many
countries face all three problems simultaneously. In other words, most
countries of the world face multiple burdens of malnutrition, which
require close attention to the underlying causes (Development Initiatives,
2017).
While food (insufficiency, poor quality, or overabundance) is not the
only contributor to poor nutrition outcomes, low-quality diets underpin
all forms of malnutrition. On the one hand, dietary risk factors have
become the single largest contributor to the global burden of disease
(Forouzanfar et al., 2015). Poor diets can be characterized as
insufficiency of key nutrients (such as iron), and/or insufficiency of
important foods (such as fruits), coupled with overconsumption of
dietary factors known to cause harm (transfats, cholesterol, processed red
meats) (Figure 7.1). On the other hand, low-quality diets, which underpin
all forms of malnutrition (i.e., undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies,
and diet-related noncommunicable diseases associated with obesity), are
spreading globally. Dietary patterns are shifting rapidly around the
world, with increasing convergence toward the negative aspects of so-
called Western diets that are high in ultraprocessed products containing
high sugar, salt, transfats, and oils, as well as processed meats. Shifts in
patterns of food demand are mainly driven by poverty reduction
(including in low-income settings), typically associated with rapid
urbanization, shifting labor patterns (sedentarization), and retail
penetration (Global Panel, 2016b).
Fig. 7.1. Six of the top 11 risk factors driving the global burden of disease are related to
diet. Source: Global Panel (2017).
Most projections for the coming decades suggest a continued rise in

incomes, alongside rising populations, leading to much higher demand
for higher-cost foods associated with lower-quality diets. Figure 7.2
shows that, while still at lower levels, lower-income country demand for
ultraprocessed foods is rising and will likely accelerate in coming years
as poverty falls. As a result, governments cannot rely on poverty
reduction alone to secure high-quality diets and good nutrition for all.
Indeed, no country has managed to grow itself out of malnutrition (Webb
and Block, 2012). Investments are needed in agriculture, alongside
Fig. 7.2. Trends in per capita sales volumes of non-alcoholic beverages, processed foods
and ultraprocessed foods by country income group, 2000–15, with 15-year average
growth rates shown. Source: Global Panel (2016b).
investments in health, education, social security, and more, to help

nourish the world, not just feed it.
While this is true globally, it is especially so in the region that gave
birth to the Green Revolution (South Asia) and in the continent left
behind by the Green Revolution (Sub-Saharan Africa). While the
majority of the world’s undernourished children and adult women live in
South Asia, the number of overweight and obese people in this region is
growing fast. Two out of five preschool children in South Asia are
stunted today, while more than 18% of South Asia’s preschoolers are
overweight (UNICEF, WHO, and World Bank, 2017). Anemia among
pregnant women in South Asia also exceeds the global prevalence (52%
compared with 38%), as does inadequate zinc intake (30% compared
with the global average of 17%) (Harding et al., 2018).
The same pattern is now emerging across Africa. A third of the
world’s stunted children reside in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the pace of
improvement in Africa is slower than in Asia or Latin America—a 17%
decline in stunting since 2000 compared with 36% and 39% declines in
the other two regions, respectively (UNICEF, WHO, and World Bank,
2017). At the same time, Africa is already home to around 25% of the
world’s overweight children—the greatest problems are reported for
Southern Africa, where around 15% of children were overweight in
2016.
This situation is of great concern, not just because of the significant
health consequences of poor diets and poor nutrition, but also because of
the huge social and economic losses for the millions of individuals
concerned and for society more broadly. The cost of tackling such public
health problems will be significant. The World Bank estimates a price
tag of US$50 billion over a decade just to address the single problem of
child stunting (Shekar et al., 2017a). As shown in Figure 7.3, much of
this relates to addressing stunting in Sub-Saharan Africa (47% of US$50)
and South Asia (22%), but other regions of the world are not exempt.
The costs of tackling all global micronutrient deficiencies along with
child wasting and maternal underweight have yet to be compiled. Since

no country has yet successfully reversed trends in overweight and
obesity, costing policies and interventions in that domain remains
entirely theoretical. Suffice to say, the cost of treating and preventing
malnutrition in all its forms, while significant, will be less that the cost of
inaction, which will mount to US$3.5 trillion per year over coming
decades (Global Panel, 2016a).
Yet much can be done. Diets and nutrition can both be improved
through appropriate investments in agriculture (making nutrient-rich
foods available and affordable year-round to all consumers), in consumer
demand (education and information enabling healthier choices), and in
health (resolving unsanitary and disease environments and improving
access to clean water, both of which pose risks to food safety and human
health via other mechanisms). The next section explores some of these
issues using India to illustrate the linkages between agriculture, nutrition,
and health playing out across the entire food system.
Fig. 7.3. Estimated total financing needs to meet stunting target, by region. Source:
Shekar et al. (2017b).
7.2 India as a Case Study
Within South Asia, India offers a good example of the triple burden of
malnutrition. India’s economy has been booming in recent years, yet the
burden of the four most prevalent micronutrient deficiencies in India has
been calculated as representing an economic loss of between 0.8 and
2.5% of annual GDP (Stein and Qaim, 2007). The same holds true for
undernutrition. The latest round of India’s National Family Health
Survey (2015–16) found that 31% of urban and 41% of rural children
under five years old are stunted (NFHS4, 2015–16).
Meanwhile, a recent survey by the National Nutrition Monitoring
Bureau (NNMB) shows that 52% of adult men and 59% of adult women
in India were either overweight or obese2 (NNMB, 2017). The
prevalence of chronic energy deficiency was 13% and 11% for men and
2These figures are based on a body mass index (BMI) ≥ 23, the cutoff at which the World
Health Organization (WHO) has determined that Asian populations are at substantially
higher risk of noncommunicable diseases. Chronic energy deficiency is defined as a BMI
< 18.5.
women, respectively, implying that only one-third of adults had healthy

weights relative to their heights. Rapid increases in overweight and
obesity are also being witnessed in rural areas, although levels are not as
high as in urban areas. Diet-related noncommunicable diseases
(NCDs)—once thought to be largely a phenomenon among wealthy and
urban households—now constitute a major public health challenge even
in rural areas, with significant proportions of the population recording

above-normal levels of blood pressure and blood sugar (Ranjani et al.,
2016). Indeed, India, along with China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh,
already ranks among the world’s top 10 countries in terms of diabetes
prevalence (Global Panel, 2016a).
These changes have occurred far more rapidly than would be
indicated by an aging population or shifts in occupation structure that
occur with economic growth. Adults are not the only demographic group
whose weight has increased rapidly—it is also occurring among children.

Lobstein and Jackson-Leach (2016) predict that 17 million Indian
children will be overweight or obese by 2025. As a result, more than 1
million children will have impaired glucose tolerance and 2.2 million
will have hypertension.
A second salient feature of the nutrition transition is that, at the same
time, childhood undernutrition rates remain high, although there is a
declining trend over time. This is corroborated across a large number of
surveys—for instance, while the rates reported for urban and rural
stunting rates in 2015–16 are nearly 10 percentage points lower than
those reported in the 2005–06 round, India did not meet the Millennium
Development Goal of halving the proportion of underweight (relative to
1992–93). Furthermore, even in a relatively wealthy city such as Delhi,
the NNMB (2017) survey points to distressingly large magnitudes of
preschool children being underweight (over one-fifth) and stunted (over
one-third). Similarly, the share of infants with low birthweight is high in
Delhi, at 30%. Apart from reflecting poor antenatal care, low birth
weight has lifelong consequences for morbidity from noncommunicable
diseases and the intergenerational transmission of malnutrition.
The coexistence of overweight adults and underweight/stunted
children is not merely a reflection of social and economic inequalities;
the intrahousehold dual burden of malnutrition is also increasing. In
2011–12, 8% of urban and 4% of rural households included the pairing

of an overweight/obese mother and an underweight child (Dang and
Meenakshi, 2017). While in India, unlike much of the West, overweight
is not a symptom of poverty, its rapid extension to rural areas suggests
that overnutrition will also cut across a large swathe of the income
spectrum in the decades to come.
A third feature of the nutrition transition is sustained and high levels

of anemia. In 2015–16, 53% of adult women and 58% of children were
anemic (NFHS4, 2015–16). And in contrast to anthropometric indicators
based on heights and weights, anemia has shown little if any
improvement over time, especially for adult women. This continues to
constitute a major public health concern, as anemia is implicated in low
labor productivity, maternal mortality, and poor cognition and
development among young children (Balarajan et al., 2011). There are
virtually no rural-urban differences in these trends: urban magnitudes are

just as high as rural. A disquieting aspect of the undernutrition and
anemia figures is that they have not been eliminated even in relatively
affluent areas, which have a dense spread of health infrastructure and
high rates of income growth. This suggests that income growth alone will
not, by itself, eliminate undernutrition.
The fourth aspect of the nutrition situation in India is the lack of
substantial improvement in diet quality. At the household level, although
the share of food grains—in calories and expenditures—has declined,
there has been no commensurate increase in the share of nutrient-rich
foods such as vegetables, fruits, dairy, or poultry. Instead, in both
absolute and relative terms, calories from sugars and fats have increased.
The NFHS4 data show that barely 10% of children under the age of
two consume an adequate diet in terms of both the frequency with which
children are fed and the number of food groups they consume. Even in
urban areas, the NNMB reports that the “proportion of preschool
children consuming <50% of the recommended dietary allowances of
vitamins and minerals…in general was very high” (NNMB, 2017, p. 11).
In a study of more than 1,000 adolescents in Kolkata city, Rathi et al.
(2017) found that 30% of those sampled did not consume vegetables,
45% did not consume fruits, while 70% consumed energy-dense snacks,
and nearly half consumed energy-dense beverages that otherwise have
little nutritive value. In Delhi, more than 40% of schoolchildren reported

consuming junk food every week, both at home and at school. Further, a
large percentage of children were aware that junk foods are not healthy
(Misra and Pathania, 2016).
Although continued investments in agriculture remain critically
important to India’s and South Asia’s continued growth and
socioeconomic development, the focus, nature, and goals of agricultural

research and investment must arguably change if diets and nutrition are
to significantly improve. The next section highlights some key pathways
by which agricultural development could support the dietary changes that
are urgently needed across the country and the region.
7.3 Pathways from Agriculture to Diets and Nutrition

There are numerous known pathways by which agriculture mediates and

mitigates the nutrition transition (Gillespie et al., 2012; Ruel et al., 2013;
Webb and Kennedy 2014). A direct way to improve diet quality is to
promote agricultural production diversity—the premise being that greater
diversity in production systems not only supports biodiversity, but also
more diverse diets, which in turn are associated with better nutritional
outcomes. This is believed to be true not just in a macro availability
sense, but also at the household level.
7.3.1 Agricultural diversification
Evidence has been accumulating globally on the potential contribution of

production diversification (a wider range of crops or animals produced
per farm or geographic unit) to dietary diversity, and even to nutrition
outcomes (Jones, 2017). Using nationally representative data from
Nigeria, Dillon et al. (2014) showed that a 10% increase in crop diversity
results in a 2.4% increase in dietary diversity. They conclude that, while
statistically significant, this relatively small relationship suggests that
increased crop diversity alone is unlikely to ensure improved dietary
diversity. That conclusion has since been reinforced by Sibhatu et al.
(2015), who used data from Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, and Malawi to
show that farm production diversity is positively correlated with dietary

diversity in some settings, but not in all. Indeed, where cropping
diversity is already high, the association can be negative because income
benefits from agricultural specialization are being lost. Those authors
also suggested that access to markets can support greater household
dietary diversity than production diversity. The role of markets in dietary
diversity was recently reinforced by a nationally representative study in

Nepal, which showed that production diversity is associated with higher
dietary diversity, but only among poorer households (which have so far
been unable to raise productivity through specialization) and those more
distant from markets (Mulmi et al., 2017), and by Koppmair et al.
(2017), who found that farm production diversity in Malawi is positively
associated with dietary diversity (particularly in remote settings), but
access to markets mattered more. In other words, farm diversification
works best for poorer households less linked to food and commodity
markets.
There has been a progressive diversification in the value of farm
output over time in India. The largest contribution to the incremental
value of output from agriculture is due to fruits, vegetables, and high-
value crops. This diversification is far less evident in cropping patterns,
though, which continue to be dominated by cereals and pulses. What
were the sources of this growth? During the 2000–09 period, World
Bank estimates suggest that total factor productivity (TFP) contributed
more than inputs to growth in agricultural output, and that this TFP
growth was due to technical change and not due to a reduction in the
yield gap between what farmers actually obtain and what could be
obtained, given technology. Furthermore, TFP growth in the traditional
cereal crops was modest, and output increases were achieved largely
through increased input use. Thus, the overall growth in agricultural TFP
reflects, in part, the changing composition of output (World Bank, 2014).
These trends suggest that there is considerable scope for achieving higher
productivity per unit land area for both traditional cereals and for fruits
and vegetables with existing resources, provided sources of inefficiencies
can be identified.
Would an increase in production diversity translate into improved

diets across India? There is support for this view in a study by Kadiyala
et al. (2013), who find that irrigation and crop diversity (facilitated by
access to irrigation) is associated with diet diversity and that ownership
of cattle and poultry is a significant predictor of consumption of animal-
source foods. However, the global evidence suggests that the promotion
of production diversity will have only a small effect on the diets of most
of India’s farmers, in part because of rising access to food markets. There
are several reasons why the magnitude of the association is low. For
instance, even subsistence farmers, for whom one might expect an
immediate and proximate relationship between increased production and
higher consumption, this relationship is mediated by the degree of
control that women exercise over consumption decisions. At a more
aggregate level, access to markets is an important correlate of dietary
diversity. For instance, in rural India, the Village Dynamics in South

Asia (VDSA) studies suggest that while nearly all households reported
consuming some fruits and vegetables, only one-fifth of households
produced them. Similarly, 60% of households reported consuming at
least some eggs, whereas only 14% of households produced them. This
again suggests that local markets are an important means of ensuring that
a wider set of households has access to a diverse diet (Meenakshi, 2016).
The linkage between production diversity and anthropometric
indicators is even more tenuous. Jones (2017) notes that the while there
does seem to be a positive association between agricultural biodiversity
and reductions in child stunting, the magnitude is fairly small, and that
impacts on anemia and other clinical deficiencies have not yet been
studied. The Kadiyala et al. (2013) paper cited above also finds no
evidence that dietary diversity affects nutritional outcomes. Ruel et al.
(2017) confirm that even more recent, carefully designed nutrition- and
gender-sensitive agricultural interventions have relatively modest
impacts on the quality of diets and body weight. Although behavior
change communication strategies are key to successful interventions,
much remains to be understood on how best to design them, how to
ensure that they are not too narrowly focused, and how to make them
cost-effective.
7.3.2 Irrigation and water availability
Changes in input use in agriculture can also have implications for

malnutrition and health. Critical among these inputs is water, about
which there are concerns with respect to both scarcity and quality. First,
a changing agricultural production structure—involving, for instance,
diversification of crops toward vegetables and fruits or the rearing of

livestock or poultry—has implications for the quantum of water use.
Projections by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
suggest that despite improvements in the efficiency of water use (with
the promotion, for example, of drip irrigation), water scarcity is likely to
increase (Ringler and Zhu, 2015). Water requirements differ across
crops: on a per hectare basis, sugarcane and fruits require more water
than any of the cereals, and vegetables need more water than wheat but
far less than rice—although for a given crop, these magnitudes vary
widely and depend on specific agroecologies. Given projected global
demand for food, aggregate water use will still be highest for cereals
(relative to vegetables and fruits), with cereals increasingly being used as
feed in the livestock sector.
Over the years, the emphasis has shifted from increasing land
productivity to increasing water productivity—getting “more crop per
drop”—which appears as an objective in policy documents. Another
metric often used is a water footprint, which considers the entire value
chain and the amount of freshwater used either directly or indirectly for a
given crop. A “blue water” footprint refers specifically to irrigation
water. From a nutrition point of view, it is necessary to consider other
metrics as well, such as water footprint per calorie or unit of
micronutrients, and to assess whether such nutrition-water productivity
measures differ from output-based measures. An analysis of diets in
India shows, for example, that the ranking of food items changes
depending on whether one considers the water footprint per gram of
output or per kilocalorie, with relatively moisture-dense fruits having
much higher footprints per calorie than per gram (Harris et al., 2017).
Both the overall water footprint and the blue water footprint are highest
for livestock and poultry. Thus, while increased consumption of animal-
source foods is promoted as key to positive nutritional outcomes,
especially for children, it will likely lead to an increase in the water

footprint and impose greater pressure on water resources available for
irrigation.
There are uncertainties about water demand under climate change:
Might grains need more water owing to higher temperatures? What are
the implications of carbon fertilization for the nutritional value of crops?
Will climate change leach out micronutrients from crops? If so, will
some crops be more affected than others? These questions still need to be
understood more fully.
Much of the growth in irrigation in countries such as India has been
through groundwater, which accounts for more than 60% of the irrigated
area and more than 85% of drinking water. There are large areas where
extraction rates exceed recharge rates, with the result that nearly one-
third of the area has been categorized as not having safe groundwater
levels. Many of the overexploited areas are in the Indo-Gangetic plains,

which are India’s bread (and rice) baskets.
7.3.3 Water quality
Overextraction of water has implications not only for the sustainability of

agricultural production, but also for access to drinking water, since 85%
of drinking water is sourced from groundwater. Apart from affecting
availability, excessive extraction also affects water quality: in coastal
areas, overexploitation has led to intrusion of seawater, which is saline
and brackish and therefore not fit for consumption. One-tenth of all river
stretches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are already affected by
severe and moderate salinity pollution attributable to irrigation
and to domestic and industrial wastewater runoff (UNEP, 2016).
Overexploitation has also resulted in increased fluoride concentrations as
well as nitrate, arsenic, and iron contamination (Khurana and Sen, 2009).
Groundwater contamination from fertilizer runoff is substantial.
Twenty-one of the largest states in India have higher than permissible
levels of nitrates resulting from the leaching of fertilizer into the
groundwater (besides eutrophication, nitrogen compounds affect human
health, particularly that of infants); 15 states have problems with saline
groundwater (not all of which are coastal) (Ministry of Water Resources,
Government of India, 2010). IFPRI and Veolia’s model, which assumes

a drier climate and medium levels of income and population growth,
projects that by 2050 one in three people globally will be at a high risk of
nitrogen pollution in water bodies (i.e., 2.6 billion people, a 172%
increase from the 2000–2005 base period) (IFPRI and Veolia, 2015).
Pollution that results from agricultural activities poses a significant
threat to fresh groundwater ecosystems (Kumar and Shah, 2006).

Pollutants not only affect drinking water, but also find their way
into food. Kumar, Rahman, et al. (2016) investigate the level of
contamination in drinking water, vegetables, and other food components
in Bihar, India, and find evidence of substantial health risks associated
with arsenic and manganese in drinking water and food, as well as with
lead in food. While the arsenic is naturally occurring, the other
contaminants are attributable to human activities.
Industrial effluents are also responsible for the deteriorating quality of

both ground- and surface-water systems. In addition, bacterial, viral, and
other biological contamination affects urban wastewater, which is often
used for irrigation. For example, untreated urban wastewater is often
used to cultivate fruits and vegetables in periurban areas. Although this
water may be rich in nutrients that may enhance crop productivity, it also
contains contaminants that are harmful to human health, including heavy
metals. In a study of irrigation from a river into which municipal
wastewater was released, Srinivasan and Reddy (2009) surveyed villages
along the Musi river near Hyderabad, India, which used contaminated
river water to irrigate their fields. The authors used a control group of
villages where the quality of water was safe. They found that self-
reported morbidity levels were much higher among households in
villages that were exposed to wastewater and that those who reported
treating their drinking water (for example, by boiling it) were less likely
to have fallen sick. Also, women were far more likely to be affected in
villages that used contaminated irrigation water. Apart from the direct
impact on ill health, this morbidity also translates into malabsorption of
nutrients essential for human growth and health. High levels of open
defecation or poor sanitation are considered a significant cause of
childhood stunting in India. Environmental enteropathy—exposure to
contaminated food and water—is one of the three primary mechanisms
through which open defecation is considered to influence stunting

(Spears et al., 2013). The aforementioned IFPRI and Veolia (2015)
model projects that by 2050 one in five people, or 1.6 billion people
worldwide, will be at a high risk of water pollution from biochemical
oxygen demand (BOD)—high BOD levels can indicate contamination
with fecal matter. Currently, most of the people facing serious BOD risks
are in Asia (580 million) (IFPRI and Veolia, 2015).

Another agricultural input strongly associated with irrigation is
pesticide use. There is ample evidence linking pesticides with adverse
health consequences, including respiratory, gastrointestinal, and skin
problems, especially in rice cultivation. Early examples are Mencher
(1991) for India and Pingali et al. (1994) for the Philippines. Pesticide
residue has been found in potable water samples and in major rivers
(Agarwal et al., 2015). Apart from this direct effect on farmers
themselves, more recent work suggests that chemical use more generally
affects infants as well. For instance, Elizabeth and Menon (2014) exploit
the seasonal and intermittent nature of agrichemical application to
demonstrate that infants exposed to these chemicals during the first
month of life have systematically worse health outcomes and that these
costs are borne disproportionately by children of poor women in rural
India. Finally, practices such as the burning of crop residue in northern
India are significant contributors to increased fine and coarse particulate
matter concentrations (both PM2.5 and PM10) and associated respiratory
morbidity and mortality, particularly in the winter—for instance, residue
burning in Haryana, Punjab, and Western Uttar Pradesh results in very
poor air quality in Delhi and other parts of northern and central India
(Economic Survey of India, 2018). Such practices—resulting in
increased levels of surface ozone-precursors like nitrous oxide and
carbon monoxide—are also thought to affect plant metabolism and result
in reduced crop yields (Ghude et al., 2014; Kumar, Sarkar, and Sinha,
2016).
7.3.4 Women’s labor use in agriculture
Apart from labor productivity impacts on and of ill health and

malnutrition, women’s labor use also impacts health outcomes.
Agriculture is the main sector of employment for women in countries

such as India. Women are also the main caregivers of their children, in
addition to being responsible for most domestic chores. Therefore, any
changes in technologies or cropping patterns that imply a greater demand
for labor, especially that of women, can potentially have negative
consequences for their own health (as their working day gets extended)
and that of their children (if child-rearing gets relegated to older children
of the family instead of to other adult caregivers). At the same time, the
income effects arising from such employment should be positive. Not
surprisingly, therefore, a recent review looking specifically at women’s
time use finds that there is no “clear-cut evidence on the nutritional
implications of agricultural practices and interventions, even when these
result in increased time spent on agricultural activities” (Johnston et al.,
2015, p. 39). Nevertheless, the study finds that strategies that promote
nutrition-sensitive agriculture need to take account of the demands they

place on women’s time, as these could have potentially adverse impacts
on the health of women and their young children.
India, like many countries, has seen a decrease in women’s rural labor
force participation rates, particularly in agriculture. Although agricultural
employment has stayed the same overall (declining by a negligible
0.02% a year since the early 1990s), female employment in this sector
declined at the rate of 0.5% per year over the same period. This
represents a decrease of nearly 7 million women, compared with the 90
million women working in agriculture in 1993–94, causing this
phenomenon to be termed the (de)feminization of agricultural labor
(Chand and Srivastava, 2014). One explanation offered is the increasing
numbers of women who are pursuing education and are therefore not in
the labor force. However, as Chatterjee et al. (2015) show, the decline is
also occurring among middle-aged women, for whom formal schooling
cannot be relevant. A second explanation has to do with the increasing
levels of income, so that women in landowning households withdraw
from the labor market for reasons of status, for example. Once again, as
Chatterjee et al. (2015) demonstrate, this supply-side effect cannot be the
dominant explanation for the trend, as there is only a weak association
between districts experiencing the largest increases in wages and those
recording the greatest decreases in labor force participation rates.
Instead, they argue that demand-side factors are also likely responsible.
Opportunities are less diversified for women. If indeed education or
income-induced labor supply effects predominate, maternal and child
malnutrition should decline.
7.3.5 Exposure to zoonotic diseases
Many of the associations linking agriculture to health and nutrition are

bidirectional. While it is common to think of diseases that are transmitted
from livestock and poultry to humans as examples of zoonotic diseases,
such diseases may not necessarily emanate directly from the agricultural
sector. A good example is malaria, which can be debilitating and hence
impact labor productivity both temporarily and chronically. According to
conventional wisdom, the massive gains in productivity in wheat that

were seen in the Punjab in India during the early years of the Green
Revolution would not have been possible if swamps in the area had not
been drained, leading to decreased exposure to malaria and contributing
to enhanced labor productivity (Minhas, personal conversation). A recent
intervention that distributed bednets in Zambia found a 15% increase in
productivity (Fink and Masiye, 2015), likely attributable to higher work
capacity arising out of not having malaria—incidence of which was
considerably lower among those with bednets. Similarly, among
Nigerian sugarcane cultivators, Dillon et al. (2014a) found that treatment
of malaria had significant effects on labor supply and earnings.
Interestingly, even workers who tested negative for malaria had higher
productivity, presumably because this information (especially if it came
as a surprise) caused them to self-select into higher-return tasks. This
finding suggests that workers living in malaria-endemic areas may
reserve work effort and select lower-return occupations because of
uncertainty surrounding their health status.
These effects are not limited to the agricultural sector but are
economywide. Nor are these restricted to malaria; there is little
information on the productivity impacts of other vector-borne diseases.
Rodriguez-Barraquer et al. (2015) report high rates of transmission of
dengue and chikungunya—which are also transmitted by mosquitoes and
are as debilitating as malaria—in southern India. Global projections of
malaria using the Hadley CM2 climate change scenario show how the
disease will spread to new areas by 2050 owing to potentially changed
conditions for vectors (Ahlenius 2005). There is clearly a need for public
investment in urban waste management, given that uncovered drains in
urban areas are prime breeding grounds for malarial larvae.
7.3.6 Food safety
In addition to water-based contamination, food safety is likely to emerge

as a major constraint to further improvements in nutrition. Although
conceptually there is a distinction between foodborne and waterborne
diseases, in practice, it is not easy to segregate the two. In general, little
is known about the burden of food-borne diseases. A taskforce set up by
the World Health Organization (WHO, 2015) to address precisely this

knowledge gap took a combination of established methodology and
expert opinion to estimate costs. They found that in the Asian region (the
WHO category of SEAR D, which includes India, Nepal, and
Bangladesh, among others), 710 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)
per 100,000 population are lost each year to foodborne diseases; nearly
half of these are caused by diarrheal disease agents. Other invasive
infection agents accounted for the next-largest share. While projections
for foodborne DALYs are not available, given the demographic,
urbanization, and consumption trends, the number of DALYs per
100,000 is expected to increase globally (Global Panel, 2016a). Two-
fifths of this disease burden globally was accounted for by children under
five years of age; malnutrition not only makes children more vulnerable
to disease, but also feeds into a vicious cycle of malabsorption that
worsens malnutrition.
The implications of the weak and weakly implemented regulations on
food safety are not well understood. As Umali-Deininger and Sur (2007)
note, until recently, India had a multiplicity of regulations under different
agencies that often contradicted each other and were not enforced. A
decade later, it would appear that despite public awareness, little has
changed. For instance, there is no systematic way to track street food
vendors or to check whether the food they serve is spoiled, a particular
concern given high ambient temperatures and humidity. Nor is there a
mechanism to routinely check for other contaminants. The absence of

food safety and hygienic practices all across the agricultural value chain
not only affects domestic consumers directly, but also limits exports.
7.4 Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

The interdependence between agriculture and nutrition has long been

recognized. A 1928 report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture
noted that
the close relationship between agriculture and public health is obvious and the two
react upon each other to a remarkable degree…. Economic wastage due to disease
cannot be over-exaggerated. Malaria slays its thousands and lowers the economic
efficiency of hundreds of thousands...diseases arising out of diet deficiency
insidiously reduce the labour power of the cultivating classes.... There is a close
relation between nutrition problems and agricultural practice and conditions

(Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, 1928, pp. 482, 493).
These statements are as relevant today as nine decades ago. Yet the
policy challenges are qualitatively different. Several critically important
areas with a bearing on agriculture merit further attention globally (and
especially across South Asia) because they will be key to ensuring better
health and nutritional outcomes.
First, balancing access to adequate and safe water both for domestic
use and for the crop and livestock sectors will be increasingly difficult.
There are already intersectoral and interstate conflicts over the sharing of
river waters. Irrigation and water management must deliver on multiple
objectives simultaneously within an overall and common constraint
structure. Given that agriculture will continue to be the mainstay of rural
livelihoods and that irrigation has both productive and protective effects,
incentive structures that determine farmers’ crop choice will need to be
aligned with overall sustainability and with what is optimal when yields
are defined in terms of nutrition-water productivity. Equally, price
policies that favor a relatively small set of crops, often water-intensive,
must be reassessed.
With climate change, variability in temperatures and rainfall and the
incidence of extreme weather events are all likely to rise. Assessments of
the water footprint of agriculture require data on how much—and what
kind—of water is used from farm to plate; this kind of data simply does
not exist at scale. This large water footprint has implications for
technology policy, which must increasingly focus on mitigating
downside yield risk without compromising on mean yields. A better
understanding of why yield gaps persist and how they can be bridged is
essential. Farmers are unlikely to eschew profits in favor of nutritional
objectives. There may be inherent trade-offs in seeking to optimize based

on these multiple objectives; perhaps modeling and simulation exercises,
undertaken at a suitably disaggregated agroecological scale, can help
highlight the nature of these trade-offs. At the same time, policymakers
will need to balance growing demand across sectors and water uses,
including agricultural, industrial, and domestic sectors; rural and urban
sectors; and users (a source of interstate water conflicts).
Second, it will be necessary to manage shocks and climate change.
Food supply and food access are twin pillars of any high-quality diet.
Both are increasingly at risk from environmental threats (from droughts
to floods), emerging pests and diseases of crops and livestock, and
volatility in food or other agricultural commodity prices linked to real or
perceived constraints to either supply or market access.
Third, anemia needs immediate policy attention. Nearly half the
burden of anemia can be attributed to inadequate diets, and it takes time
for diets to change. Biofortification, which uses crop breeding to boost
the vitamin or mineral content of the staple foods poor people consume,
offers one tool to address poor diets. It has been successfully used to
raise iron content in pearl millet and beans (Mannar and Hurrell, 2018).
But there is little detail on policy or public health interventions that can
be used to ameliorate adult anemia, although policy documents do
acknowledge the magnitude of anemia and consequences of the problem
(see, for example, NITI Aayog, 2017).
Fourth, rural health systems that have traditionally focused on
maternal and child health need to be geared up address non-
communicable diseases. In India, primary health care facilities often lack
the resources to tackle even diabetes and staff are not trained to provide
behavior change counseling.
As the WHO notes, “when food becomes scarce … often … people
shift to less nutritious diets and consume more ‘unsafe foods’—in which
chemical, microbiological, zoonotic and other hazards pose a health risk”

(WHO, 2018). Indeed, the expectation is that with global warming,
bacterial contamination likely to occur more easily (Dhara et al., 2013).
There is reason to believe that productivity losses from vector-borne
diseases are unknown and underestimated. Food safety measures in
general, and the adoption and implementation of phytosanitary protocols
in particular, are necessary.

Fifth, there is need for commitment to investing in databases that can
help better inform policy on nutrition and health. Even in relatively data-
rich South Asia, information is inadequate in several areas: for instance,
surveillance systems are weak for vector-borne diseases. The seasonal
impact on labor productivity of malaria, dengue, and chikungunya cannot
be estimated for these diseases are often managed from home; there are
no reliable national estimates of the number of people affected by them.
Surveillance systems are similarly weak for food safety: official

estimates of outbreaks clearly represent a significant underestimate. And
although the WHO recommends that food safety be treated as an integral
part of food and nutrition security, it also cautions that “for most
countries, and at the global level, relevant studies and data for
quantifying attribution of potential FBD [foodborne diseases] to the
major transmission routes do not exist” (Hald et al., 2016, p. 3/35).
Sixth, to ensure that dietary quality is widely accessible, investments
are needed in market and transportation infrastructure to facilitate year-
round access to nutrient-rich perishable foods, reduce waste and losses of
such products, and make higher-value foods more affordable for all
consumers. To date, the planning and prioritization of infrastructure has
largely ignored nutrition, but the growing realization that poor-quality
diets underpin a huge share of the global burden of disease and hence
affect the future human and economic potential of all countries suggests
that infrastructure and market planning “for nutrition” must become the
norm. In urban areas, street and ready-to-eat processed foods are not
necessarily consumers’ first choice, but even though they are more
expensive, they are widely consumed because they are convenient, save
time, and are easy to access. That they are dense in energy and sugar is
of only secondary relevance. Processed foods cater to a substantial
segment of the population—often the poor and lower-middle class—for
whom long working hours and commuting times mean that home-cooked
meals are simply not feasible. The supermarket revolution that now
extends beyond urban areas must translate into nutrition-friendly value
chains. In rural areas, investments in new market opportunities and in
what Pingali and Sunder (2017) refer to as connective infrastructure
(roads and the like) and in mediating infrastructure (credit provision and
regulatory mechanisms) will help households gain access to more diverse

sources of food.
Achieving high-quality diets for all is critically important facet of
future global development. Agriculture itself must play a key role in
delivering the components that make up such a diet, but farming alone is
not the solution to good nutrition. Investments in agriculture (both
research and development) will need to interface positively with
investments in roads, water systems, education, disease control, disaster
management, and, of course, poverty reduction. All countries in South

Asia, and indeed the entire globe, must prioritize healthy food systems
and high-quality diets if they are to achieve national and global
development goals. As argued by the Global Panel (2017, p. 10), “Fixing
today’s failing food systems will require coordinated efforts which go
beyond increasing agricultural production of staple crops to include, for
example, food transformation and consumer demand, market and trade
systems, and the food environment.” Achieving such advances will
require a dedicated emphasis by all governments on coherent public
policies that span production to consumption, securing year-round access
to diets that meet everyone’s nutritional needs.
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Part III
Disruptive Futures
Technological Innovation and

b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Chapter 8
Innovation in Breeding
and Biotechnology
Peter Langridge
8.1 Introduction
Global food security will demand the development and delivery of new
technologies to increase food production on limited arable land, without
increased input use. This will require innovative strategies to manage
environmental shocks that are predicted to increase in both frequency
and severity owing to the effects of climate change. Agriculture has
shown spectacular growth over the past 50 years. Food production
remains dominated by cereals, which make up about 50% of global food
production (FAO, 2017). Since the Green Revolution in the early 1960s,
grain (cereals and pulses) production increased from less than 1 billion
metric tons (MT) to almost 3 billion MT in 2014. Production of root and
tuber crops doubled over the same period, and meat production rose 4.5-
fold. This growth has occurred on only 11% more cropped land.
Three factors have underpinned these rapid advances: improved
cultivars resulting from the development and adoption of new breeding
technologies; expansion in areas under irrigation; and the widespread use
of fertilizers, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. Of these, only the
first can be regarded as sustainable.
With the predicted growth in world population, the World Food
Summit on Food Security in 2009 set a target of 60% increased food
production by 2050, which would require an annual increase of 44
245
million MT in cereal output alone. Figure 8.1 shows the implications of

this target on wheat production.
Fig. 8.1. Global wheat production and prediction of future needs and trends (area in
million hectares and production in million metric tons) Source: Data from FAO (2017).
Meeting this target will be challenging given concerns about two

areas: the viability of current production systems and the sustainability of
existing growth rates. Environmental changes associated with climate
change are also likely to have a negative effect on agricultural
production, with serious drops in crop productivity for some countries; in
Australia, for example, crop production is predicted to decline by 15–
30% by 2050 (PMSEIC, 2010).
Innovation, which has underpinned past successes, will be required to
meet the challenge of ensuring food security. To harness innovation, it
will be important to address two tasks. The first task is to define the
framework for the food production environment in the future. It now
appears that increasing climatic instability is inevitable and that future
production increases will occur in a resource-constrained environment.
The costs of energy, water, fertilizers, and carbon will strongly influence
Innovation in Breeding and Biotechnology 247
the production framework. The second task is to adapt agriculture to the

future production environment. The key advances are expected to come
from new breeding technologies, improved resource management
systems, and a greater understanding of the relationship between food
composition, consumption, and health.
Biotechnology will play an important role. Biotechnology covers a
broad range of techniques and has been defined in Article 2 of the

Convention on Biological Diversity as “any technological application
that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to
make or modify products or processes for specific use” (Convention on
Biological Diversity, 1993). The term is generally used to cover most
techniques of molecular biology, including the use of molecular markers,
genomic resources (DNA and RNA sequence, transcript protein and
metabolite profiles), and various forms of genetic modification.
Biotechnology already makes a significant contribution to crop and

animal improvement; the agricultural biotechnology industry is currently
estimated to be worth almost US$30 billion and is expected to reach
almost $55 billion by 2023 (P&S Market Research, 2017). Because the
field of biotechnology is highly dynamic, with new technologies and
applications coming on stream regularly, it is difficult to predict what
technologies will become available in the future. The emphasis here will
be on the deployment of current technologies.
This chapter focuses on the roles of technological advances in crop
improvement, but many of the technologies can be applied equally to
animal breeding. Indeed some technologies that are now having an
impact on plant breeding, such as genomic selection, were originally
developed for dairy cattle breeding (Meuwissen 2001).
8.2 Background to Genetic Improvement
The aim of breeding programs is to increase the genetic potential of

crops or animals to meet demand for food, fiber, amenities, and
feedstocks for fuel production and other uses. The earliest breeders were
the farmers who originally domesticated crop plants and farm animals. In
recent years, many of the key genes involved in domestication have been
isolated, revealing a great deal about the domestication process and

forcing a rethinking of how and where domestication occurred. One of
the best-studied examples of this process is the domestication syndrome
in barley, which is thought to have been the first domesticated crop at
around 11,000 years ago. The study of barley domestication has
demonstrated several important points. The key domestication genes
include the BTR1 and BTR2 genes, which control dehiscence of the grain
at maturity, and the NUD gene for free threshing (Taketa et al., 2008).
These were followed by post-domestication traits, which supported
adaptation to particular production environments. The main genes for
these traits include the genes controlling the flowering time network
(PPDH1, PPDH2, EPS1, EPS2), vernalization genes (VRNH1, 2, and 3),
the seed dormancy genes ALAT and MKK3, and the dwarfing locus
DENSO. Recent work has shown that there are two different rachis
mutations in barley, suggesting two separate domestication events

(Morell and Clegg, 2007). This discovery was supported by new
archaeological evidence showing that domestication occurred at two or
more sites in the Middle East (Riehl et al., 2013). The results for barley
suggest that the concept of single origins for our major crops and animals
may not be correct (Allaby, 2015). This finding has stimulated a
reanalysis of diversity in other species and encouraged researchers to
consider domestication to broaden the germplasm pool.
For most species, the number of genes involved in primary
domestication seems to be quite small. The situation described for barley
can be seen for other cereals. Even for fruit crops, such as tomato, the
major differences between domesticated cultivars and their wild relatives
can be explained by only four genes: CNR/FW2.2, SIKLUH/FW3.2,
Lodicule number, and Ovate (Monforte et al., 2014).
After initial domestication, there was a long gap before systematic
breeding started. Key players in developing breeding technologies for
plants were Thomas Fairchild (1667–1729), who showed that plants
indulged in sex and created the first artificial hybrid; Thomas Knight
(1759–1838), who started breeding horticultural crops; and Louis de
Vilmorin (1816–1860), who established the seed-breeding industry.
However, it was not until the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel’s work in
1900 that systematic breeding really started. Key innovations were the
concept of pure lines and the idea of using specific crosses to generate
new genetic combinations (Wilhelm Johannsen and Hjalmar Nilsson,
respectively). Other key figures in breeding advances were Nikolaj
Valilov, who developed the concept of centers of diversity, and Nazareno
Strampelli, who showed the power of wild relatives in breeding for
disease resistance and advanced the idea of using physiological traits to
enhance yield. These developments were combined with shuttle breeding

by Norman Borlaug and led to the Green Revolution in cereals in the
1960s.
In recent decades, plant breeders have adopted a wide range of new
technologies to accelerate the process of breeding and rates of genetic
gain. Key changes that have affected breeding have been the use of
mechanization in sowing and harvesting field trials, advances in data
analysis and field trial design, and the use of computers to help manage
data. These and other technological advances contributed to maintaining

strong growth in crop yields over the past 50 years (Figure 8.2). Since
the 1960s yields of major cereals have increased between two- and
threefold, allowing farmers to increase productivity without the need for
additional land. Plant breeding has been only one component of these
yield gains—agronomic improvements have also played a major role.
Several studies have explored the relative roles of breeding and
agronomy in generating productivity gains, and, although the share
varies between crops and regions, the split is around 50-50.
1200
Wheat
1000 Maize
800 Rice
Barley
600
400
200
0
1961
1964
1967
1970
1973
1976
1979
1982
1985
1988
1991
1994
1997
2000
2003
2006
2009
2012
2015
Fig. 8.2. Global production of the four major cereals since 1960 (in millions of metric
tons). Source: FAO (2017).
For meat production, it is more difficult to determine the role of

genetic gain relative to improvements in production systems and the
general growth in meat consumption and demand. Chicken meat and
pork now account for almost 70% of global meat production. The most
rapid growth has occurred for chicken meat, which has increased more
than 13-fold since the 1960s, while total meat production has risen about
4.5-fold (Figure 8.3).

350
Cattle
300 Chicken
Goat
250 Pig
Sheep
200 Total
150
100
50
0
1961
1964
1967
1970
1973
1976
1979
1982
1985
1988
1991
1994
1997
2000
2003
2006
2009
2012
Fig. 8.3. Global production of meat since 1960 (millions of metric tons). Source: FAO
(2017).
8.3 Sources of Future Genetic Gains
The success of breeding is measured in terms of genetic gain for target

traits, such as yield or disease resistance. The genetic gain refers to the
genetic component of the improvement, such as yield increase, as
opposed to the increase that results from environmental and agronomic
factors. This gain is heritable and will be a characteristic of new
cultivars. Breeders must show that their new cultivars offer significant
and measurable genetic improvements over existing cultivars or lines.
Innovation and biotechnology can affect crop and animal
improvement in three broad areas:
 enhancing the efficiency of current breeding technology,
 generating major changes in breeding methodologies, and

 improving the delivery and adoption of new cultivars or breeds and
associated technologies.
Although these areas clearly overlap, each will be considered separately.
8.3.1 Enhancing the efficiency of current breeding

technologies
Breeding is based on the use of genetic variation to produce new genetic

combinations that show enhanced properties. In conventional breeding,
the variation is provided within the crossable germplasm pool, and most
breeding programs focus on making crosses within the elite or adapted
germplasm pool. Unadapted or non-elite lines are generally used only
where specific traits, such as a new disease resistance, are required. In

these cases, plant breeders often make successive backcrosses to the elite
lines in order to re-establish the elite background with only the new trait,
the disease resistance, added.
Once crosses have been made, breeders must then screen the progeny
for improved variants. This becomes a numbers game—the more lines
that can be screened and the greater the accuracy of the screening, the
greater the probability of producing useful lines. The principle behind
this breeding approach can be summarized in the “breeder’s equation,”
which can be expressed in various forms and states that
𝐷𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 𝐻𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛
𝐵𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑦𝑐𝑙𝑒
Heritability refers to the proportion of the variation that is due to the

genetic makeup relative to the environment. The breeding cycle
represents the time required to make and screen populations. For
example, annual crops can be screened every year whereas some fruit
crops, such as apples, can take five years to fruit.
New technologies will have an impact on all components of the
breeders’ equation, and some will influence multiple components of the
equation. As a consequence, some of the innovations described here—,
such as advances in phenotyping, recombination, and selection

strategies—will appear in several sections.
8.3.1.1 Expanding the germplasm pool
Novel variation can be introduced into crops through a range of

techniques, including the use of genes or genomic regions from landraces

or wild relatives, the generation of variation through exposure to ionizing
radiation or chemical mutagens (mutation breeding), and accession of
genes from novel sources through genetic engineering or, most recently,
genome editing.
Breeders have made extensive use of the wild relatives of
domesticated plants by methods known as interspecific hybridization.
Genetic information from the wild relatives is integrated into the genetic
makeup of the crop plant either by direct crossing or by a process called

chromosome engineering. In chromosome engineering, chromosomes
from one species, the donor of useful traits, can be broken and joined
onto chromosomes from the host species. In use for half a century, these
techniques have led to improvements in a range of characteristics,
particularly host plant resistance to pests and pathogens. This type of
variation has been critical to the success of current crops such as wheat,
maize, rice, barley, and many fruits and vegetables. Examples include
more than 400 rice mutants with improved maturity, grain yield, disease
tolerance, and quality; rapeseed with reduced erucic acid and
glucosinolates; Ruby Red grapefruit, and improved black spot resistance
in pears (Ahloowalia et al., 2004). Importantly, the new plants produced
by chromosome engineering or mutation breeding are not subject to
regulation; they can be generated, screened, and commercialized without
the need for special scrutiny by government and international regulatory
agencies.
However, interspecific hybridization and mutation breeding involve
large-scale changes in the genetic makeup of the plants and bring
hundreds or thousands of new genes into the crop. In both chromosome
engineering and mutation breeding, thousands of genes are altered, and
most of the changes actually reduce the performance of the plants.
Scientists and breeders clean up the genetic material by slowly removing
unwanted, often deleterious genes or mutations over multiple generations

using extensive screening while retaining the desirable genes.
Improvements in genetic analysis have now made it possible to
accurately assess the genetic diversity present not only within the elite
germplasm pool for major crops but also in landraces and wild relatives.
The extent of the selection bottlenecks that have limited variation
available in modern breeding programs varies between species. For most

major crops, however, it appears that less than 10% of the natural
variation has been captured in the elite germplasm pool (Feuillet et al.,
2008). These are three parts to the problem:
 First, it is difficult to identify useful sources of adaptive traits in
germplasm that is poorly adapted to modern cultivation techniques.
 Second, when crosses are made, many deleterious genes or alleles are
transferred and the process of cleaning up the genetic background can
be very slow. For many species, such as wheat, there are genetic
barriers to effective recombination between the wild and elite
chromosomes. It can take 10 to 20 years to introgress a single new
locus, and this timeframe is greatly expanded if the source is outside
the primary gene pool.
 Third, many of the traits that are a priority in breeding programs, such
as yield and adaptation to drought stress, are under complex genetic
control, and effectively introducing useful variation from wild
relatives may involve the introgression of multiple loci. Current
methods assume that the genetic basis of the variation is additive and
can be accumulated through multiple introgressions. However,
introgressing multiple loci is extremely time consuming, and for
many yield-related traits, additivity is questionable.
Given the potential benefit of expanding the use of wild and landrace
germplasm and the current stagnation in the rates of genetic gain for
many of our major crops, how can we tackle these problems? Can new
breeding methods and related technologies help?
The importance of expanding the germplasm base of breeding
programs has attracted considerable interest, and several programs and
international initiatives have been initiated to improve access to
germplasm and provide information that would make the collections easier
to use (McCouch et al., 2013). The DivSeek organization was established
“to enable breeders and researchers to mobilize a vast range of plant

genetic variation to accelerate the rate of crop improvement and furnish
food and agricultural products to the growing human population”
(DivSeek, 2017). Similarly, the Seeds of Discovery program was set up as
a platform for utilizing maize and wheat genetic resources, with lessons
that can be applied to other crops. By characterizing the genetic makeup

of maize and wheat collections, SeeD generates data that will accelerate
the development of improved crop cultivars to meet the demands of a
growing population in a changing climate (Seeds of Discovery, 2017).
The current approach has been to develop introgression lines and
phenotype the lines once the donor (landrace or wild relative) genome
has been reduced to only small genomic regions. As noted, this is a slow
process requiring many generations, and it assumes that the yield benefit
will come from single major loci or genomic regions with additive
effects on yield. This approach works for simply inherited traits, but
most data suggest that yield depends on multigenic inheritance and
probably epistasis. Therefore, for complex traits for which little is known
about the genetic control, it may be easier to deal with the relatively
small number of known genes that are key to domestication and
adaptation to agriculture. These domestication genes generally involve
loss of function mutations to convert the wild alleles into those of elite
lines. Knocking out these genes with new genome editing technologies
could result in lines that could be evaluated directly or are sufficiently
close to adapted germplasm to require fewer backcrossing cycles than
currently required before evaluation.
8.3.1.2 Recombination
In recent years, researchers’ understanding of the genetics and molecular

biology of recombination and chromosome pairing has advanced rapidly.
Outside of the plant kingdom, meiosis has been studied extensively, and
consequently most of the key plant homologues have been identified
(summaries have appeared in many recent reviews, such as Mezard et al.,
2007; Osman et al., 2011). It is reasonable to predict, therefore, that
meiosis should be a highly conservative process.
Armed with the new understanding of recombination, it is now

feasible to enhance and modify this process, and several large research
programs are exploring the technologies and options. There are many
important outcomes from this work that will have an impact on several
components of the breeders’ equation. Increasing the overall
recombination rate, for example, will not only improve researchers’
ability to introgess novel alleles and genomic regions but also save time
by reducing the number of backcrosses that might be required to
reestablish the elite background (Barabaschi et al., 2016).
Use of the CRISP/Cas9 system allows the induction of chromosome
breaks at specific locations. This may provide a mechanism for inducing
recombination at specific sites or for deleting chromosome regions. The
technique has already been used to replace large gene segments (Li et al.,
2016).
For species where recombination is strongly suppressed in

centromeric regions, there will also be an opportunity to enhance
recombination to exploit variation in low-recombining areas. These
regions contain many genes and some important agronomic traits, but
these have been difficult to access and are largely ignored in current
breeding activities.
As these new technologies advance, breeders will likely gain access
to techniques that allow rapid introgression of chromosome regions in a
highly targeted and managed way. This should help open up extensive
genetic resources to practical breeding.
8.3.1.3 Population size
As mentioned earlier, breeding is a numbers game—the more lines that

can be generated and screened, the greater the chance of identifying
novel genetic combinations. The size of a breeding program is often
measured based on the number of lines screened in any season, but the
overall breeding strategy will vary between programs and the resources
available.
A small breeding program for an annual crop, such as wheat, will
make between 300 and 500 crosses each year. In a traditional pedigree
breeding approach, from each cross up to 50 F1 seeds will be used to
produce a series of F2 populations; some will be culled at this stage, but

most will go to evaluation as F2s. Usually between 10 and 20 F2s from
each F1 will be grown out. This means that more than 30,000 plants will
be grown out. The breeder will make a visual assessment of the plants in
each F2 series. Traits such as leaf color, disease symptoms, tillering,
height, and maturity will be assessed. Plants that look poor will be
culled. If a series of F2s looks particularly promising, the cross may be

repeated or additional F1 or F2 seeds planted. Seed yield from F2 plants
does not provide a useful assessment of how the plants will perform in
large-scale trials, but plants that produce only few seeds will also be
discarded. Only a small number of interesting lines will be taken on to
the next screening cycle. This usually involves taking the selected lines
through a one or two additional generations to produce enough seed for a
small plot. The small plots provide the first estimate of yield, but this
stage is mainly used to eliminate lines that may have problems with
disease or general growth and vigor. Again, the most promising lines
(maybe half of those tested) will be taken to the next stage, which will
involve multiple plots at multiple sites to provide the first reliable yield
assessments.
Similar numbers would be generated in the bulk breeding method
(Table 8.1), with many thousands of lines grown and evaluated from
each cross. Small breeding programs might evaluate tens of thousands of
lines each season, and large programs would screen millions of lines.
Early-generation screening, such as described above for the
evaluation of F2 plants, can make up a large percentage of the breeding
programs’ budget. Molecular markers are often deployed to check for the
presence of key alleles in the individual lines, but the main cost is the
time for the breeder to evaluate and document the key features of the
lines. Methods that accelerate the evaluation would allow more lines to
be tested. If the breeder can increase the number of F2 plants sown per
line or the total number of crosses that can be evaluated, the chances of
finding improved genetic combinations will increase. Doubling the
number of plants or small plots evaluated would double the rate of
genetic gain.
Table 8.1. Number of plants that might be grown from each cross in a standard bulk
selection method for an annual crop.
Year Generation Numbers

1 Initial cross P 1 × P2
2 F1 50–100
3 F2 2,000–3,000
4 F3 2,000–3,000
5 F4 2,000–3,000
6 F5 3,000–5,000
7 F6 300–500
8 F7 30–50
9–11 F8 – F10 10
Several factors influence the scale of the breeding program or the

sizes of the populations without requiring increased budgets:
 Mechanization. Mechanization has been important in allowing
breeders to sow and harvest trials. There have been steady
improvements in the quality and efficiency of this equipment, and the
introduction of sophisticated guidance systems has increased the
speed and accuracy of sowing.
 Biometrics. Advances in biometrics and the use of computing have
improved the overall design of trials so that controls and replications
can be optimized and information from trials can be evaluated rapidly
and reliably.
 Novel phenotyping methods. Application of these methods allows
accurate data to be generated for large numbers of lines. Advances in
this area affect all components of the breeding equation, but in the
context of population size, the key factor is the ability to assess
individual plants or plots without requiring the breeder to be in the
field taking time-consuming measurements. This means that more
lines can be assessed.
8.3.1.4 Heritability
In breeding programs, heritability of key traits is usually equivalent to

selection intensity. Some traits are highly heritable and can be reliably
screened. In cereals, for example, plant height can be highly variable
depending on the environment, but in a specific field trial, the variation
observed will be due largely to genetic differences between the plants,

and a breeder can accurately measure height. This means that selection
for a particular height class can be achieved on individual plants and will
result in rapid genetic gain. Disease resistance is also often, but not
always, highly heritable, although screening can sometimes be
complex—the plants need to be exposed to the disease and susceptibility
or resistance scored. However, some diseases are strongly influenced by
environmental factors and can be under complex genetic control. In these
cases, heritability may be low and selection intensity will be reduced.

Grain yield, plant biomass, or processing quality are among the most
important traits in breeding programs, but these often show low
heritability owing to the strong influence of environmental and
agronomic factors in expression of the traits. These traits can also be
quite difficult or expensive to measure. For reliable yield estimates, large
plots need to be sown, and the seed thus needs to be bulked. For some
quality traits, such as the bread-making quality of wheat, large amounts
of grain are needed, and this grain must be milled and then used to make
dough and bread. These traits are also usually under complex genetic
control, and many of the genes or their protein products may interact,
further complicating the analysis.
Traditionally, the best method of addressing these problems was to
carefully design trials with adequate controls and to aim for high levels
of replication across different environments that provide a good
representation of the target environments for the finished lines. As
already noted, advances in computing and biometrics have played a
major role in improving the accuracy of data generated from trials both
in controlled environments and under field conditions. A key measure of
the success of these advances is the increase in heritability for many
major traits.
Perhaps the biggest impact on heritability, and consequently selection

intensity, in breeding programs is expected to come from advances in
phenotyping methods. Several new technologies have generated
improvements in the measurement of diverse crop and plant traits. The
cost, weight, and resolution of cameras are now at a level that allows
them to be attached to drones or unmanned aerial vehicles, where they
can capture large numbers of high-quality images of the developing crop.

A number of parameters can be determined from the images. Images
captured with visible-light cameras can be used to assess growth rate and
detect unusual color that could indicate the plants’ nutrient or disease
status. Long-wave infrared or thermal cameras can indicate the plants’
stress status due to drought, heat, or disease. Under drought stress, plants
that are cooler than others are likely to have deeper roots that can access
water at depth to cool the canopy. In addition to the RGB and infrared
cameras, a range of hyperspectral cameras now on the market capture

hundreds of images over a wide electromagnetic spectrum (Araus and
Cairns 2014; Falhgren et al., 2015). The information and parameters
generated from these imaging systems can be used to develop models of
crop and plant performance, and the results can be used to predict key
agronomic traits. All of this information helps breeders achieve greater
reliability and intensity of selection.
At the individual plant level, it is also possible to generate large sets
of information on a plant’s behavior under a range of conditions. Many
automated facilities are now available to scientists and breeders for
screening plants. These facilities generally use single plants grown in a
pot in a greenhouse or growth chamber. The plants can be moved on a
conveyer belt to imaging stations, where they are photographed using a
diverse set of cameras (visible, infrared, near infrared, florescence) (for
example, the Plant Accelerator [APPF, 2017]). Even more detailed
analysis of plants can be achieved by generating data on parts of the
plant, such as leaf area and structure, leaf surface, flower size and
number, and many other features. Techniques are rapidly advancing to
support compositional analysis of living tissues, including the levels of
metabolites (metabolomics), proteins (proteomics), and gene expression
(transcriptomics). These techniques can be applied to both the above-
and below-ground parts of the plants to generate a comprehensive view

of a wide range of plant characteristics (Downie et al., 2015).
This information is targeted at supporting the selection of traits to
improve crop performance. For plant breeders, precision phenotyping
offers the ability to increase heritability and hence genetic gain through
selection. In many cases, the new phenotyping techniques will replace
difficult, unreliable, or expensive measurement methods, and the low

cost and high throughput of many of these assays will allow breeders to
screen larger populations than is currently feasible.
8.3.1.5 Breeding cycle
There are various definitions of the breeding cycle, but the term is
usually used to describe the period between each selection cycle within a
breeding program. Genetic gain is achieved in a breeding program at

each selection cycle, and this is affected by the generation time (from
seed to seed) or the selection method (single plant selection or large field
plot selection). From the breeder’s equation, it is clear that shortening the
breeding cycle has a large impact on the rates of genetic gain.
A range of technologies can be used to reduce the cycle time. Most
major grain crops are annual plants, but it is usually possible to achieve
multiple generations in a year by using controlled environment growth
conditions, accelerating grain maturation by drying, or even isolating the
embryos before full grain development and germinating the isolated
embryos in culture. These techniques have been used for several decades,
but new technologies, such as the availability of LED lights to improve
the spectral composition for plant growth, have improved the efficiency
of rapid cycling. For many crops, including spring wheat, durum wheat,
chickpea, and field pea, breeders can achieve six generations in a year
(Watson et al., 2017).
For long-generation species, technological advances can greatly
reduce generation and cycle time. In apples, for example, generation time
is normally 5 to 12 years while the plants go through a juvenile phase
before flowering. This cycle can be accelerated by changing the
expression of genes that regulate flowering time. Yamagishi et al. (2014)
used a latent virus to overexpress a gene from Arabidopsis (AtFT) to
silence an endogenous flowering time regulatory gene (MdFTL1-1) so

that plants flowered only 1.5 to 3 months after germination. This type of
approach was used to introduce a new fire blight resistance gene into
apple cultivars in only 3 years rather than the usual timeframe of almost
20 years (Le Roux et al., 2012).
For inbred crops, such as wheat, barley, rice, chickpea and canola, the
lines delivered to growers need to be genetically stable, which means

they should show little or no segregation for a wide range of traits. This
genetic stability means that farmers can be confident of the genetic
makeup of their crops and can save seed for planting in subsequent
seasons. Genetic stability can be achieved by taking plants through
multiple cycles of selfing and taking a single seed forward at each
generation. This process of single-seed descent is usually taken through
five or six generations before the lines are regarded as sufficiently pure
for bulking and release to farmers. Acceleration of this process can be

achieved using haploid tissues taken from the originally selected line and
then doubling the chromosome number to restore the diploid
chromosome complement. The resultant plants are perfectly homozygous
and genetically completely stable. This means that all genes are in a
homozygous state so that recessive alleles are expressed and the
genotype remains fixed through all successive generations.
The most widely used technique for generating doubled haploids is
through tissue culture of gametes—usually microspores but in some
cases egg cells. Continual advances in tissue culture techniques have
meant that new species become amenable to doubled haploidy over time.
However, some species have remained intractable (Dwivedi et al., 2015).
In some cases, haploids can be produced from interspecific crosses
where one parental genome can be eliminated, probably because the
centromeres from the two species interact differently with the meiotic
cell machinery (Laurie and Bennett, 1989). One promising new
technology is to use transgenics or mutants with modifications of the
centromere specific histone protein, CENH3. The chromosomes from the
mutant line are eliminated in crosses with normal plants since they do not
line up correctly during division. The result is that haploids are
generated, which either double spontaneously or can be doubled with
chemical agents that disrupt spinal formation, such as colchicine (Ravi

and Chan, 2010).
These strategies represent techniques that can accelerate conventional
breeding programs. There are also new breeding strategies that can have
a major impact on the breeding cycle. Advances in genotyping
technologies have meant that generating detailed genotypes of individual
lines has become feasible. The impact of these developments is that use
of molecular or DNA markers has continued to expand, and most modern
breeding programs now make good use of this technology. Markers still
provide powerful tools for tracking specific alleles in breeding programs,
but their use has expanded now that whole genome scans are feasible.
Techniques such as background genotype selection, combined directly
with new phenotyping methods, can greatly accelerate the introgession of
novel alleles or genomic regions from diverse backgrounds.
The costs of genotyping are decreasing every year as new techniques

become available. For several crops, it is already possible to score
several thousand markers for about US$10 per line. It is reasonable to
assume that these costs will continue to decline so that breeders and
researchers can routinely score germplasm for several thousand markers
for only a few dollars. Importantly, several companies now offer full
genotyping service, including DNA isolation; breeders only need to send
small leaf samples and receive detailed genotypic data a few days later
(Yuan et al., 2017; LGC Group, 2017).
The rapid decline in the cost of genotyping and the new platforms
that allow large numbers of molecular markers to be assayed at once
have opened up whole-genome analysis techniques to plant breeders.
Whole-genome analysis has facilitated the identification of useful marker
trait linkages in conventional or association mapping approaches, but it
has also made genomic selection accessible to plant breeders (Barabaschi
et al., 2016; Desta and Ortiz 2014). Genomic selection has been widely
used in animal breeding since it was first proposed (Meuwissen et al.,
2001) and deployed in dairy cattle breeding (Schaeffer, 2006). In
genomic selection, marker effects from across the whole genome are
used to assign a genomic estimated breeding value (GEBV) to
individuals in a population based on their phenotypes. These breeding
values can then be deployed in a breeder’s population to estimate the
breeding value of lines based on genotypic information only. Various

statistical models have been tested (Desta and Ortiz, 2014; Misztal and
Legarra, 2017), and several publications have described the application
of genomic selection to the breeding of maize, barley, wheat, rice, oat,
soybean, sugarcane, sugarbeet, and apple (Barabaschi et al., 2016).
In addition to the different technologies described, new phenotyping
methods also offer a major opportunity to shorten the breeding cycle.

The key approach here is to use the extensive data that can be generated
on single plants or field plots to identify features of the plants that are
predictive of traits that may normally be measureable only late in the
breeding program. For example, is it possible to find physiological traits
that are indicators of drought or stress tolerance when the plants are
grown in the field? This concept of physiological breeding is not new
and has been applied for several decades, but with limited success. The
new phenotyping technologies, however, offer a far more detailed view

of plants and their characteristics than was previously possible, and, with
advances in computational analysis, the options for finding phenotyping
traits that are highly correlated with important agronomic traits, such as
stress tolerance, will increase (Reynolds and Langridge, 2016).
8.3.2 Generating major changes in breeding methodologies
The innovations covered in the previous section feed directly into

conventional breeding approaches and consequently have a high
probability of adoption by breeding programs, although the rates of
technology adoption remain a major concern and will be considered
later. These technologies offer the opportunity to significantly increase
the rates of genetic gain that can be achieved through breeding and are
expected to lead to small but additive and incremental improvement in
cultivars available to farmers. Big jumps in yield and crop performance
are rare but have nonetheless played an important role in productivity
growth over the past decades; the Green Revolution cultivars that
introduced semi-dwarfing genes and a new breeding methodology
provide a clear example. Consequently, there is great interest in new
ideas and technologies that could emulate these big yield jumps. Many
possible approaches could be described under this heading. Most are
high-risk/high-return projects; only a small proportion can be expected to

translate into practical outcomes for crop improvement. In this section,
only a few projects are considered, all of which receive support through
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is important to remember,
however, that a plethora of research programs are exploring diverse
mechanisms that may have an impact on crop yields. These generally
have a long delivery time, and some, such as the possible transition to
perennial cereals (Curwen-McAdams and Jones, 2017), would require
major changes in both breeding technologies and agronomic practices.
8.3.2.1 Enhancing photosynthesis
It has been argued that breeders have been very effective in maximizing
light interception by crops (Long et al., 2015). The rate of light
interception now lies at between 80% and 90%, which is likely to be

close to the theoretical maximum (Zhu et al., 2010), but little progress
has been made in increasing the efficiency of conversion of solar energy.
Current cultivars achieve only about 2% energy conversion, although the
theoretical potential for C3 plants, such as wheat and rice, is about 10%,
and for C4 crops, such as maize, about 13% (Long et al., 2015; Zhu
et al., 2010). Researchers are exploring several strategies to try to
address this problem:
 Reducing energy losses through photorespiration and more efficient
carbon fixation. About 25% of the rate of CO2 fixation is lost through
photorespiration since the key enzyme for CO2 fixation, rubisco, can
also capture oxygen (Betti et al., 2016). A range of strategies can be
used to look for plants that show reduced rates of photorespiration by
studying diverse plant species or by screening for mutations in
existing ones (Betti et al., 2016). There are also some organisms that
have versions of Rubisco that act more rapidly than the versions
found in higher plants. The enzyme from a cyanobacteria may be one
such source of a more efficient enzyme (Badger and Price, 2003).
 Converting C3 crops to C4. C4 plants are able to reduce
photorespiration by concentrating CO2 close to the carbon fixation
machinery of the cell. Therefore, converting the photosynthesis in
crops like wheat and rice to C4 could lead to a significant increase in
photosynthetic efficiency (Betti et al., 2016). The number of enzymes

needed to convert C3 to C4 is quite small, but it will also be necessary
to change leaf anatomy. This may be more complex and more
difficult to achieve (von Caemmerer et al., 2012). International
consortia have been established to develop C4 rice (IRRI, 2017) and
other crops (www.3to4.org).
8.3.2.2 Transferring nitrogen fixation to non-legume crops
Nitrogen fertilization is a significant cost for many growers, and access

to high-quality fertilizers may be limited in some regions. Legumes can
fix nitrogen thanks to a symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and
there has been interest for some time in transferring the symbiotic
association for legumes to non-legumes, and to cereals in particular (Mus
et al., 2016). A number of possible mechanisms could be used to achieve

this, either by developing a full legume-type symbiosis in cereals or by
enhancing the ability of root-associated bacteria to fix nitrogen around
the plant roots through plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR).
All plants release from their roots organic carbon that can stimulate or
inhibit the growth of microorganisms, including PGRP. Therefore, it may
not be necessary to engineer legume-type bacteria associations in cereals
to achieve some level of symbiotic nitrogen fixation; instead it may be
enough to improve the efficiency and abundance of PGRP around the
roots.
8.3.2.3 Hybrid breeding and apomixis
The main purpose of hybrid breeding is to capture the benefits of

heterosis. The yield gains from heterosis or hybrid vigor can be
substantial in outbreeding species such as maize and cereal rye. While
the benefits for inbred crops, such as wheat and rice, may be smaller,
they still represent an increased yield of between 10% and 20%
(Whitford et al., 2013). For some species, where investment in breeding
has been modest, the introduction of hybrid breeding systems has led to
rapid yield advances over short periods (for example, pigeonpea; Saxena
et al., 2015). It is generally accepted that heterosis will increase with
increasing diversity of the heterotic genetic pools, although the actual

basis for heterosis is still not fully explained at the molecular level and is
likely to vary between species and systems.
Hybrid maize has been cultivated for several decades and has formed
the basis for the highly successful commercial maize-breeding programs.
A key factor in extending hybrids to other crops is the cost of hybrid seed
production, which requires a cheap and effective technique for forcing

outcrossing. In maize, the male flowers can be mechanically removed to
force outcrossing, but for species with hermaphroditic flowers, such as
wheat, rice, and most grain legumes, hybrid programs need to use male
sterility that can be induced genetically or through the application of
gametocides, chemical hybridizing agents (CHAs). However, CHAs
must selectively induce male sterility while leaving female fertility intact
and can often be difficult to use. A range of genetic systems have been
developed for different crops, but these are also often complicated to use.
The genetic systems normally use cytoplasmic male sterility or mutant
versions of nuclear gene, which cause sterility by altering pollen
development. Several systems have also used genetic engineering to
create male sterility. The different systems have been reviewed in
Whitford et al. (2013).
Thanks to regular advances in hybrid systems, commercial hybrids
are now available for many crops, but the cost of seed production still
limits access to this technology for many farmers. The effects of
heterosis decline in subsequent generations, so farmer-saved seed is not
an option for growers wishing to take advantage of the yield increase
offered by hybrids. One option is to fix heterosis in lines by bypassing
the normal reproductive pathway to generate seed entirely from the
female parent. This process, known as apomixis, occurs in many plant
species but not in major crops. Therefore, several groups are working to
develop apomixis in cereal crops, such as rice, as a route to the
production of cheap hybrids and to allow farmers to use their own seed
(Hwa and Yang, 2008).
8.4 Technology Adoption
The large investments in developing and applying new technologies to

crop improvement and the resulting technology options are of little value
unless the resultant cultivars are transferred and adopted by farmers.
New cultivars alone are not sufficient to raise yields and increase the
reliability and sustainability of production systems. The World

Development Report 2008 found that the adoption of modern cultivars
varies greatly between regions and species (Figure 8.4), with Sub-
Saharan Africa particularly at risk (World Bank, 2008).
Fig. 8.4. Area planted to modern cultivars between 2000 and 2005. Modified from World
Bank (2008).
8.4.1 The production system
It is important to remember that new cultivars must be delivered to

farmers with an appropriate agronomic package, which should include
the optimal approaches not only for growing and managing the new
cultivars but also for fitting the new cultivars into the overall cropping
and farm management system. Some new technologies, such as hybrid

cultivars and changes in fertilizer use efficiency, are expected to have a
large impact on crop management and how the farmers will access seed.
New germplasm for improved host resistance to diseases or pests also
needs to be managed and deployed so that the new resistance will not
break down rapidly. For genetically engineered crops with herbicide
tolerance or insect resistance, extensive modeling of durability is often

included in the delivery packages provided to farmers and is important
for the sustainability and the long-term success of these technologies.
In the future, breeders, as well as agronomists and farmers, are likely
to address considerations related to entire cropping systems. Restrictions
and controls on the use of land and resources are expected to become
more stringent; these changes need to be integrated into the breeding
objectives and should feed back into the selection strategy adopted by
breeders. Breeders are increasingly asked to select for performance of

their new cultivars under the likely cropping conditions used by the
target farmers; for example, a wheat breeder might select for yield as part
of a rotation with grain legumes or under conditions of heavy weed
infestation. These strategies are not new, and many breeding programs
already include a consideration of the cropping system in their selection
scheme, but such considerations are likely to rise in priority.
Closely aligned with considerations of the cropping system are
concerns about agricultural production in a broad ecological context. In
the past, many ecologists have seen agriculture as an ecological problem
rather than as a critical part of the landscape and environment.
Fortunately, this view is now changing, but regulations and community
attitudes will require shifts in breeding targets and objectives. For
example, concerns about excessive use of fertilizers and the rise in
organic production methods in some regions will have an impact on all
farmers and affect the performance of some cultivars.
8.4.2 Technology transfer between species and crops
The level of investment in plant breeding varies greatly between regions

and for different crops. Consequently, rates of technology development
and adoption are also highly variable. For the major cereal crops, there is
significant national and international investment in breeding from both

the public and private sectors. Maize breeding in particular has seen
strong private-sector investment because hybrid seed sales represent a
significant commercial opportunity. The strong private-sector interest in
developing hybrid wheat and rice has been prompted largely by the
potential value of hybrid seed sales. The example of pigeonpea provided
earlier is an exception (Saxena et al., 2015).

The technologies already described here are aimed at developing low-
cost, efficient hybrid seed production systems. These will play an
important role in the ultimate delivery of commercial programs and,
hopefully, stimulate investment in hybrid breeding. However, access to
hybrid technology will remain difficult for farmers in many regions;
other delivery mechanisms, such as the use of apomictic lines, could
provide an alternative.
Technology transfer to minor crops has been a problem for some

time, not only because of the small investment in developing
technologies targeted to minor crops, but also because the breeding
capacity to actually use the technology is often missing. The advent of
new genomics techniques has the potential to change this situation. The
costs of genotyping are falling at a dramatic rate, and genomic-assisted
breeding methods are becoming widely accessible (Varshney et al.,
2012). It now seems that the biggest challenge in seeing new
technologies delivered to breeding programs targeted to minor crops is
the small size and capacity of these programs. Therefore, the best
investment to increase technology uptake is likely to be in expanding
conventional breeding capabilities to build the delivery pathway.
8.4.3 Regulation and acceptance by consumers/governments
In considering the role and potential impact of biotechnology in crop and

animal improvement, it is important to recognize that scientific
considerations are not the sole determinant of acceptance by breeding
programs, farmers, and the broader community. The history of adoption
of genetically modified (GM) crops provides a sobering reminder of the
need to build community acceptance for new technologies and to accept
that good science may not be enough. GM crops have now been in
commercial production for more than 20 years, and where they have
been introduced into the production system they have had a large
positive effect (Smyth et al., 2015). A recent review summarizes the
large body of literature on the economic and environmental benefits
associated with GM crop production (Smyth 2017). However, an active
and successful movement has opposed this technology, essentially
excluding farmers from access to GM crops in many regions and

resulting in a complex regulatory burden on researchers. Smyth (2017)
concludes, “The regulatory and trade challenges facing GM crops are
having a detrimental impact on improving food security.” In some
regions, opposition to GM crops has become so entrenched that there
seems little hope that they will become universally accepted. This is
unfortunate because the human and environmental safety concerns have
long since been addressed, and the significant investment in developing
GM crops is struggling to achieve effective delivery. However, the large

investment in this technology has not been completely lost. GM crops do
play a major role, and over the past few years the area sown to GM crops
in the developing world has exceeded that in the developed world
(ISAAA, 2016). The techniques of genetic engineering have also become
a critical tool in gene discovery and characterization, and scientists have
been able to use this information to develop alternative and non-GM
approaches to gene-based crop improvement. A major concern now is to
avoid the risk that other technologies will fall into the regulatory abyss
that GM crops face in regions like Europe. There is already an active
movement to treat genome editing as a type of GM technology and
subject to the same regulatory framework as GM crops (Araki et al.,
2014). Many countries are now grappling with the best approach to
managing genome editing in its various forms, and it seems likely that
different applications will face different regulatory requirements (Araki
and Ishii, 2015).
8.5 Biotechnology in the Improvement of Farm Animals
Genetic and genomics technologies are generally applicable to all species

of plants and animals. Therefore, many of the techniques outlined for
crop plants can be applied to animal breeding. Indeed, some techniques,

such as a genomic selection, were originally demonstrated for dairy
cattle and subsequently applied to other farm animals, crops, and forest
tree species. However, whereas the key driver of crop plant improvement
has been the pursuit of higher yield potential to help address rising
demand for grains, different factors have influenced priorities for animal
biotechnology.
The focus here will be on technologies directed to the application of
biotechnology directly to animal production. However, advances in the
production of veterinary products, notably vaccines, are also likely to
have a major impact on the animal production industries.
Although there is great diversity in animal production systems, they
face a number of common problems. The biggest issues are the threats
posed by zoonotic and pandemic disease, concerns about animal welfare,
and concerns about excessive use of antibiotics. In addition, the gap is

widening between the industrialized and developing world in the areas of
animal health, management, nutrition, and genetics. In countries with
rapidly growing populations, increasing numbers of livestock and high
stocking densities place pressure on sustainable intensification of animal
production and heighten the risk of disease and pandemics (Tizard et al.,
2016). Consequently, biotechnological developments have focused on
improving farm animals’ disease and heat tolerance and addressing
animal welfare traits.
Animal biotechnology shares some issues with crop biotechnology,
such as low public acceptance and interest in new technologies in many
countries and regions and the problem of slow technology adoption. The
need for rapid technology adoption is particularly important in the animal
industries, where the ability to rapidly improve traits throughout the
animal population is critical to prevent pandemics. Both new vaccine
technologies and the modification of susceptibility loci in the animals
provide options for managing disease. This point became clear during the
outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom in 2001 and
of avian influenza in the United States in 2015.
8.5.1 Transgenic animals
The first transgenic animals were produced in the early 1980s primarily
as a research tool to study gene expression (Gordon et al., 1980). The
demonstration that overexpression of growth hormone led to an increase
in the size of mice prompted strong interest in the possibility of
increasing the productivity of farm animals (Palmiter et al., 1983).

Subsequent research has resulted in the production of animals with
improved disease resistance, welfare characteristics, environmental
benefits, and feed efficiency, but these advances have struggled to
translate to the development and commercialization of transgenic
animals (reviewed in Tizard et al., 2016). Only one transgenic animal has
been approved for human consumption—Atlantic salmon, which carries
a gene construct that leads to the production of a growth hormone that
results in accelerated growth (AquaBounty, 2017). The transgenic

salmon was approved in the United States by the Food and Drug
Administration in late 2015, after 15 years of evaluations, including a 12-
year approval period, at an estimated cost of US$60 million (Maxmen,
2012; Bailey, 2015).
The problems in public acceptance of transgenic animals may relate
to the nature and purpose of the modification. Consequently, there is still
interest in the potential of this technology to manage pathogens,
particularly given the increasing transmission of infectious disease from
farm animals to humans (Jones et al., 2008) and in traits that improve
animal welfare or have an environmental benefit. The use of decoy RNA
to suppress avian influenza transmission is a good example of how
transgenic technology can be applied to limit disease spread (Lyall et al.,
2011).
On the animal welfare side, a number of reports have described the
use of GM to improve the management of farm animals. These cases
include the expression of human lysozyme in goats and alpha-
lactalbumin in pigs’ milk, the generation of hornless cattle, a reduction in
hair to help animal cope with heat stress (Tizard et al., 2016), and the
expression of an antimicrobial compound in milk to protect against
mastitis (Wall et al., 2005). The best-known example of using GM
technology to offer an environmental benefit has been through the
expression of phytase to reduce the levels of phosphorus in animal

manure (Forsberg et al., 2013; Golovan et al., 2001).
8.5.2 Genome editing
The difficulties in commercializing transgenic animals may not apply to

modifications induced by genome editing, and this technology is now

being widely applied to livestock (reviewed in Petersen, 2017). The traits
being targeted are similar to those explored with genetic engineering:
improved performance, animal welfare, and disease resistance. In many
case the modifications have been based on prior knowledge of gene
function. For example, the downregulation of myostatin is associated
with enhanced muscle development in some cattle and sheep breeds.
Knocking out the gene in cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats results in
differences in muscle mass (Petersen, 2017). In the case of disease
resistance, a single amino acid change was found to be associated with
improved resistance to African swine fever virus in warthogs (Palgrave
et al., 2011). Through gene editing, the same change was induced in pigs
(Lillico et al., 2013).
Gene editing is also being explored as a route to modifying milk
composition and reducing or eliminating allergens in animal products
(reviewed in Petersen, 2017). Early studies with zinc-finger nuclease
directed mutagenesis in cattle resulted in milk lacking β-lactoglobulin,
the major allergen in milk, and increased levels of casein (Yu et al.,
2011). Similar results have been achieved with CRISPR/Cas knockouts
of ovalbumin and ovomucoid, the main allergens in chicken eggs
(Petersen, 2017).
In the animal welfare area, transcription activator-like effector
nucleases (TALENs) have been used to produce hornless Holstein cattle
(Carlson et al., 2016), and there is potential to modify the SLICK hair
locus to improve the temperature tolerance of cattle (Dikmen et al.,
2014).
8.5.3 Reproductive technologies
A wide range of technologies can be used to improve animals’

reproductive efficiency and raise the rates of genetic gain for key traits.
Genomic selection has been particularly important in identifying
individual animals with genotypes that correspond with highly fertile
phenotypes (Morrell and Mayer, 2017). According to Morrell and Mayer

(2017, 546),
The technologies involved in mammalian ART (assisted reproductive
technology) include a number of methods of bringing together
spermatozoa and oocytes, such as artificial insemination (AI), gamete
intra-fallopian transfer (GIFT), in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo
transfer (ET) intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). To facilitate
carrying out these techniques, other technologies have been developed
such as sperm preservation and cryopreservation, and in vitro maturation

(IVM) of oocytes (usually from slaughterhouse material), for subsequent
IVF and ET.
Although AI is the most widely used form of ART, the other
technologies are gaining in importance; one study reported that in 2012
in vitro–produced embryos were being used in almost a million transfers
(Galli et al., 2014).
The application of these technologies to teleost fish is not as well
developed as for mammals. This is due to differences in the membrane
permeability and larger volume of fish oocytes (Morrell and Mayer,
(2017). These difficulties have shifted reproductive fish technologies to
the use of primordial germ cells (PGCs)—the precursors of oogonia and
spermatogonia. Transplantation of PGCs has been demonstrated for
several fish species and has also been shown to work for transplantation
to different fish species. The first use of this technique involved the
transplantation of trout PGCs to triploid salmon embryos (Okutsu et al.,
2007). This technology is important because it offers a method for
surrogate breeding of species that are difficult or expensive to breed in
captivity, such as sturgeon and bluefin tuna (Morrell and Mayer, 2017).
PGCs have also been important in the production of transgenic birds,
where the technology has been used to improve disease resistance,
produce “humanized” antibodies for pharmaceutical applications, and
knock out specific genes in the chicken genome (reviewed in Doran et

al., 2016).
Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) has been explored as a method
for cloning animals. The technique is difficult, however, and has a low
success rate, which has limited its application (Morrell and Mayer,
2017). Wider use may follow if its efficiency can be improved
significantly.
8.5.4 Human nutrition, pharmaceutical, and biomedical

applications
Animal products are an important source of food for humans, but some
people suffer from allergies, intolerances, or genetic preconditions that
limit their ability to consume certain animal-source foods. As already

noted, transgenic or CRISPR/Cas technology has been used in several
cases to improve the safety and nutritional quality of animal-derived
foods. These examples have included the removal or reduction of
allergens, the modification of fat composition, changes to milk
composition to improve nutrient content and reduce lactose, and the
production of antimicrobial compounds in milk (reviewed in Tizard
et al., 2016; Petersen, 2017).
Animals can also be modified to serve as models for human disease
as a route to developing new treatments, which include knockouts
produced using gene-editing techniques for cardiovascular diseases,
muscular dystrophy, various cancers, and coagulation disorders
(reviewed in Petersen, 2017). There has also been considerable interest in
modifying the genome of pigs so that pig organs can be used for
xenotransplantation. To be acceptable to regulatory agencies, this process
would involve extensive modification of the genome (Petersen, 2017).
Animals have been modified to produce proteins important in treating
diseases in humans (Tizard et al., 2016). The proteins have generally
been produced in the milk or eggs of transgenic animals, and their
transgenic nature does not appear to have affected their acceptance by
regulators and consumers (Sheridan, 2016).
8.5.5 Fish and other seafood
Many of the technologies described here can be applied to aquaculture,

and several examples have been given in the section on transgenic and
reproductive technologies. In the future, however, some additional
considerations and drivers are likely to affect this industry.
Aquaculture is a rapidly growing industry, with production increasing

from about 56 million MT in 2009 to almost 75 million MT in 2014.
Indeed, 2014 was the first year when seafood production for human
consumption from aquaculture exceeded wild-caught products (FAO,
2016). It is clear that world fisheries are in decline as a source of seafood
even though demand continues to rise. This situation has raised ethical
concerns about the fishing industry and the potential for biotechnology to
make production more sustainable (Harrell, 2017).
In many regions the aquaculture industry has been based on

feedstuffs from fish residues; in 2012 about 35% of fishmeal was
produced from fish residues (FAO, 2014). Predicted demand for fishmeal
is likely to decline only slowly; the FAO suggests that fishmeal will
make up about 12% of feed for salmon by 2025, and oilseed meal is
expected to rise to almost 20% of feed (FAO, 2016). Alternative
feedstuffs are being sought from plants and microorganisms, and this is a
fertile area for biotechnological application (Martinez-Cordova et al.,
2017).
The aquaculture industry is still relatively new compared with other
animal production systems. As a result, there are likely to be significant
opportunities to increase the efficiency of feed conversion by fish.
Currently the feed conversion ratio (FCR) for beef is about 8 kg feed per
1 kg meat; for pigs the rate is between 2.2 and 3.8, and extensive
research and selection in chicken have resulted in FCR rates below 1.5.
In aquaculture, there is a huge range, from 25 for ranched tuna down to 1
for tilapia. Some results show ratios below 1 for tropical species
(Martinez-Cordova et al., 2017). These results indicate a great
opportunity to use modern breeding and selection techniques, combined
with transgenic technologies and hybrid and polyploid lines, to improve
the efficiency of the aquaculture industries.
Finally, there may be opportunities to extend aquaculture to water

systems that are not suitable for other forms of food production.
8.6 Where to Next?

Predicting where innovations might affect plant and animal breeding in

the future is fraught with difficulties. When genetic modification (GM)
became technically feasible, scientists believed this technology would
dominate breeding, with novel crop and animal germplasm rapidly
coming onstream. However, a complex and inconsistent regulatory
environment and poor community acceptance have meant that this
technology has been limited to only a few traits. Although the impact for
some crops, such as cotton, canola, and soybean, has been large, the
traits deployed have been largely restricted to insect and herbicide

resistance, and this situation has hardly changed in more than 20 years.
Major scientific advances in researchers’ understanding of the genes
controlling disease resistance and tolerance of environmental stresses
have generally failed to find delivery through GM, and the predictions of
diverse products from the large investment in GM have been largely
unrealized. Still, one major outcome of the technology has been the
advance in our understanding of gene structure and function. This has
been valuable, but scientists have had to explore alternative routes to
deliver the discoveries made through molecular biology and
biotechnology. There is now optimism about the use of gene editing as a
route to deliver advances in gene discovery, but the regulatory
requirements and consumer acceptance of this technology still need to be
resolved. Biotechnology has had its most diverse impact through
advances in molecular marker and tissue culture technologies, and these
areas continue to innovate thanks to expanding knowledge of gene and
genome function and advances in computing and DNA analysis.
In many respects, individual technologies are not the major
determinants of future crop and farm animal improvement strategies
because scientists are now innovating around the regulatory, social, and
capacity constraints. The key factors for both plant and animal breeding
lie in the elements of the breeder’s equation cited earlier: diversity,
population size, heritability, and selection cycle. Greater diversity in

breeding programs can be delivered through GM approaches, but
increasingly, knowledge of genes and their function and access to whole
genome sequences are providing multiple routes for expanding the use of
variation in landraces and wild relatives or for inducing variation in a
targeted fashion, such as through gene editing. The size of populations
that can be screened is expanding through improvements in phenotyping

technology and a wide range of reproductive techniques, particularly in
animal improvement. Selection intensity is improving thanks to access to
sophisticated statistical methods and computing. It is being reinforced by
the phenotyping advances that allow breeders to analyze traits and
characteristics of the plants or animals in far greater detail and accuracy
than was previously feasible. Finally, new technologies are shortening
the selection cycle. For example, improvements in genotyping have
supported a range of techniques based on marker-assisted selection and,

more recently, genomics-assisted selection. These advances have
allowed genomic selection to be applied in both plant and animal
breeding. The innovations in reproductive technologies have had a large
impact on the breeding cycle for both plants and animals.
These four basic components of the breeder’s equation are unlikely to
undergo a major shift, but innovations in biotechnology, phenotyping,
data analysis, and tissue culture are enhancing, and will continue to
enhance, each component, leading to improvements in the rates of
genetic gain for key traits (Xu et al., 2017).
8.7 Conclusions
The scope and scale of new techniques in breeding and biotechnology

are enormous. These range from the fairly straightforward methods that
will enhance the speed and sophistication of conventional breeding to
highly innovative and high-risk approaches that have probably only a
small chance of success. The techniques that address breeding
methodologies directly are already being applied in many programs, and
many of the technical advances are associated with reducing the costs
and increasing the reliability of these methods. Key to the effective
delivery of these advances will be the capacity of breeding programs to

modify their current strategies to optimize the use of the diverse array of
options available. Many of the technologies can now be accessed through
service providers offering, for example, genotyping and data analysis
services, but accessing these services will be difficult for some regions
owing to several factors including high cost and limited options for
transporting biological materials and accessing large datasets. Investment

in technology development alone is not sufficient to spur significant
advances in the success of breeding. Strong support for breeding
programs themselves is likely to be even more important. Similarly, new
cultivars must be delivered to farmers as part of a large package that
includes optimal production methods and encompasses the entire farming
system.
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Chapter 9
Advancing to the Next Generation

of Precision Agriculture
Yanbo Huang and Molly E. Brown

9.1 Introduction
Precision agriculture has revolutionized agricultural operations since the

late 1980s. It was established on the basis of agricultural mechanization
through the integration of global positioning system (GPS), geographic
information system (GIS), and remote-sensing technologies. Over the
past 30 years, precision agriculture has evolved from strategic
monitoring using satellite imagery for regional decision making to
tactical monitoring and control prescribed by the information from low-
altitude remotely sensed data for field-scale site-specific treatment.
Given recent and emerging advances in information and electronics
technologies, precision agriculture is expected to develop even further in
the next decade.
Precision agriculture is defined as site-specific farm field operation to
handle within-field variability (Zhang et al., 2002; Yao and Huang,
2013). Precision agriculture was initially practiced by farmers who were
physically working in fields. With agricultural mechanization, precision
agriculture was applied to site-specific farm management on the basis of
yield and soil maps. In the 2010s, with the development of the internet
and mobile technologies, precision agriculture started providing services
on the web through mobile platforms with wirelessly networked sensors.
Now, technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), big data,
artificial intelligence, and automation have been developed for
285
application in all aspects to help solve issues in society, manufacturing

production, and agriculture. Precision agriculture provides an
opportunity to respond to changing climate conditions and increasingly
expensive seeds and other agricultural inputs, which reduce the
profitability of farms globally (Crowder and Reganold, 2015). In the next
10 years, the new generation of precision agriculture will be
characterized by high-performance cloud and mobile computing,

intensive big data analysis, artificial intelligent perception, and real-time
control and automation.
9.2 Technological Advances
In the 1980s the satellite data provided for precision agriculture were
limited and coarse in their spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution.

Yield maps from one year were used to prescribe site-specific field
operation for the following year in a rough spatial scale. Since 2010,
however, very high resolution satellite remote sensing has become
increasingly available. High-resolution imagery from low-orbit satellites
is now commercially available for research and precision agricultural
planning. Examples include WorldView-4 imagery (DigitalGlobe
Corporate, Westminster, CO, USA) with multispectral 1.24-meter-per-
pixel special resolution and global coverage, and Planet Labs “Dove”
sensors, which provide almost daily imagery of most agriculture regions
(Boshuizen et al., 2014). Imagers on airplanes can easily provide half-
meter resolution imagery of agricultural fields. UAVs are capable of
delivering images with resolutions of a few centimeters, and even
millimeters, per pixel. These technologies have shifted precision
agriculture from strategic planning in the 1980s to tactical control in the
2010s.
Variable-rate application of pesticides is a key technology for
applying crop protection in precision agriculture. When high-resolution
field sensing is coupled with computer-assisted tractors and equipment,
farmers can accommodate variability within their fields with great
precision. Variable-rate application is currently commercially available
for use in ground-based platforms, typically tractor-mounted systems.
Advancing to the Next Generation of Precision Agriculture 287
Aerial variable-rate application, still in the research and development

stage, faces the challenge of sprayer control and ensuring a timely
response to remote-sensing prescription (Thomson et al., 2010; Yang and
Martin, 2017).
Global positioning technology has contributed to precision
agriculture, which depends on the accurate positioning of equipment in
the field. Currently, three satellite navigation systems have global

coverage and are thus termed global navigation satellite systems
(GNSSs). These are the United States’ GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, and
the European Union’s Galileo. China’s Beidou began offering services to
customers in the Asia-Pacific region in 2012 and plans to begin serving
global customers upon its completion in 2020 (Li et al., 2015).
9.3 Worldwide Precision Agriculture
Precision agriculture is a worldwide agricultural practice, but the levels

of research and applications vary in different parts of the world (Spiertz,
2013; Wang et al., 2016).
Modern precision agriculture began in industrially developed
countries (Gassner et al., 2013). The United States was one of the first
countries to implement precision agriculture in large-scale site-specific
farming. In the mid-1980s, the United States began to implement
precision agriculture based on GPS, GIS, and remote-sensing data
disseminated through agricultural information service systems. Presently,
precision agriculture in the United States is supported by national and
regional agricultural information networks with intensive data resources
for decision support and by related policies, rules, and laws.
Europe also adopted precision agriculture technologies early thanks
to government policy and financial support (Lowenberg-DeBoer, 2015).
Countries such as France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the
United Kingdom offer technologies like GNSS, remote sensing, and
robotics to guide the application of nutrients and pesticides. Germany is
developing its digital agriculture program through industrial
development, farmer subsidies, and environmental regulatory control
(Buller et al., 2017).
In Israel, agriculture was advanced by the invention of drip irrigation

in the mid-1960s (Megersa and Abdulahi, 2015). Today, precision
agriculture in Israel is led by a modernized water management program,
which promotes and enables technical development and applications.
Australia and New Zealand (Cook and Bramley, 1998; McBratney
et al., 2005) were also relatively early to adopt precision agriculture
schemes in crop production and rangeland and livestock management.

These countries have used the internet to promote agricultural
applications of the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud
computing.
In Japan, the development of precision agriculture has gone hand in
hand with the development of information and electronic technologies. In
the early 1980s, the Yamaha Motor Corporation began to develop and
use unmanned helicopters for agricultural applications, such as insect
pest control in rice, soybean, and wheat fields (Sato, 2003). The Yanmar
Helicopter Service Co., Ltd has also developed a series of unmanned
single- and multi-rotor helicopters to spray pesticides over crop fields.
South Korea has fully implemented agricultural information systems
to support precision agriculture with information on soil, crop growth,
crop pests, and weather (Wang et al., 2016). Korea is adopting UAV
spray technology for plant protection, although the country does not have
its own UAV industry (He et al., 2017).
China began to implement precision agriculture in the early 2000s
with research in universities and academies of agricultural sciences. It is
currently carried out for industrially produced maize, wheat, rice, and
cotton in the northeastern and northwestern parts of China, and only at a
small scale in other parts of the country. Given the aging farmer
population, small farm sizes, and lack of policy support from the
government for remote imaging of farmland, precision agriculture is not
expanding outside of these industrial agriculture areas.
Large industrial farms in developing countries have adopted precision
agriculture technologies, specifically variable application and yield
monitoring using GPS systems on farm equipment (Wang, 2001; Mondal
and Basu, 2009; Fisher, 2012). Mobile internet, portable plant sensors,
and small UAVs (sUAVs) are sufficiently well developed in Africa,
Asia, and South America to implement modern precision agriculture

schemes in high-value agricultural production systems.
9.4 Applications of Technology to Seasonal Monitoring

Modern farming is characterized by large fields, efficient systems, and

modern farm equipment that allows for economies of scale, and
monitoring the development of crops in those fields is important.
Processing the data that come from farm equipment and remote
monitoring involves the use of information technology, characterized by
aggregated and optimized algorithms, massive (big) data manipulation,
and high-performance computing power. Within artificial intelligence,
deep learning was used to extend artificial neural networks and create
advanced algorithms to extract deep features from images and to

accurately classify plant leaves with diseases (Sladojevic et al., 2016).
Deep learning algorithms can accurately detect crop pests and diseases,
weed species, and phenotypes. Deep learning is good for massive data
mining but requires supercomputing power.
Sensor and imaging technologies have been advanced recently. Five
to 10 years ago users had to rely on 1- to 2-kilogram broadband
multispectral and thermal cameras and desktop-size hyperspectral
imaging systems. Now portable hyperspectral, narrow-band
multispectral, and thermal imagers, weighing 100–500 grams, are
commercially available. The portable imagers with inexpensive LIDAR
(light detection and ranging) laser and SAR (synthetic-aperture radar)
sensors can be mounted on sUAVs to create new research uses and
applications of precision agriculture for specific crop fields. However, to
create reliable end products that farmers can use to improve field
management in precision agriculture systems, these systems need to
involve farmers in the process of acquiring, interpreting, and analyzing
images (Zhang and Kovacs, 2012).
Important elements of precision agriculture include variable-rate
technologies in fertilizer application, pesticide application, and
irrigation management with auto-steering, and controlled traffic
systems built into tractors. Adoption of these variable-rate application
technologies has been modest in recent years (Pederson and Lind,

2017). However, the adoption of auto-steering or precision guidance
has been significant in the past decade with the modernization of farm
equipment, enabling the spread of these variable-rate application
systems. Say et al. (2018) show that the United States is the leading
adopter of variable-rate technologies, followed closely by Brazil,
Australia, Canada, and European countries. One of the most important

factors in adopting these technologies is farm size, since increased
economies of scale increase both the savings that accrue from variable
application and the affordability of large machinery.
9.4.1 Case study: Spray application technology for precision

agriculture
Application technology—which is developed and used to apply plant

protection and production materials over fields—comes in two forms:
ground-based and aerial. Ground-based application is conducted mostly
on tractor-mounted systems, which have low profiles and can better
control application performance. Aerial application is conducted on
fixed-wing airplanes, helicopters, and UAVs. Aerial application systems
can rapidly cover large areas and are not restricted by field conditions,
but performance control is challenged by weather conditions and air
dynamics.
Aerial application of crop protection chemicals is the key component
in agricultural aviation. The United States currently has about 3,600
agricultural aircraft (87% are fixed-wing, and the rest are helicopters)
conducting about 25% of crop protection work (Bretthauer, 2015). China
has 1,400 agricultural fixed-wing aircraft, more than 60 helicopters, and
more than 10,000 UAVs (He et al., 2017). Regarding UAV aerial
application for crop protection, Ken Giles, professor at the University of
California, Davis, commented, “In the U.S. right now there is no
commercial use of this technology—it’s strictly a research and
development effort” (Kelemen, 2013). That is still the case. In China,
Japan, and South Korea, UAVs are being developed and used for spray
applications of plant protection and will be developed and applied much
more, especially in China (He et al., 2017). Figure 9.1 shows Air
Tractor402B agricultural plane with spray booms that was used in test-
site and field operation in Stoneville, Mississippi. With this aerial spray
system, a low-drift CP flat-fan nozzle (CP Products Company, Wichita
Falls, TX, USA) was investigated for characterization of in-swath spray
deposition (Huang and Thomson, 2011a). In the study, the CP flat-fan
nozzles with selectable tips and swivel angles were evaluated with
different application volumes for droplet spectra and coverage using

water-sensitive papers placed in the spray swath. Furthermore, a study
was conducted to investigate the CP flat-fan nozzle to characterize the
drift at different application altitudes with a downward nozzle angle of
30 degrees, optimized from the previous study (Huang and Thomson,
2011b). With the optimized parameters from these two studies, the
nozzles were used to assess the crop injury from the downwind drift of
the aerially applied glyphosate (Reddy et al., 2010; Huang et al., 2010a;
Huang et al., 2012a).
Fig. 9.1. Air Tractor 402B with spray booms in test-site and field operation in Stoneville,
Mississippi (Yanbo Huang).
Aerial spray drift can be induced by atmospheric stability and

downwind the spray line. To avoid this drift, a meteorological calculation
is needed to determine the atmospheric stability for the occurrence of
temperature inversion to recommend timing for aerial applicators to
conduct aerial spraying. Based on the wind and temperature data
acquired from different heights at a 30-meter tower in Stoneville,
Mississippi over the crop growth season in a year, the daily likelihood of
temperature inversion was calculated (Thomson et al., 2017) and the
effect of data sampling intervals was evaluated (Huang and Thomson,
2016). To help aerial applicators’ and farmers’ field operations, a website
is being developed to provide timing recommendations for aerial
application to avoid spray drift caused by temperature inversion. The
data and information are formatted for display on mobile platforms to
allow applicators and farmers to obtain these recommendations using
smart phones and tablets.

The Agricultural Dispersion Model (AGDISP) is a Lagrangian aerial
spray dispersion simulation model of spray material movement,
accounting for the effects of aircraft wakes and turbulence from both
aircraft and ambient sources (Teske et al., 2003). AGDISP is, however, a
sequential cause-and-effect model that could benefit practically from
analysis of multiple factors to obtain a set of optimal results. An
approach to modeling called the design of experiments (DOE) technique,
introduced by Tauguchi (1987), can be used to systematically study the
influence of many factors and their interactions on an outcome. Using the
DOE technique with AGDISP, we developed a new approach to
identifying the main factors and interactions with significant influence on
drift of aerially applied spray (Huang et al., 2010b). With DOE, input
values of the AGDISP simulation were generated randomly with a
probability distribution within predetermined ranges of the input
variables. In this way, outputs of AGDISP resulted from all possible
values within the ranges of those input variables. Then, with the
simulation data and through factorial statistics, DOE identified the
impact of factors on the outcomes, such as total downwind drift, and
interactions among the factors. Based on the results of the DOE-based
AGDISP simulation, Huang et al. (2012b) further optimized the selection
of controllable variables to minimize downwind drift from aerially
applied sprays. With the DOE method, several near-optimal solutions for
reduction of spray drift could be determined, and one could be chosen
within the constraints of the aerial applicator’s spray setup and weather
conditions. Field validation and appropriate sensitivity analyses of this
DOE-based AGDISP simulation are needed as first steps toward
promoting this method to aerial applicators.
9.4.2 Case study: Variable-rate application
As mentioned, ground-based variable-rate application has been

commercialized and is ready to use. An example is the Viper 4+ field
computer system (Raven Industries, South Dakota, USA) equipped with
a portable GPS unit to control the Raven variable-rate spray system.
Aerial variable-rate application, still in research and development, faces
the challenge of ensuring the timely response of sprayer control to

remote-sensing prescription.
Smith (2001) initiated studies and Thomson et al. (2009, 2010)
conducted further experiments to evaluate the response of a variable-rate
aerial application controller to changing flow rates and to improve its
response at correspondingly varying system pressures. The variable-rate
application system consists of differential global positioning system
(DGPS)-based guidance, an automatic flow controller, and a
hydraulically controlled spray pump. The controller was evaluated for its
ability to track desired flow rates set by the pilot, and then the system
was evaluated over several field trials to quantify its response to rapidly
changing flow requirements and to determine the effect of the latest
control algorithm improvements on response characteristics. The
experiments illustrate how iterative refinement of control algorithms in
collaboration with the control system manufacturer could improve
system response characteristics. The system evaluation techniques
described in these studies should also apply to aircraft that use propeller-
driven spray pumps as well as hydraulically controlled spray pumps.
9.5 Remote Sensing for Precision Agriculture
Remote sensing has been used for decades to monitor agricultural

productivity (Frere and Popov, 1979; Kennedy and Payongayong, 1992;
Unganai and Kogan, 1998). Many different approaches have been used
to measure crop yields and food shortages for national governments,
humanitarian agencies, and decision makers (Brown et al., 2015; Higgins

et al., 2014). These analyses have focused on using indirect measures of
biomass from satellite remote sensing of large agricultural areas to
estimate yields over large areas. Rasmussen (1997) reported on how
vegetation data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer
was used to complement an area sampling frame (ASF) to determine the
productivity of millet and groundnut crops. Many of these approaches
use regression to convert models estimating net primary productivity into
yields. These measures were shown to work well in arid and semi-arid
regions (Fuller, 1998). Using a vegetation index to estimate yields
presents several weaknesses:
 In subhumid and humid regions, the propensity of a vegetation index
to plateau even while biomass continues to increase directly affects
the ability of remotely sensed vegetation indices to capture
interannual variability of greenness.
 Wheat and maize yields, in contrast to forage crop yields, are
measured by grain weight, whose development is very sensitive to
nutrient availability and meteorological conditions at critical growth
stages. Thus although above-ground biomass may be above average
in a particular year, grain yield may not be (Lopresti et al., 2015).
 Noncrop vegetation can contaminate field biomass measurements,
particularly in regions with small, irregular fields with separated by
trees or bushes. This reduces the accuracy of remote sensing–based
measurements of yield over large areas (Hoefsloot et al., 2012).
Interannual variability in cropped area may be a significant driver of
overall production, even though yield may be important. If no crop was
planted, interannual measurements of biomass do not reflect variations in
actual crop production.
Satellite data analysis and methods developed in the 2000s focused
on increasing the accuracy of measures of interannual variability of
biomass from satellites. These analyses use the much higher-resolution

data stream from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer; National Aeronautics and Space Administration
[NASA], Washington, DC, USA) and SPOT (Satellite Pour
l’Observation de la Terre; Spot Image, Toulouse, France) sensors,
combined with improved estimates of cropped area (Becker-Reshef
et al., 2010; Doraiswamy et al., 2005). Estimating variations in crop

yield through changes in biomass at key stages of crop growth, and
combining these estimates with much higher-resolution cropped-area
maps, as was done in Zimbabwe, has been shown to be a fast and
effective way to use moderate-resolution imagery directly in yield
estimation (Funk and Budde, 2009).
Low-cost, scalable online cloud systems have allowed for the
wholesale use of multiple-resolution imagery from MODIS, Landsat
(NASA, Washington, DC, USA) and Sentinel (European Space Agency

[ESA], Paris, France) together to identify anomalies in both yield and
cropped area due to changes in weather and local economic drivers
(Boschetti et al., 2014; Grace et al., 2012). Used together, satellite data
can be a part of a comprehensive monitoring system that links weather
impacts to known drivers of production (Becker-Reshef et al., 2010;
Whitcraft et al., 2015).
In precision agriculture, highly specialized remote sensing is designed
to generate images and spectral data to provide information for crop
production management and prescription of site-specific crop protection
and production assistance. Imaging sensors have been developed and
used on aircraft, satellites, and ground-based systems for precision
agriculture. UAVs have been developed for agricultural remote sensing
in the last decade (Huang et al., 2013).
Remote sensing for precision agriculture is most effective for
acquiring data from high-resolution satellites (multispectral 1–5 meters
per pixel), manned aircraft (20–50 centimeters per pixel), sUAVs
(1 millimeter–5 centimeters per pixel), and ground on-the-go systems
(1 millimeter–1 centimeter per pixel). A series of research studies has
examined low-altitude remote sensing from manned aircraft, UAVs, and
ground on-the-go systems in coordination with high-resolution satellite
imagery for precision agriculture in the Mississippi Delta area (Huang
et al., 2016a, 2016b). Figure 9.2 shows the remote-sensing system of

aircraft, UAVs, and ground-based systems in coordination with high-
resolution satellites.
Fig. 9.2. Remote sensing from aircraft, UAVs, and ground-based systems in coordination
with high-resolution satellites.
9.5.1 Aerial multispectral imaging for assessing crop injury

from off-target drift of aerially applied glyphosate
The widespread adoption of glyphosate-resistant (GR) crops in the

United States has led to an unprecedented increase in glyphosate use in
recent years. Glyphosate is the most commonly applied herbicide, either
alone or with other herbicides, to manage a broad spectrum of weeds.
Pesticide drift—the physical movement of a pesticide particle onto an
off-target location—can occur when pesticide is applied under certain
weather conditions. In virtually all pesticide applications, a small fraction
of the pesticide drifts downwind and can be deposited on off-target

surfaces. Off-target drift of aerially applied glyphosate can cause plant
injury, which is of great concern to farmers and aerial applicators. To
determine the extent of crop injury due to near-field drift, researchers
conducted an experiment with a single aerial application of glyphosate.
For identification of the drift effect on cotton, corn, and soybean plants
(Huang et al., 2010a), a field was planted in replicated blocks of cotton.

Spray samplers such as water sensitive papers and mylar sheets were
placed in the spray swath and in several downwind orientations to
quantify the relative concentration of applied chemicals. An Air Tractor
402B spray airplane equipped with 54 CP-09 nozzles was flown down
the center of the field to apply Roundup Weathermax and rubidium
chloride tracer. Relative concentrations of this tracer were quantified at
downwind spray samplers. At one-, two-, and three-week intervals, aerial
color-infrared imagery was obtained over the field using a GPS-triggered

multispectral MS-4100 camera system. This study’s main focus was to
assess glyphosate spray drift injury to cotton using spray drift sampling
and the color-infrared imagery. The processed drift and image data were
highly correlated. These drift and image data were used as indicators of
the percentage of visual injury in regressions with a strong ability to
explain variability. The results indicate that spray drift sampling and
airborne multispectral remote sensing can be useful for determining crop
injury caused by the drift of aerially applied glyphosate.
This study was extended to assess crop injury caused by another
herbicide, dicamba, which is used for post-emergence control of several
broadleaf weeds in corn, grain sorghum, small grains, and non-cropland.
To detect crop herbicide injury to crops, a field experiment was
conducted in a 4.5-hectare soybean field (Huang et al., 2016b). A few
weeks after dicamba treatment, RGB and CIR images were acquired by
using cameras mounted on a small octocopter and a model fixed-wing
airplane flying over the field. This study showed that the high-resolution
UAV image data performed consistently well in quantifying soybean
injury from dicamba spray.
9.5.2 Case study: Build DSM to estimate plant height
Low-altitude remote sensing with a sUAV was developed to estimate

crop plant height, and hence crop yield, for maize. To estimate plant
height, researchers built a digital surface model (DSM) of the crop field
by manipulating 3D point cloud data generated by stereovision using the
images acquired by the sUAV. Estimates of cotton (Huang et al., 2016c)

and soybean plant height made using this method resulted in highly
accurate inferences of crop yields. The same study showed that low-
altitude remote sensing using a small UAV can offer reliable cotton yield
estimates based on estimates of cotton unit coverage (CUC), which is
defined as the area of cotton bolls divided by the entire area that includes
these cotton bolls, through Laplacian image processing and identification
of plots with poor illumination (Huang et al., 2016c). The relationship
between estimated CUC and measured lint yield using the method of
direct image pixel intensity thresholding could not be well established.
Use of the Laplace operator to obtain the divergence of the gradient
(spatial second derivative) of the image pixel intensity significantly
improved the linear relationship of CUC with the lint yield by extracting
the deep cotton boll features in the images.
Repetitive and intensive use of glyphosate has exerted high selection
pressure on weed populations, resulting in the evolution of 41
glyphosate-resistant (GR) weed species in the world (Heap, 2017). Nine
of them have appeared in Mississippi (Heap, 2017). Hyperspectral plant-
sensing techniques have been developed to effectively detect GR and
glyphosate-susceptible (GS) Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri S.
Wats.) and Italian ryegrass (Lolium perenne L. ssp. multiflorum (Lam.)
Husnot) in greenhouse and soybean fields with detection rates of 90%
and 80%, respectively (Reddy et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2014). However,
in-field hyperspectral plant sensing is still time-consuming and laborious
because current sensors are either operated on a slow-moving tractor for
imaging certain areas in the field or handheld by a technician to measure
canopy spectra at certain points in the field. This tedious manner of
acquiring hyperspectral data is an obstacle to extending the research
results to practical uses. Use of UAV is an innovative way to fly over a
crop field to rapidly determine the distribution of weeds. We are
undertaking a research project to mount a portable hyperspectral sensor

on a small UAV to overfly a soybean field at a very low altitude to
quickly determine the distribution of naturally growing GR and GS
weeds.
9.5.3 Field observation scale optimization and multisource

data fusion and assimilation
Currently, crop-monitoring remote-sensing analysis is based mostly on

remote-sensing data in a single spatial scale. In practice, however, both
low-spatial-resolution and high-spatial-resolution remote-sensing data
fall short of meeting all the requirements of crop growth studies and crop
production management. Therefore, multi-scale remote sensing for crop
monitoring has been increasingly studied and applied to improve single-
scale remote sensing. We have been conducting studies since 2015 to use
digital RGB and multispectral cameras on multirotor UAVs to fly over
the U.S. Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service
(USDA-ARS) research farms at Stoneville, Mississippi. The flyovers
were conducted at different crop growth stages and at varied flight
altitudes. At the same time, high-resolution satellite imagery were
analyzed with the data acquired from the ground-based systems in order
to optimize the scale of field observation to determine crop growth status
and to identify crop stress caused by multiple factors. Multi-sensor data
fusion is a way to improve single-sensor observation and detection
(Huang et al., 2011). The improved remote-sensing observation and
detection data can be further assimilated by being incorporated into the
crop models to improve crop growth analysis and yield prediction
(Huang et al., 2015a; Huang et al., 2015b; Huang et al., 2015c).
9.6 Precision Agriculture Systems for a
The most rapidly growing agriculture sectors in the world are located in
Africa, Asia, and South America (AGRA, 2014). A major obstacle to
improving the effectiveness of business and policy interventions in these
regions is a lack of information about the socioeconomic, agricultural
production, and environmental conditions experienced by small and
medium-sized farmers (Nelson, 2002). Digital information derived from

information and communication technologies (ICTs) as well as satellite
remote sensing could provide much-needed information about what
crops farmers are cultivating and where fields are located. This much-
improved field-specific information can be aggregated in ways that meet
the needs of decision makers.
There are few high-quality agricultural statistics available in low- and

middle-income countries that can be used to develop effective
agricultural development programs (Carletto et al., 2015). Statistics on
agriculture that are available are either household surveys conducted
only once every five years or more such as the Demographic and Health
Survey (DHS) data and the World Bank’s Living Standards and
Measurement Study (LSMS), or national statistics provided by
institutions such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (FAO) or the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign

Agricultural Service (FAS) (USAID, 2017). Furthermore, a recent
review concluded that the FAO’s national-level agricultural statistics
have been deteriorating in quality over the past decade owing to lack of
capacity in countries themselves and a reduction in manpower and
resources within the FAO to assist with their production (Dunmore and
Karlsson, 2008). Nonetheless, FAO statistics are the only comparable
information available over time on agricultural cropped area and yield
for all countries.
The primary challenges facing agricultural data collection are
generally logistical challenges and resource constraints. In poor
countries, where access to rural places is unpredictable and costly (in
terms of time and financial resources), alternatives to classical
agricultural surveys are needed. Digital systems that use satellite remote-
sensing information on land cover and agroecological potential,
combined with expert knowledge on farming systems in the region, can
transform the accuracy and spatial representativeness of agricultural
statistics across large areas to support decision making.
The internet, mobile phones, and related technologies that facilitate
the collection, storage, analysis and sharing of data and information are
changing many aspects of life among a large and growing share of the
world’s population. Even among the poorest 20% in developing
countries, 70% of people have access to mobile phones—more than have

access to improved sanitation or electricity in their homes (GSMA,
2017). More than 40% of the global population has internet access, and
major initiatives are underway to connect those still unconnected—the
great majority of them in rural areas in developing countries (Pew
Research Center, 2016).
Mobile software applications can improve services for farmers and

strengthen their connections to markets. These real-world services can
increase farms’ profitability, while digital technology can reduce the
monetary and time costs of accessing and exchanging information,
improve bargaining and decision making, and facilitate the policing and
enforcing of contracts. Bringing a capabilities approach to the problem
shows how ICTs could be used and provides examples of actual impacts
(Grimshaw and Kala, 2011). Mobile phones and other communication
technologies (GSMA, 2015) have the potential to contribute to four

broad areas of smallholder agricultural development:
 Personal data: Consumers’ access to public and private agricultural
information and services through digital networks, particularly in the
area of credit and finance, can be authenticated through ICTs and a
mobile network using a “digital identity” (Goldman et al., 2016).
 Digital agriculture value chain: Creating an ecosystem of suppliers,
transporters, purchasers, and processors for agricultural goods will
help small farmers raise their productivity and incomes (Henriksen
et al., 2010).
 Agriculture knowledge: Connecting over a range of devices has the
potential to revolutionize access to knowledge and productivity of
enterprises, from family farms to large agriculture technology firms
(Garnett et al., 2013).
 Demand creation: Through regular and rapid exposure to the
experiences of other farmers and to new methods, varieties, and
technologies, farmers will begin demanding new products and
information on how to use them (Nin-Pratt et al., 2011; Tittonell and
Giller, 2013).
Each of these areas is important for integrating precision agriculture into
developing countries.
9.6.1 Remote-sensing models for precision agriculture–based

statistics
Companies that sell high-value agricultural inputs are willing to invest in

data showing the size of a country’s commercial agriculture sector and
the crops being planted there. These data, however, must be crop-
specific, updated annually, sufficiently accurate, available at a resolution

of at least 30 meters to capture small fields, and available for countries of
interest. The remote-sensing academic community has long had a goal of
creating annual maps of wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans, but it has
never achieved it owing to lack of adequate satellite observation data,
computing power, and funding. Such maps require an algorithm that is
constructed to allow for the calculation of trends through time, consistent
with neighboring regions, and responsive to different agroecological
patterns and soil types.

For smallholder farmers in many regions of Africa, the use of
commercially available seeds, crop protection products, and fertilizer is
critical to allow them to raise their incomes and escape from poverty
(Jayne et al., 2010). Annually updated crop-type maps will allow
companies and other institutions that sell seeds and crop protection to
determine the size of the commercial agriculture sector in a particular
region, assess the impact of a poor growing season on demand for their
products, and plan for expansion in the cultivated area of a cultivar or
crop type. It can take years to develop and produce enough seed of a bred
cultivar to meet market demand. Planning is key to having the proper
product in the right location to ensure that farmers get access to
appropriate agricultural inputs when they need them. Uncertain statistics
and confusion about area planted to maize and sorghum, for example,
reduces companies’ ability to plan for future market demand.
9.6.2 Spatially specific agricultural statistics (yield,

production, area)
Agricultural landscapes vary enormously in their spatial heterogeneity.

Heterogeneity affects ecological systems including animal movement,
population persistence, species interactions, and ecosystem functioning
(Fahrig et al., 2011; Lovett et al., 2005). Together, cropland and pasture
occupy 40% of the Earth’s land surface (Foley et al., 2005), but these
landscapes vary in their complexity and levels of management depending
on the region and level of mechanization used (Sirami et al., 2007). More
traditional farming systems contain many different production cover
types (such as different field crops, intensively grazed lands, and
orchards) that are distributed in a complex pattern and interspersed with

other, more “natural” cover types (such as bushes, trees in field margins,
extensively grazed or nongrazed woodlands, and wetlands) (Fahrig et al.,
2011). Characterizing average behavior in these landscapes requires
much higher-resolution statistics than in regions with large monocropped
fields. Similarly, when tracked changes in forest resources—the
mortality, regrowth, deforestation, and disturbance that occur on scales
smaller than a hectare—are aggregated to higher resolutions or larger
scales during analysis, it results in extremely high uncertainty and

inaccurate statistics and trends (Goetz and Dubayah, 2011). The more
complex the landscape, the less representative agricultural statistics are
when averaged across large areas.
By identifying the area cultivated to a crop much more specifically, it
is possible to combine those data with improved information on the use
of technology and improved inputs to estimate yield. Smallholders have
access to limited technology to choose crops that are profitable and
limited ability to employ technology that can improve yields.
Smallholders are diverse, from the hundreds of millions of Chinese and
Indian small family farms to the smallholders in Africa and South
America. Each farm has a unique policy, economic, and cultural context
in which they grow food (Goldman et al., 2016). Estimating a farm’s
likely yield depends heavily on the context in which agriculture is
conducted, including local public services, infrastructure, market
efficiency, education, health services, amount and distribution of rainfall,
soil type and fertility, and the existence of a local value chain that
connects local agriculture produce to retail markets in cities. Each of
these is critical to a smallholder’s access to agricultural technologies that
may affect yield.
For decades, satellite remote sensing has been used to estimate the
impact of rainfall and temperature on yield (Doraiswamy et al., 2005).
With improved use of mobile phones, it is possible to modify these yield

estimates with a better idea of the overall productivity of each farm.
There is enormous heterogeneity of the use of inputs and yields in
developing countries even within the same crop type. Distinguishing
between a field that is producing 2 tonnes per hectare and one that is
producing 0.5 tonne can help significantly in getting improved national
statistics. Combining these datasets with satellite remote-sensing

imagery, which is becoming available more frequently and at a higher
resolution every year, will allow for more accurate estimates of crop
production, even in complex agroecosystems (Inglada et al., 2015; Burke
and Lobell, 2017).
9.7 Precision Agriculture for Smallholders and Developing

Countries
Regions with weak agricultural statistics, such as in developing

countries, can particularly benefit from inexpensive massive online data;
real-time monitoring, optimization, and control; and automation of data
analysis in a cloud environment (Carletto et al., 2015). Approaches made
possible by mobile devices, social media, and applications can transform
knowledge of farming intensity and crop type being cultivated.
ICTs refer to all devices, networks, applications, and systems that
allow people and organizations (that is, businesses, nonprofit agencies,
governments, and criminal enterprises) to interact in the digital world.
Major initiatives are underway to connect those still unconnected to the
internet, particularly in rural areas in developing countries. In 2015, for
example, the U.S. government launched the Global Connect Initiative,
whose goal is to connect an additional 1.5 billion people to the internet
by 2020. The Indian government has launched an effort to connect more
than 550 million rural residents with 600,000 kilometers of fiber cable.
Coupled with its work in the areas of retinal scan identification, digital
money, and rural electrification, this effort shows that the Indian
government is working to enable the transformative power of ICTs (Shah
et al., 2015).
This massive increase in access to communications networks presents

an opportunity to transform how the data needed for agricultural
development are gathered and processed. Agricultural development
policies are sensitive to inaccurate or misleading agricultural statistics
that hamper understanding of factors that impede economic growth
(Carletto et al., 2015). Smallholder agriculture in low-income countries
is particularly important for reducing poverty and improving nutrition

outcomes (Dazanku, 2015; Tittonell and Giller, 2013).
ICTs can be powerful tools for engaging low-income people in ways
that improve information accessibility, ensure institutional credibility,
and improve their ability to raise their agricultural productivity. Digital
agricultural systems focus on engaging smallholder farmers by using
modern technology and enumerators to digitize data that are currently
invisible. Farmers using these applications can digitize their fields and
receive satellite remote-sensing imagery, weather information, and

localized agronomic models that can provide crop-specific local
information relevant for decision making.
Once fields are digitized, actors along the agricultural value chain can
reach farmers more easily with far fewer costs and inefficiencies. By
sending information on the availability and cost of improved seeds,
fertilizer, and crop protection chemicals, agribusinesses can target their
supply chains to regions with the highest density of customers. Similarly,
information on demand for fresh vegetables and grain can be sent
directly to farmers through smartphone, SMS, or voice messages,
depending on the farmers’ level of integration into the mobile economy.
Digital agriculture applications are designed to aggregate millions of
specific pieces of information about what farmers are doing and where
their fields are located into valuable data products for other actors along
the value chain. Using machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big
data analysis, such applications can provide data-driven decision support
for farming households and decision makers to transform agricultural
systems in developing countries.
9.8 Precision Agriculture in the Next 10 Years
In the next decade, precision agriculture will move into the next
generation with increased internetworking, supercomputing with massive
data, and real-time monitoring, optimization, and control in a cyber-
physical environment (Nie et al., 2014).
In a few years, agricultural aviation will be more advanced with the

development of more capable agricultural airplanes that can load as
much as 3,800 liters of chemicals, up from the current capacity of 340 to
3,000 liters (Bretthauer, 2015). UAV-based plant protection will be
developed further and applied more widely, especially in China, although
this technology has been popular in Japan since the 1980s. To improve
the performance of aerial application systems, in-flight (between-flight)
control of aerial application will be renovated with desired droplet
spectrum, regardless of the composition of the chemical mixture or

environmental conditions. Aerial variable-rate technology will be ready
for practice as well.
New information systems, remote sensing, and data science will be
integrated to improve the performance of precision agriculture. Small
satellites and CubeSats in orbit at a few hundred kilometers will provide
new remote-sensing platforms that will be useful in agricultural settings
(Jacobson, 2017). Small satellites could carry various sensors, such as
optical and microwave/radar sensors, to provide high-resolution field
observation data at all times and under all weather conditions. UAV
technology will be developed further for precision agriculture worldwide
(Zhang and Kovacs, 2012; He et al., 2017). This is important because to
most effectively monitor agriculture, images at the start, peak, and end of
the season are crucial, but capturing these is difficult without significant
viewing capacity.
Japan will sustain the development of its own UAV technology for
plant protection. China will also strive to develop the next-generation
UAV plant protection systems. Countries in Africa and South America
will work to develop and apply this technology in support of their own
industrial agriculture schemes.
Data science and big data technology will be merged into precision
agricultural schemes so that the data can be analyzed rapidly in time for
decision making (Bendre et al., 2015; Wolfert et al., 2017). Of course,

more research is needed on how to manipulate big data, and on how to
convert big data to “small” data addressing specific issues or fields, for
the accurate operation of precision agriculture (Sabarina and Priya,
2015).
Agriculture includes crop farming and livestock/animal farming in an
ecological system (National Research Council, 1989; Thornton and

Herrero, 2001; Goulding et al., 2008). As it is expanded from crop
systems to animal systems, precision agriculture will improve crop
production and animal health, welfare, and production at the same time.
Agricultural remote-sensing technologies are being extended to monitor
pastures and animal behavior (Numata et al., 2007; Manning et al.,
2017). Current technologies allow producers to monitor individual
animal feed consumption, feedlot movement, temperature, lameness,
milk production, meat composition and quality, and weight gain—often

without any human intervention or presence (NIFA, 2017).
Innovative methods, optimized algorithms, massive data, and
supercomputing power will increasingly be used to support
smart/intelligent agriculture in the cyber-physical architecture.
Agricultural automation will dominate agricultural operations with
advanced materials and mechanical and electronics science and
technology. Various robots will be in farmers’ hands (SPARC, 2017).
Artificial intelligence will continue to be developed to advance
agricultural systems through, for example, driverless agricultural
vehicles, automated irrigation systems, and cattle facial recognition
(WPG, 2017). Deep learning is providing more advanced algorithms to
enhance the applications of artificial intelligence in precision agriculture
(Mohanty et al., 2016; Sladojecvic et al., 2016). Real-time agricultural
data processing, analysis, control, and adaptation will have important
roles for decision support in precision agricultural operations and
management (Griffin et al., 2010; Wolfert et al., 2017).
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Chapter 10
Disruptive Futures: Prospects for

Breakthrough Technologies
Patrick van der Duin and Silke den Hartog

10.1 Introduction
Although the future is uncertain, there is consensus that it will be

significantly different from the present.1 Drastic changes in technology,
economy, and society will be the harbingers of that different future.
These changes are so pervasive that not a single industry will be left
untouched, which means, among other things, that the agri-food sector
had better be prepared for these changes. Indeed, not only will the agri-
food industry be affected by the changes, but it will also be the source of
some of the changes—for instance, through agro-specific and agro-
related technologies, such as smart farming, gen technology, vertical
agriculture, robotics, and sensor technology. All of these technological
changes will alter the structure and principles of the agriculture sector as
well as changing its relationship and interactions with other industries.
For now, however, it is an open question which technologies will be
the main carriers of these changes, which innovations will emerge from
these new technologies, and how these innovations will affect society
and the agriculture sector. Which technologies are considered the most
1Thischapter is based on the Horizon Scan 2050 project and The Future of Technology in
Agriculture project carried out by the Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends in
2014 and 2015.
315
promising? Which can be identified as breakthrough technologies that

are likely to deliver disruptive innovations?
Breakthrough technologies “represent either an advance in
technology that is so significant that attainable price/performance ratios
are altered dramatically, or entirely new kinds of applications are
possible that change the behavior patterns of end users” (Ortt et al.,
2007, p. 1789). Examples of the former kind are dynamite and strong
fibers like Kevlar, while examples of the latter type are laser technology
and communication technologies like telegraphy, television, and mobile
telephony (ibid.). This definition focuses not only on the drastic change
of the parameters or characteristics of the technology itself; to be labeled
a breakthrough, the technology in question should also yield innovations
(applications) that significantly affect society (users). Indeed, the
conceptual difference between technology (“the application of scientific
knowledge for practical purposes”) and innovations (i.e., new products,

services, business models, etc.) is difficult to overestimate. In addition,
this broad view on the concept of breakthrough technologies, which
includes both technology and society, creates a more systematic view of
changes in general and innovations in particular. As foresight
practitioners, our position is that technologies will become breakthroughs
if they not only are technically sophisticated, but also address societal
needs and are accepted and steered by society at a broader level.
In this chapter, to substantiate this standpoint, we explore potential
breakthrough technologies in two ways. First, we connect agro-specific
food technologies to the Grand Societal Challenges to address the two
sides of radical innovation that will disrupt the future: technological
possibilities and societal needs. Second, we describe four future
scenarios and place the agri-food technologies within a broad societal
context, relating them to possible socioeconomic, political, and
demographic developments.
Disruptive Futures: Prospects for Breakthrough Technologies 317
10.2 Technology Trends
The Netherland Study Centre for Technology Trends identified 20

technological developments that may influence the future of the Dutch
agricultural and food sector (Table 10.1).
Table 10.1. Twenty technological trends.
1. 3D printing 11. 4D printing
2. Smart materials 12. Robotics
3. Autonomous micro-robots 13. Sensor technology

4. Information technology and IT
14. Bioinformatics
infrastructure
5. Smart farming 15. Renewable energy
6. Biorefinery and biofuels 16. Gen technology
7. Synthetic biology 17. Protein transition
8. Food design 18. Aquaculture
9. Vertical agriculture 19. Conservation technology
10. Transport technology 20. Weather modification
Source: Wilde (2015).
These technologies were selected based on desk research and expert

interviews. In our project involving the future of the Dutch agri-food
sector, we organized creative workshops with experts and stakeholders2
to discuss the possible implications and importance of these
technological developments to the Dutch agri-food sector in 2050. In this
chapter, we focus on technological trends that are, in our opinion, most
directly related to the agri-food sector: trends 5, 7, 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 18,
and 19. For each trend, we provide a brief description and summarize
2Representing Dutch academia, students, business, government, and NGOs.

some views that were expressed in the expert meetings, in which we

discussed possible implications for the future of the agri-food sector.
10.2.1 Bioinformatics
The aim of bioinformatics is to enrich biological knowledge and apply

information technology (IT) expertise to biological data. It involves the

storage, analysis, and exchange of large amounts of biological data.
Existing applications of bioinformatics include DNA barcoding, the
modeling of patterns of disease outbreaks or individual genomes, and
new bio-products (Raza, n.d.).
Some views on the future resulting from our expert sessions:
 Bioinformatics has serious potential to boost our capability to analyze
data and influence the attributes of plants, animals, and human beings
(see also Amer, 2017).
 In addition, it is already possible to make local weather forecasts
(accurate up to 200 hectares) using millions of daily weather and
ground observations. Farmers can use this information to determine
when to sprinkle, cultivate, or harvest the land (UNDP, 2016).
 Livestock may be chipped and connected to the internet (and
databanks) to monitor their health and to increase production (see also
Perry et al., 2013).
 The experts who participated in our workshops expect the
combination of bioinformatics and other technologies to lead to more
sustainable production. The quality and quantity of crops will
improve while resistance to diseases, insects, and herbicides will
increase.
10.2.2 Smart farming
In smart farming, crops, animals, and soil receive exactly the treatment
they need. Unlike traditional agriculture, smart farming focuses not on
the field or herd, but on individual plants and animals. Taking the
specific conditions of the soil, hours of sunlight, and climate into account
optimizes yield (Bayer, 2016). Effective smart farming is based on data
analysis and includes a number of core elements—such as automatic

detection—to determine the variation in soil, crop, and animal behavior,
which can be realized through sensors (Zhou et al., 2018). GPS is used to
map the variation and to provide it with a georeference. Smart farming
also requires so-called decision support systems, decision rules, and
models that will translate the measured variations into action which—
while taking the economy and environment into account—is accurately

tailored to the soil, plant, or animal in question (Taechatanasat and
Armstrong, 2014). The smart use of these core elements (detection,
decision rules, execution, and evaluation) requires adapted technology,
which to a large extent depends on other technologies.
 Smart farming allows for the customized production of specific
products for specific clients, and customized production leads to an
increase in the diversity of products and production methods (see also

Daniel et al., 2016).
 The developments in sensor technology, IT, and robotics will further
extend the possibilities in smart farming. Workshop participants
expect that in the future it will be possible to determine the needs of a
crop at any specific location and moment in an increasingly accurate
way and from a distance. The automation of other agricultural
activities, like plowing and harvesting, will also lead to further
developments in smart farming.
 Our participating experts also expect the expansion of smart farming
to result in increased production per crop and more efficient
production systems.
10.2.3 Genetics
Gene technology is grouped under the more general term biotechnology,

a collective term that refers to all technological applications using
biological systems, living organisms, or their derivatives (Myhr, 2015).
Genetics use DNA modification and a number of increasingly refined
technologies to reinforce the possibilities of crops and livestock through
selection and breeding. There are various orientations in genetics,
depending on the applications: DNA sequencing, cloning, cisgenesis,
transgenesis, geninactivation, and epigenetics (see the definitions in

OMICS International, 2018).
In part for ethical reasons, the future impact of genetics is uncertain.
Whereas ethical concerns are considered relatively minor in the United
States and Asian countries, research is regulated by stricter legislation in
Europe. Also, potential future developments are increasingly curtailed
through patents and licenses. At the moment, a battle is occurring over

intellectual property rights over modified plant material, the outcome of
which will determine the future of gene technology (Arnold, 2017).
 With the mapping an ever-increasing number of genome types, it will
become possible to produce customized populations of individual
animals and plants for specific applications—for example, cows that
produce milk high in unsaturated fatty acids and potatoes that contain
a specific type of potato starch or that are resistant to specific diseases

(see also UNDP/GEF, 2017).
 This development will allow for more sustainable production: plants’
inherent resistance to specific diseases means farmers will need fewer
herbicides. In addition, it will be possible to grow crops in areas that
were previously considered unsuitable (see also Schütte et al., 2017).
 Gene technology will make it possible to improve food quality by
enhancing nutritional value or taste, smell, color, and appearance
(Barrett et al., 2010).
 At the moment, epigenetics is used in research to combat depression
and addiction in humans by changing genes (see Science News, 2017).
According to our workshop participants, epigenetics might provide us
with greater insight into how food affects the progression of diseases
in humans and animals. Ultimately, it might be possible to tailor food
to optimally match the health status of human beings and animals.
 Our experts also foresee promising applications of genetics for
improving the suitability of plants and plant residues for new-
generation biofuels. Genetics could thus contribute to the realization
of a biobased economy.
10.2.4 Synthetic biology
Synthetic biology is a technological-scientific development that applies

technical design principles at a biological molecular level—e.g.,
redesigning a living system in such a way that it will do something new,
like producing a specific substance (Chappell and Freemont, 2011). Even
more ambitious are the ongoing attempts to create new living systems
from nonliving material (Zurr and Catts, n.d.). Although synthetic
biology overlaps with other disciplines, such as genetics, its ultimate
ambition is much greater: it means to design living organisms that will
meet the needs and desires of humankind (Hessel, 2017). Recent
examples of synthetic biology include the experiments with the genetic
modification of organisms and research on human fetal stem cells. In
addition to expanding our knowledge of how cells operate, synthetic
biologists also aspire to develop cheaper medicine and solve climate

issues (König et al., 2013). Some researchers hope that, through
synthetic biology, organisms will need fewer raw materials and the use
of herbicides will no longer be necessary (Martins dos Santos, 2018).
Organisms will take up less space and use less energy, and as such
contribute to more sustainable farming. In addition, synthetic biology
may help produce ingredients in a more environmentally friendly and
cheaper way.
 According to our workshop participants, the shift from soil-based
production of rare ingredients—like specific spices and medicinal
substances—toward synthetic biology-based production may have a
major impact on production chains and create economic shifts
between regions.
 There was discussion about a possible future in which every
household would design and manufacture its own products through
synthetic biotechnology.
 The manipulation of existing bacteria or viruses may lead to the
creation of new pathogens.
 Risks were also discussed; synthetic biology may also be used, for
example, to create biological weapons.
10.2.5 Protein transition
The protein transition (also known as artificial meat or meat

replacement) refers to a shift in protein consumption from meat from
animals (chicken, pig, and cow) toward plants and alternatives, like
saltwater organisms and insects (Vandamme, 2011). Seaweed, a primary
source of proteins, does not require proteins to grow. Compared with the
animals humans traditionally consume, insects convert vegetable food up
to five times more efficiently (Huis, 2013). Supermarkets in the
Netherlands already sell insect burgers, and vegetarian “butchers” and
“snack bars” are booming, offering products that look like meat but are
actually made from the proteins of mushrooms, soy, or dairy products
(Landeweer, 2017). Many snacks, such as chicken nuggets and
croquettes, already contain a mix of meat and alternative proteins.
Interesting developments are also taking place in the production of

artificial meat—i.e., meat based on cell or tissue cultures (Bonny et al.,
2015).
 Once artificial meat and other meat alternatives become affordable—
or even cheaper than traditional meat products—and are adopted by
consumers, we could witness a massive trend reversal in terms of both
diets and food production.
 Cheaper energy may help artificial meat become cheaper.
 The question remains, however, whether we will see a full protein
transition or merely a shift in our diet, which will still be based on
meat consumption.
10.2.6 Food design
Food design is the lab development of food, with specific components

added (or extracted) to improve the taste or structure of food, or the
degree to which it promotes health (in the latter case, it is known as
functional food) (Godoi et al., 2016).
 In time, 3D printing may enable households to design and print their
own food.
 In the decades to come, people may want more control over the
composition of their food. Will tomorrow’s cooking merely consist of
designing units of nutrients (cubes, gel, or powder), including the
taste that we fancy at that moment, and printing them?
10.2.7 Aquaculture
Aquaculture is the cultivation of aquatic organisms such as fish,

mollusks (e.g., mussels), crustaceans (e.g., shrimp, crabs, and lobsters),
and seaweeds (e.g., algae) (Schneider et al., 2010). The animal and
vegetable organisms are kept in ponds and basins for commercial trade.
There are various forms of aquaculture: aquaculture at sea, on the coast
in brackish water, in freshwater, and algae cultivation. In food
production, aquaculture is the fastest-growing sector worldwide, owing

to increasing demand and its role in replacing commercial fishing
(Kobayashi et al., 2015). One recent development is the emergence of
urban aquaculture (Love et al., 2015). Advanced water purification
systems allow people to keep fish in water tanks the size of Jacuzzis
without having to resort to chemicals.
 It is generally believed that global demand for food will boost the
cultivation of shellfish and fish. To maintain food security, interest in
sustainable fishing will increase.
 Intensifying aquaculture will also lead to an increased focus on
(bio)technological aspects.
 Closed cultivation systems will become more important, with
advantages for the environment.
 Agricultural areas across the world are dealing with salinization.
Applications of aquaculture aimed at cultivation with saline water
may prove to be the solution.
10.2.8 Vertical agriculture
Vertical agriculture is agriculture in urban high-rises—so-called vertical

farms—whereby the term vertical refers both to the fact that the plants
are often cultivated behind the glass of skyscrapers and to the vertical
scaffolding that allows rows of plants to grow on top of each other.
 Vertical farms increase the food supply in densely populated cities
while limiting the footprint of conventional agriculture.
 In 2050, 80 percent of the world’s population—by then 9 billion
people—will live in cities city (Zhang, 2015). Vertical agriculture

allows production to take place much closer to consumers, which
reduces transportation costs.
10.2.9 Conservation technology
Conservation technology makes it possible to preserve fresh food for

longer. It protects food from contamination by, for instance, bacteria or

fungi and from chemical and physical processes. Examples include
pasteurization through high pressure, pulsed electric fields, the cold
plasma method, and the application of relevant genes, which could
become alternatives for conventional thermal pasteurization or
sterilization processes (Lee et al., 2015). The lower thermal load of the
new technologies often results in products that look and taste fresher than
products treated with traditional methods. There is less deviation in taste
(no aftertaste of cooking) and less thermal damage to valuable nutrients
(e.g., vitamins), and the texture is preferable (Perrea et al., 2014). The
emergence of the 3D printer and food printing is strongly intertwined
with conservation technologies, because these technologies will be
crucial for preparing and preserving the contents of cartridges used for
printing food.
 The new conservation technologies are perceived as more sustainable
conservation methods, with less harm to the environment.
 Extending the preservability of food can genuinely help reduce waste.
 In addition to reducing waste, enhanced conservation technologies
could make available a wider and healthier range of food products.
 If the demand in Western countries for quick and easy dinners persists
and the demand for small portions—one-person meals—continues to
grow, improved conservation technologies may lead to healthier diets,

by reducing demand for unhealthy fast foods.
 If small-scale production increases, demand for small-scale
technologies designed to preserve the food at home will also increase.
10.3 The Grand Societal Challenges
As already stated, technologies become breakthrough technologies not

only because they are sophisticated from a technical point of view, but
also because they address societal needs in an effective way and are
accepted and steered by society at a broader level. Here we explore the
extent to which technological developments address societal issues (Van
den Hoven, 2013). To that end, we use the Grand Societal Challenges
(GSCs) mentioned by the members of the European Union (EU) in the

Lund Declaration and subsequently elaborated by other EU committees
as a framework for our thought experiment (for an overview of these
challenges, see Bina et al., 2017). These challenges are relevant to many
regions, but in the Netherlands, at least, they have become important
policy guidelines, in particular regarding innovation. The seven GSCs
are as follows:
1. health, demographic change, and well-being;
2. food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and
maritime and inland water research, and the Bioeconomy;
3. secure, clean, and efficient energy;
4. smart, green, and integrated transport;
5. climate action, environment, resource efficiency, and raw
materials;
6. Europe in a changing world—inclusive, innovative, and reflective
societies;
7. secure societies—protecting freedom and security of Europe and
its citizens.
These GSCs were the focus of the Horizonscan 2050 study carried
out by the Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends in 2013 (and
published in 2014), in which the GSCs were used as a framework to
determine the possible impact of more than 90 so-called Signals for
Change. This section also summarizes some important aspects of the

GSCs, as discussed in the Horizonscan 2050 project. The geographic
focus in these challenges is on Europe.
In a sense, these challenges can be seen as “wicked problems,” since
they present us with dilemmas. For instance, global population is
growing, putting a greater strain on scarce natural resources, and thus
putting more pressure on the ecological and climate systems. In addition,

there is a risk of geopolitical conflicts and unbalanced composition of the
population. More and more people live in bigger cities than ever before
imaginable. How will we distribute food, resources, and prosperity? Who
stands to benefit from the fruits of innovation in healthcare and our living
environment? And how do we deal with the new connectivity in a world
of different political beliefs, religions, and cultures?
Although our social values determine which technologies will be
accepted in society, at the same time social developments appear to be

the most uncertain and dynamic of all the factors involved. We already
see previously solid institutions, like banks, insurance companies, and
even national governments, losing the public’s trust and undergoing
changes. These changes are hidden in a mist of visions that are both
alarmist and idealistic, leaving us guessing about the direction in which
we are heading and what the institutions of the future will be like. How,
for instance, will tasks be distributed between government and industry
(businesses)?
As the effects of climate change become more noticeable in decades
to come, we may, on the one hand, face growing scarcity of food or
arable land in some parts of the world, while other parts may be under
constant risk of flooding or extreme drought. On the other hand, more
and more consumers may opt in favor of sustainability and a smaller
ecological footprint, by buying more locally or organically produced
food, and insist on transparency and traceability in the food chain.
Robotics, IT, and big data will change society completely: how we
make decisions, how we travel, how we share information. As we allow
robots into our lives, in healthcare and in industry, our own role also
changes, which raises its own set of questions in relation to an image of
the man-machine connected to the Internet of Things. What will the
smart systems of the future be like? Will we be these systems?

Moreover, how will responsibility be assigned in tomorrow’s world?
10.4 When Agri-Food Technology Meets the Grand Societal

Challenges
To explore the potential disruptiveness of the nine agri-food

technologies, we connect them to the Grand Societal Challenges: how
can these technologies help us deal with the challenges?3 We provide a
brief overview, based on the insight from discussions involving the
implications and possibilities in the project entitled The Future of
Technology in Agriculture.
10.4.1 Health, demographic change, and well-being
Many European countries will be (or already are) dealing with an aging
population. People live longer and, owing to falling birth figures, elderly
people will become the largest population group. In addition,
immigration is bringing in more and more people, and increasing
numbers of people live in urban areas. At the same time, reaching a
higher income level is no longer the main goal in life of many people in
Western countries, who instead want to improve their quality of life.
More money does not always make for greater happiness.
To meet to this GSC, the agri-food sector, instead of focusing only on
increasing production, could also pay attention to the quality of its
products. Bioinformatics and food design will make it possible to create
customized food, making it easier to follow a healthy diet. Food
personalization provides an important contribution to increased well-
being. The taste and texture of food will be adapted to the individual
wishes of elderly people, creating a shift away from eating as a
functional activity toward eating as an experience.
3GSC 2 (food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and
inland water research, and the bio-economy) has been omitted because the areas involved
are virtually identical with the agri-food sector.
The trend toward increased urbanization can provide an incentive for

vertical agriculture, which allows people to engage in more efficient food
production. The personalization of food will lead to an increase in
demand for special regional products, which in turn, and despite
urbanization, will lead to an increase in food transportation.
Conservation technologies can play a positive role in this respect.
Because, with regard to this GSC, the focus of the agri-food sector is
not on increasing production, making food production more efficient will
not be the sector’s main aim. Bioinformatics, smart farms, and
aquaculture will not receive an additional boost but will follow an
“ordinary” growth path.
The protein transition can make a valuable contribution to improving
the health of elderly people, while the nutritional value of food can be
increased through genetics, which can have a positive effect on overall
health.
10.4.2 Secure, clean, and efficient energy
History shows rising demand for energy, and this will not change in the
decades to come. Besides meeting this increase in demand, it is vitally
important to make energy production (and consumption) more
sustainable and thus prevent catastrophic climate change. The agri-food
sector is an important energy consumer and, unfortunately, a major
contributor to CO2 emissions.
The technologies mentioned above do not address the global energy
problem directly, but some of them, like bioinformatics and smart
farming, can certainly help make food production more efficient and thus
reduce the sector’s ecological footprint. Technologies like genetics,
synthetic biology, and food design can make the sector less “natural” and
thus might reduce the burdens on nature and on our atmosphere.
Furthermore, other new technologies (like solar energy, wind energy, or
energy from biofuel and algae) may give the agricultural sector the
opportunity to be an energy producer and to provide citizens and markets
with energy from renewable sources. This would indeed be a
revolutionary change for the sector.
10.4.3 Smart, green, and integrated transport
People are becoming more and more mobile, and given ever greater
specialization in Europe and globally (including in the agri-food sector),
the amount of transportation will increase. Air transport has become
extremely cheap, and it is increasingly normal and simple to order food
products from near and far.

In principle, few of the technologies discussed earlier relate directly
to this GSC because they are primarily local in nature. Conservation
technology can, of course, play a role in transporting agri-food products,
but it is doubtful whether that will make transportation any smarter,
greener, or more integrated. Perhaps the most important effect of the
agri-food technologies is that they make production more efficient,
which may reduce the need for transportation.
10.4.4 Climate action, environment, resource efficiency, and

raw materials
In essence, this GSC refers the fact that human activities are exhausting
the planet. As a result, average temperatures are increasing, the
environment is increasingly polluted, and we waste natural resources.
This GSC touches on virtually every agri-food technology. The main
contribution these technologies can make to addressing this GSC is to
increase the efficiency of agri-food production—i.e., using fewer natural
inputs to obtain an increase in output. After all, improving resource
efficiency by using fewer raw materials will provide an important
counterbalance to climate change, which will in turn have a positive
effect on the environment. The size of the increase in efficiency,
however, must be considerable, because the Dutch population is growing
(albeit modestly) and the Netherlands also exports food to other parts of
the world, where the population (and with it the demand for food) is
growing more rapidly. In other words, the efficiency of the agri-food
technologies must account for the expected growth in the global
population. Technologies like biotechnology, genetics, and synthetic
biology can help in the development of new crops (or different
organisms) that have improved resistance to extreme circumstances or
place a smaller burden on the ecosystem. Developments in the area of

smart farming can also contribute to the more efficient use of natural
resources and reduce negative side effects from production.
10.4.5 Europe in a changing world—Inclusive, innovative,

and reflective societies
Every society exists thanks to a certain amount of social cohesion.

Citizens need to feel they belong and matter in their social environment.
Solidarity—in which every person counts and is treated fairly, both by
their government and by their fellow citizens—is the cement of society.
It is difficult to determine which agri-food technologies can
contribute to this GSC, and how. At any rate, there is a worldwide
challenge regarding the fair production and distribution of food, and

facing that challenge may help prevent social unrest and political tension.
By helping the agri-food sector remain sufficiently productive, the
technologies could help provide adequate employment—an important
condition for the realization of an inclusive society. The technologies
may also make the sector smaller in scale and as such more approachable
to citizens. The growth of urban farming, facilitated in part by vertical
agriculture, can make food production more transparent, bring it closer to
citizens, and in doing so contribute to social cohesion. It can turn food
from an anonymous product from a large factory into a product whose
origin people know and that, as such, is more recognizable.
10.4.6 Secure societies—Protecting freedom and security of

Europe and its citizens
With natural resources likely to become scarcer and food prices likely to
rise, food security will be an important factor in guaranteeing the safety
of Europe’s population and its individual regions. The technological
developments discussed in this chapter may allow Europe’s regions to
become more self-sufficient. Many countries currently import large
quantities of food, and if Europe’s regions become more self-sufficient
they will be less dependent on those imports, thereby promoting food
security. In principle, all the technologies discussed in this chapter can

offer a positive contribution to the safety of food and, with it, the safety
of society. All technologies, however, including the agri-food
technologies discussed here, can lead to uncertain outcomes, and perhaps
even dangerous ones. Genetically modified organisms constitute
perhaps the best example of a technology whose development and
implementation have generated a lot of protest in the Netherlands. The

various scandals in the agri-food sector, such as the sale of horsemeat as
beef and the use of illegal growth hormones, can to a large extent be
related to the growing scale of the sector. The efficiencies that agri-food
technologies can potentially realize can also lead a reduction in scale and
make the sector less vulnerable to the types of scandals seen in the past.
A safer agri-food sector will certainly contribute to a safer Europe and a
greater sense of security among Europeans. Whether the technologies
discussed in this chapter can make a contribution will also depend on the
social acceptance of those technologies.
10.5 Agri-Food Technology and Future Scenarios
To examine whether agri-food technologies will be accepted and steered

by society at a broader level—an important element in becoming
breakthrough technologies—we use future scenarios to help initiate a
structured debate. Future scenarios are different possible combinations of
societal and technology trends. They are not predictions, but outlines of
possible futures. Their aim is to help people reflect on the future, taking
account of the uncertainties involved.
In our project The Future of Technology in Agriculture in 2050, we
used six archetypal scenario storylines as a framework for future
scenarios (Table 10.2). The storylines were identified in the article “A
Review of Global Food Security Scenario and Assessment Studies:
Results, Gaps and Research Priorities” published by Wageningen
University (Van Dijk and Meijerink, 2014). This section briefly
introduces the scenarios and shows how they can be used to examine the
interaction between technological trends on the one hand and
demographic, political, societal, and demographic trends on the other.
The strength of scenarios is that they add non-technological

dimensions to our exploration: economic development, population
growth, trade orientation, and the roles of policies and institutions are
also taken into account (Table 10.2). For our project, however, we
decided to use five scenarios, rather than the six in Table 10.2, for
several reasons. First, it was not feasible to discuss all the scenarios
within the given timeframe for the project. Second, the business-as-usual
scenario (which we did not include in the project) was poorly described
in the available literature and caused confusion (showing that people
have very different ideas of the term “as usual”). Although the scenarios
we used involve international developments, the ultimate focus was on
the potential implications for the Dutch agri-food sector in 2050.
Table 10.2. Archetypal scenarios from Wageningen University.

Source: Van Dijk and Meijerink (2014).

The scenarios represent extremes. The point is not whether or not

they will become a reality; for each scenario, there are pros and cons as
well as arguments and pointers indicating whether or not they will
materialize. The scenarios are meant as mental exercises: What if this
future were to become a reality? What would this mean for …?
Whether, how, and when technologies make a breakthrough or
present opportunities for the Dutch agri-food sector will depend heavily
on the world—and society—in which we live in the year 2050. Scenarios
can help us take into account various uncertain factors, such as economic
growth, faith in technology, the degree of international cooperation, and
the focus on environmental issues. By thinking about developments in
various future scenarios, we can obtain more nuanced images of the
future. The technological and social developments will be different in
each scenario, and in some scenarios, they may not play a part at all. For
each scenario, we provide a brief summary and a mindmap with some

ideas about how the scenario could manifest itself.
10.5.1 Economic optimism
In the economic optimism scenario, market dynamics play a central role.

There is free, global trade. The economy is booming. People rely on
technology and witness rapid technological developments. They place
their trust in technological development and market mechanisms. New
technologies experience fast breakthroughs and meet with little
resistance. Technological innovation takes place mainly in the private
sector. Market mechanisms stand at the core, raising the risk of economic
and social inequality. Although there is free trade, differences in income
determine access to technology. People have faith that technology—in
combination with market mechanisms—can solve environmental
problems and address socioeconomic inequality, thereby having a
positive impact on global food security. As long as they show a return on
investment, technological applications will continue to break through.
This scenario raises the following challenges for the Dutch agri-food
sector:
 Which technologies will offer an economic advantage?
 What should we be selling: technology or the knowledge of

technology?
 In view of the technological optimism, many of the technological
developments mentioned earlier in this chapter will play an important
part, and there will be new technological developments that we cannot
even imagine.
Fig. 10.1. Mindmap scenario A: Economic optimism.

10.5.2 Reformed markets
Like the economic optimism scenario, the reformed markets scenario

includes global free trade, rapid economic growth, and rapid
technological development. Market mechanisms, however, are managed
through policy in areas where the market fails—e.g., social development,
socioeconomic inequality, and environmental protection. Policy

measures include financial and political boosts aimed at technologies that
will help solve specific issues (green technologies) or activities that offer
access to new technologies (development aid, knowledge transfer). These
measures will—more than in the previous scenario—enhance global food
security. In this scenario, the objectives of food security, sustainability,
and equality will be decisive for the breakthrough of a specific
technology or determine which technology can or cannot be used.
sector:
 Which technologies will show a return on investment and also
contribute to a better world?
 In which institutions (and at which levels) should the country of the
Netherlands be heard (vote, lobby)?
Fig. 10.2. Mindmap scenario B: Reformed markets.
10.5.3 Global sustainable development
The global sustainable development scenario focuses on protecting the

environment and reducing inequality through global cooperation,
changes in lifestyle, and efficient technology aimed at sustainability.
Sustainability, equality, and justice are at the core of this scenario, and
technology contributing to these targets will be adopted. People will
mainly look for and invest in technologies that contribute to a better
world. Global governance is carried out by strong international

institutions and legislation. Which technological developments or
applications will suit this scenario?
sector:
 Controversial technologies that raise ethical concerns will break
through less easily.

 Bureaucracy will slow down many changes and technological
breakthroughs.
Fig. 10.3. Mindmap scenario C: Global sustainable development.

10.5.4 Regional competition
In the regional competition scenario, regions become the main policy

actors and focus on their own immediate interests and regional identity,
leading to interregional or intercultural tension. Regions may consist of
countries, groups of countries, or regions within countries. In this
scenario, security is paramount and trust in technology is low. The local

food supply is based, e.g., on a sense of national or local independence,
and the environment comes second. In this scenario, technologies that
have not proven themselves or technologies promising quick and large-
scale change will not be adopted. Regional fragmentation makes it
impossible to exploit the advantages of scale (e.g., international or
global).
sector:
 At which scale do we want to operate? Western Europe or
Netherlands-Germany?
 What will regional fragmentation do to our exports?
 Technologies contributing to the sense of security and autonomy will
have a better chance of succeeding.
 Technologies must work at the regional level, be recognizable, and
suit regional identity.
Fig. 10.4. Mindmap scenario D: Regional competition.
10.5.5 Regional sustainable development
In the regional sustainable development scenario, solutions regarding the

environment and social equality are sought at the regional level through
drastic lifestyle changes and decentralization of government. Although,
as in the previous scenario, the focus is on one’s own region, here the
driver is not security but sustainability. Decisions are based on idealism
rather than fear. This scenario is also about small scales and therefore
excludes the advantages of operating at a large or international scale.
sector:
 At which scale do we want to operate? Western Europe or
Netherlands-Germany?
 What will regional fragmentation do to our exports?

 Technologies contributing to sustainability and regional autonomy or
to the environment without exploiting it will fit well with this
scenario.
Fig. 10.5. Mindmap scenario E: Regional sustainable development.

Each scenario provides a different context for the technologies

and might lead to a different outcome in terms of adoption or
implementation. We discussed these possible outcomes in the workshops
with experts and stakeholders, and Table 10.3 provides an overview of
what was discussed for each technology related to the different scenarios.
10.6 Concluding Remarks
10.6.1 Potential breakthrough technologies in light of the

Grand Societal Challenges
We have argued here that technologies become breakthrough

technologies by not only being technically sophisticated, but also by
effectively addressing societal needs and being accepted and steered by

society at a broader level. Our initial attempt to substantiate this point of
view involved an exploration of how potential breakthrough technologies
in the agri-food sector could address the Grand Societal Challenges
mentioned by the members of the European Union in the Lund
Declaration. To that end, we summarized the findings of expert and
stakeholder workshops and used the GSCs as a framework to evaluate
the promise of the technologies.
Table 10.3. Combining the scenarios with agri-food technologies.
Global Regional
Economic Reformed sustainable Regional sustainable
Technology optimism markets development competition development
Bio- Data controlled Data controlled Data controlled Data controlled Consumers
informatics by big by by global by local control their
corporations corporations, government government own data

governments;
standards
needed
Smart farming Data controlled Data controlled Data controlled Data controlled Consumers and
by big by by global by local farmers control
corporations corporations, government government their own data
governments;
standards
needed
Genetics Accepted Accepted but Only if it Considered Considered

highly enables dangerous and unnatural
regulated production in unhealthy, but

difficult areas used when there
is no other way
Synthetic Yes, even on a Accepted but Only in certain Only in certain No

biology household highly areas to prevent areas for safety
level regulated; hunger and reasons
regional inequality
differences
Protein If Political Yes, government Lack of scale for Lack of scale

transition economically agenda will will invest in such for such
viable and decide this breakthroughs breakthroughs
trendy
Food design To create Mainly for To provide Mainly for Not clear,
healthy and elderly and healthy and elderly and sick possibly no
luxurious sick affordable enough trust in
products nutrition for all this technology
Aquaculture Yes, wherever Yes, only Yes, in most No, lack of No, lack of
economically designated promising scale scale
viable areas areas
Vertical If If decided by If decided by No, we do not If sustainable

agriculture economically government government trust the and natural
vital technologies
Conservation Targeted to Targeted to Targeted to Focus on natural Combined with

technologies consumers’ food food technologies traceability;
wishes; preservation preservation highly
combined with and prevention and prevention controlled by
traceability of loss of loss government
We conclude that not every GSC is amenable to the agri-food

technologies. The challenges “Smart, green and integrated transport” and
“Europe in a changing world—inclusive, innovative, and reflective
societies” were least easily linked to the agri-food technologies we
discussed. That may be because these GSCs relate to how people live
and move around, and to a lesser extent to how they feed themselves.
The GSCs “Health, demographic change, and well-being,” “Secure,

clean, and efficient energy,” “Climate action, environment, resource
efficiency, and raw materials,” and “Secure societies—protecting
freedom and security of Europe and its citizens” are more amenable to
the agri-food technologies. It is clear that food has an immediate impact
on people’s health and quality of life. Food production demands a lot of
energy, and the “natural” character of the agri-food sector touches
directly on how we interact with our natural environment. Food also has
an important psychological component and as such affects people’s

objective and subjective security.
With regard to agri-food technologies, bioinformatics, smart farming,
synthetic biology, food design, and the protein transition often play a role
in addressing the GSCs, but the connection is less obvious when it comes
to vertical agriculture, aquaculture, and conservation technology. All of
the technologies discussed have the potential, of course, to alter the
sector drastically. As mentioned, whether they do so will depend not
only on the technical performance of the technologies, but above all on
the extent to which they can be applied in different innovations. And, in
turn, the implementation of successful innovations depends on the social
context. That does not make the future less uncertain. What is certain is
that the future of the agri-food sector will be disruptive, shaped by new
technologies in new contexts. And it is also certain that this process will
not happen automatically. The agri-food sector will play an active role in
that process, in which stakeholders outside the sector need to be
involved. After all, those stakeholders are part of the social context of the
agri-food technologies.
10.6.2 Potential breakthrough technologies in the light of

future scenarios
The other criterion we used to classify technologies as breakthrough

technologies is their acceptance and direction by society at a broader
level (how this occurs is also an important element). To that end, we
used future scenarios as a framework for examining the promise of the

technologies in light of demographic, political, economic, and societal
trends. Generally speaking, taking the scenario into account, it becomes
clear that the pressing question currently is probably not which specific
technologies will be used in the future, but to what extent and for which
goals they are used. When we look at the scenarios, it is mainly the
purpose for which technologies are used that will change, but
technological progress as such is not questioned. Many technologies
have the ability to achieve a combination of economic, social, and

environmental objectives. For example, in the economic optimism
scenario, technology is used for economic purposes, and mainly by
larger, international corporations. In the global sustainable development
and the regional sustainable development scenarios, technology is used
for environmental and sustainability-related purposes and highly
regulated by the government. In the regional competition scenario,
technology may mainly be used to ensure food security and food safety.
In the regional sustainable development scenario, technology must
establish sustainability on a very local level, in combination with
traditional knowledge and human labor. The most important question
facing us in the future, however, is how society will deal with new
technological possibilities. Humankind—and in particular our changing
social dynamics and trust in technologies—will determine which new
technologies will eventually play a part in the future.
10.6.3 Insights and recommendations for further research
We have focused on the breakthrough potential of technological

developments. Combining technologies with Grand Societal Challenges
and future scenarios has allowed us to provide a background for strategic
discussions on possible breakthrough technologies for the Dutch agri-
food sector. The discussion of technological developments was not

limited to the question whether or not a technology will break through or
play a role in the future. In our view, it is preferable to outline possible
ways a given technology may be applied in the future, which does justice
to the complexity and uncertainty involved.
The technological trends, the GSCs, and the scenarios have been used
to provide an important inspiration for further study, policy research,

innovation, and public debate. The response to the visions of the future in
our studies are not univocal, showing that there are many visions and
opinions when it comes to the future of technology and of the agri-food
sector. Visions of the future do not have to become reality, but they do
make people think. Are we future-ready? What do we do if a specific
development becomes reality?
It is particularly interesting to realize that many images of the future
may become a reality long before 2050, if we only look at the

technological possibilities. However, if we also take into account the
social, political, and contextual developments, 2050 suddenly seems a
long way away, making it uncertain whether technological developments
will really have the major impact they promise to have in the coming
decades.
We end this chapter by summarizing a number of strategic issues the
Dutch agri-food sector needs to address if it is to benefit from potential
breakthrough technologies:
 Many new technologies and innovations are about to be applied in the
agri-food sector, and new developments are expected from crossovers
with other technologies and sectors. This would be a good subject for
further research.
 Debate about the social integration of new technologies is essential. In
addition to technological innovation, social innovation and acceptance
of new technologies have to be taken into account, as well as possible
environmental and health-related consequences. It is also important to
discuss the changing skill set that will be required from farmers in the
future.
 The effects of new technologies on human and environmental safety
should be tested and applied on a small scale, as part of a process of
open and transparent decision making, before moving on to the next

step.
 The technological solution to a problem or challenge may generate
new and unforeseen challenges. The agri-food sector will need to
consider the rebound effects.
 Decisions about adopting new technologies should be made in the
context of potential risks, including the potential risk of not applying

a new technology.
 The agri-food sector should not lose sight of the risks of new
technologies. For instance, big data promises a lot but also interferes
with people’s privacy. Good communication will be essential,
because food quality alone is not enough. The welfare of animals and
plants may become the dominant factor.
 Food will be important, as will natural resources and emissions. It is
not just demand that will increase, but also diversification of demand.
Although the role of technology will be crucial, social acceptance will
determine whether it will break through or not. The agri-food sector
will need a strategy for coping with these changes. The parties who
are able to deal with change best will be the ones to survive.
The future will keep unfolding, forcing us to reflect on it and take
part in the debate. In this chapter, we have provided multiple visions of
the future, but each individual technology described here could easily be
the subject of a new futures study. This chapter, then, is actually just a
preliminary outline of a possible future, leaving us with numerous
questions that we will have to answer while thinking about the future and
creating the best future possible.
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b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Chapter 11
Investor Perspectives
on Future Priorities
Jonathan Crouch
Overview
This chapter focuses on perspectives that are likely to drive investment

decisions in the agri-food sector in Africa over the coming decades, as a
frame for considering scenarios generated by other authors in this
volume.1 In particular, commercial perspectives provide a valuable filter
of proposals for achieving many future development goals in agriculture.
In some cases disruptive new technologies, novel business models, and
changes in government policy can further strengthen these trajectories.
Private sector–based approaches to agricultural development have the
advantage of an inherent alignment of incentives for achieving financial
sustainability and, where successful, for subsequently scaling-up
operations. When based on inclusive business models or systemic
commitment to social outcomes, private sector–based approaches can
provide a powerful engine for delivering development impact at scale.
1I would like to thank the following for their valuable input during the development of
thinking and data analysis underlying various sections of this chapter: Pierre van
Hoeylandt (director, DFI Strategies Team, CDC); Daudi Lelijveld (director, Impact
Accelerator, CDC); Will Buchan (manager, CIO Office, CDC); Richard Jones (chief of
party, Scaling Seeds and Technology Partnership in Africa [SSTP], Alliance for a Green
Revolution in Africa [AGRA]); Dom Falcao (director, Deep Science Ventures [DSV]);
Mark Hammond (director, DSV); and the two independent reviewers. However, I take
full responsibility for the opinions expressed in this chapter and wish to highlight that
they do not necessarily reflect the policies and strategies of CDC, AGRA, or DSV.
351
Thus, the agribusiness sector should be a major component of the overall

strategy for feeding the rapidly growing population and fueling economic
development across Africa. However, the public sector and philanthropic
communities should not view this as a simple handover. Instead, national
governments and development agencies need to see their critical role in
crowding-in investment and supporting development of entire
agribusiness value chains to enable the private sector to flourish in this

space.
Given the CGIAR’s mission, this chapter emphasizes opportunities
relevant to smallholders (particularly commercial smallholders) where
there is greatest scope for agri-businesses and investors to contribute to
development outcomes: create rural jobs, enhance smallholder
livelihoods, increase urban food supply, and contribute to import
substitution, through building and scaling inclusive business models.
This chapter has been structured into the following four sections:
1. the current state of capital flows to African agriculture,

highlighting the critical need for addressing the “missing middle” to
enable the scaling up of agribusiness investment across the region;
2. future priorities for commercial investors and key constraints to
investor appetite in the agri-food sector, at different points along
value chains, and at different investment sizes;
3. creating shared value in African agriculture based on a holistic
approach that facilitates a more even sharing of value capture across
all components of the value chain; and
4. commercial investment opportunities in African agriculture from
an agri-tech venture capitalist perspective, starting with approaches
to addressing the “missing middle.”
Investor Perspectives on Future Priorities 353
11.1 Current State of Capital Flows to African Agriculture
Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Africa has increased substantially

over the past decades to the point where it already exceeds ODA and
includes significant flows from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China,
and South Africa) in addition to the Group of 20 (G20) countries (BCG,
2014). FDI has become an important component of the overall

development agenda. The African Development Bank (AfDB) estimates
that more than $20 billion per year of private capital flows into Africa
across sectors (AfDB, 2013b) while others put the figure at nearly $50
billion. There are estimated to be more than 200 Africa-focused private
equity investment funds with more than $30 billion under management.
Of new flows managed by the private equity sector, however, nearly
70% were accounted for by just three of the largest firms: Abraaj, DPI,
and Helios. To efficiently deploy the large amounts of capital they are
managing, these funds need to focus on large investments to well-
established companies. In contrast, the proportion of capital flowing to
growth-phase small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is small (FT,
2016).
More than $4 billion of philanthropic contributions flow annually to
African agriculture (FAO, 2015), more than double the amount that
flowed in 2010 (AfDB, 2016a). In addition, African national government
programs in agri-food total around $12 billion a year whereas estimates
of FDI in the sector vary from $2.5 billion to $10 billion but are
predicted to exceed $50 billion by 2020 (FAO, 2013a; AfDB, 2016a).
Development finance institutions (DFIs) and impact investors
collectively invest about $2 billion a year in the African agri-food sector,
whereas commercial bank lending in the sector is less than $1 billion
annually. Private equity and sovereign wealth funds together invest less
than $0.5 billion a year in this sector. Thus, in aggregate nearly $30
billion flow into the agri-food sector across the region each year.
However, there is an estimated annual shortfall for the sector of more
than $50 billion (FAO, 2014; McKinsey, 2015a). A substantial
proportion of this shortfall relates to the scaling needs of established
SMEs that are not yet a viable risk-reward opportunity for most
commercial investors. These companies occupy the so-called missing
middle—their capital requirement is too large for grant programs or

microfinance institutions (MFIs), but the company is too small or
unsophisticated to attract commercial loans or investment.
In a recent African agriculture forum, participants pledged to invest
more than $30 billion in the sector over the next 10 years. This includes
more than $1 billion of grant funding from the Gates Foundation during
the next 5 years and $24 billion from the AfDB over the next 10 years.
These are impressive commitments, but they represent only about 10%
of the shortfall. It is clear that the private sector is the only realistic
source for addressing the majority of the remaining 90% of the shortfall.
It is notable that only 15% of China’s sustainable national development
program is financed from public funds, and it is expected that Africa’s
agricultural development program will need to pursue a similar level of
co-investment from the private sector (UNEP, 2015). The missing
middle is a global phenomenon across sectors for SMEs but is especially

extreme for African agribusinesses. The key question going forward is,
how can the development community and commercial investors work
together to address the missing middle and thereby scale up the flow of
SMEs progressing along the investment ladder?
11.1.1 The investment ladder for SME agribusinesses
There are many phases in the investment ladder, from technology and
business model proof-of-concept to growth phase and replication at
scale. Financing generally starts with self-funding and grant support,
perhaps moving on to concessional and subsidized capital, before finally
graduating to more commercial investment. The nature and the scale of
financial support at each stage will vary depending on geography,
location in the value chain, and nature of the business (see Table 11.1).
Table 11.1. Key stages in the investment ladder (based on the author’s experience).
Average Type of capital/

capital return Type of support
Stage requirement expectations typically required Type of investor
Technical < $1 m Grant, angel or R&D and Development
proof-of- venture capital technology community,
concept transfer incubators, and

accelerators
Business $0.5–2 m Blended grant, Grant-funded “Missing middle”
incubation debt, and/or technical support
equity
Business $1–5 m Blended grant, Grant-funded “Missing middle”
proof-of- debt, and/or technical support
concept equity and commercially
rigorous
mentoring
Organic $2–15 m Concessional debt Executive Impact investors

growth phase and/or equity management and DFI
guidance intermediated
investments
Scale-up > $10 m Subcommercial ESG and DI DFI direct
and/or debt and/or equity support investments
replication
Large-scale > $20 m Fully commercial Board-level Commercial
growth phase guidance investors
Note: DFI = development finance institution; ESG = environment, social, and

governance; DI = development impact.
FDI trends provide a useful lead indicator of future sector and market
potential (EY, 2014). Less than 5% of FDI to developing countries
targets agriculture, and the bulk of this goes to processing and
distribution, with only around 10–20% reaching primary production
(FAO, 2013a). The average proportion of national budgets spent on
agriculture is also around 5%; only seven countries currently spend the
10% level agreed upon by the African Union, and many spend as little as
2% (GSW, 2015). Total DFI funds under management exceed $400
billion, yet their annual investments in African agribusiness are less than
$2 billion. The IFC and AfDB are the largest contributors, followed by
the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and CDC. On average, African
agriculture represents less than 5% of DFIs’ holdings and proportion of

new investments.
Many SMEs in the missing middle would greatly benefit from the
technical, commercial, and financial expertise that private equity
investors can directly or indirectly provide. Conversely, returns for
investors could be very attractive in this space because they would be
operating in previously underdeveloped high-growth sectors that have

yet to reach scale (FT, 2016). However, the risk of failure is too high,
and the period to return on investment is too long for the economics of
most private equity funds. The development community and DFIs can
play a transformative role by working together to prepare grantees for
commercial finance and providing appropriate financing to help bridge
the missing middle.
11.1.2 Incubators and accelerators
Outside of Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, incubators and accelerators

are relatively scarce in most African countries. Those that do exist are
often hosted by academic organizations and dominated by grant funding.
Moreover, the due diligence standards of follow-on equity investors,
which are much more rigorous than those of banks, are rarely known. As
a result, even the most promising small and growing businesses are often
far from investment-ready (IP, 2015). Incubators and accelerators have
the potential to play a crucial role in educating start-ups about the
expectations of future commercial investors.
The so-called pioneer gap between investors and entrepreneurs in the
missing middle results from inadequacies on both sides of the
relationship. SMEs in the missing middle need access to affordable but
high-quality support services for incubation, business development, and
transaction advice, as well as help overcoming poor linkages across
agribusiness value chains and building effective collaborations (DGGF,
2015). The number of actors addressing critical gaps in support services
for the missing middle has been increasing, but much bigger, concerted,
and coordinated efforts are required to address the gap at scale. The
community also needs to support intermediary organizations that help
entrepreneurs grow early-stage businesses, such as accelerators,
incubators, and seed-stage investment funds (USAID, 2017b). Section

11.4.1 discusses potential options for addressing the missing middle.
11.1.3 Commercial banks
Net banking assets across sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa total about $800
billion (Prequin, 2015). Thus, there is clearly substantial scope for

increasing capital flows into the African agri-food sector from these
regional sources (FAO, 2015). However, the high-risk/low-collateral
profile of the agricultural sector, the high transaction cost of identifying
and screening investments in rural areas, and the lack of farming sector
expertise in most local banks are severe constraining factors.
Consequently, less than 1% of commercial lending in Africa goes to
agriculture (Oxfam, 2009). There are both supply and demand aspects
underlying banks’ failure to carry SMEs between microfinance and

private equity (DGGF, 2015; World Bank, 2017). Supply-side challenges
to providing debt finance include
 high interest rates (particularly in relation to average profit margins in

the agricultural sector);
 lack of products tailored to the specific needs of agribusinesses;
 lack of bank staff with expertise in lending to SME agribusinesses;
 lack of flexibility on the definition of collateral or acceptance of
substitutes; and
 rigid risk assessment procedures.
Demand-side challenges in accessing debt finance include
 inability to offer collateral such as land, particularly where land rights

are poorly developed;
 perception that loan applications will be rejected (discussed further in
next section);
 lack of customer awareness about available loan products;
 inability to present business plan in a way that can be readily assessed
by bank staff; and
 businesses’ low credibility because of insufficient sophistication of

senior managers.
The lack of access to affordable credit is an equally severe problem

for small fast-growing businesses that is far less frequently mentioned.
SMEs commonly need short-term financing in the form of overdrafts,
advances on contracts, and working capital loans. The shortfall comes to

more than $50,000 per company, creating an aggregate credit gap of
more than $3 billion in Africa (DGGF, 2015) and more than $2 trillion
across developing countries globally. It is estimated that more than 80%
of the total credit gap is for SMEs with a bank account (ANDE, 2012).
11.1.4 Impact investors

Despite a critical mass of more than 200 impact capital vehicles and
more than 20 DFIs active in in the region, the capital they provide does
not adequately span the entire risk-return spectrum nor is it equally
available at all investment (ticket) sizes (FSG, 2016). Although
impressive results have been reported by the likes of Acumen Fund,
HBD Venture Capital, and Hasso Plattner Ventures (Africa.com, 2017),
there remains an urgent need to deliver positive results at scale across the
agri-food sector. The short duration (closed-end) structure and high
expected levels of returns of many investment funds precludes
substantial exposure to the agri-food sector.
The transaction costs of managing agricultural investments are also a
major driver for all investors because such costs are largely independent
of the size of the investment. Having a smaller number of bigger
investments in larger firms is nearly always more cost-effective,
particularly because of the high level of support required by smaller
companies and their inherent higher risk (IP, 2015). Thus, fund
economics and bank lending habits largely preclude smaller investments
(Oxfam, 2009). Even if an investor begins by financing small early-stage
companies, its average size of investment naturally increases over time,
not least owing to investor psychology associated with the prestige of
moving on to larger investment deals.
The underlying portfolio economics of venture capital financing

structures rely on the rapid exponential growth of a few successful
businesses to compensate for the relative poor performance (or failure) of
the rest of the portfolio. This means that most venture capitalists focus on
enterprises with attributes that maximize such successes, including a
large addressable market, the prospect of rapid growth and scale without
the need for heavy asset investment, and potential for a timely exit (sale
of the investor’s equity share). Many emerging market enterprises with
significant impact potential, particularly in the agri-food sector, do not fit
this profile. Addressing this gap in investment capital will require more
sophisticated segmenting of enterprises and alignment with the right
sources of finance and technical support at the right time (Capria, 2017).
The situation is further exacerbated in so-called frontier investment
areas, where start-ups are targeting low-income populations through
effectively unproven business models that may be asset intensive and/or

operate in poorly developed markets. Although these are high-risk
investments, they carry tremendous impact potential and, if successful at
scale, offer excellent financial returns (Bannick et al., 2015). This is the
part of the missing middle to which this chapter will return.
11.1.5 The missing middle in the investment ladder
For SME agribusinesses to achieve significant development impact, they

need to establish financial sustainability and develop scalable operations.
Some will not be able or willing to make these transitions owing to grant
dependency in their structures, strategies, and mindsets. Others may wish
to pursue an alternative path and lack the necessary alignment of
incentives to drive the scale of growth required by commercial finance.
A third group may have an appropriate aspiration and mindset but need
relatively large amounts of patient capital and tailored technical
assistance in order to establish the rigorous processes and structures
required to attract commercial debt or investor equity to fuel their future
growth. The transition out of small-scale organic growth often requires
amounts of capital too large for microfinance institutions plus levels of
technical support too intensive for commercial investment funds.
There is wide variation in the reported upper and lower boundaries

for the amount of capital required by SMEs in the missing middle, as
well as other characteristics of SMEs that find themselves in this gap
(Oxfam, 2009; Fernandes et al., 2010; World Bank, 2013; DGGF, 2015;
FSG, 2016; USAID, 2017b). Companies in the missing middle can be
divided into at least two segments based on their capital requirements:
(1) $5,000 to $500,000, and (2) $500,000 to $2 million. The notion of

small and growing businesses (ANDE, 2012) is a valuable additional
factor in identifying companies in the missing middle. However, there
are many other qualitative attributes of a company that can cause it to fall
into the missing middle (ChangeMakers, 2017) including subsector,
geography, position in the value chain, age of company, state of
succession planning, management, and governance processes.
Because there is a healthy expansion of microfinance institutions to
serve the needs of companies in the missing middle needing up to $0.5

million, this chapter focuses on the group requiring more than $0.5
million and on what these firms need to graduate to more commercial
growth phase capital. Experience suggests that the capital needs of this
group can extend to $5 million. The missing middle represents the gap
between angel and seed investors (including family, friends,
microfinance, incubators and accelerators, and grant-funded projects)
versus DFIs and impacts investors (plus commercial banks and other
more commercial investors). This is the space in Europe and the United
States occupied by venture capitalists that is poorly developed and
underpopulated in the global South.
Some funds focus on the missing middle, but not nearly enough, and
they usually cannot provide enough support to portfolio companies to
optimize success. Of the $34 billion in African private equity
transactions between 2007 and 2014, only 2% were in deals below $10
million. Moreover, 60% of investments were concentrated in only three
countries: Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa (IP, 2015).
11.2 Future Priorities for Commercial Investors
Africa is showing positive signs of infrastructural development,

increasing political stability, and a potentially powerful demographic
dividend from a youthful, increasingly educated workforce. However,
the continent represents a great challenge for international investors, not
least because of its highly heterogeneous business environment, its risk

profile, and the paucity of local management talent and market
knowledge. This also means, though, that there is less competition than
in other markets and a substantial undersupply of products, services, and
brands tailored to local consumer and business needs and preferences
(BCG, 2014).
Traditional venture capital and private equity investment structures
are usually based on specific portfolio economics, including a three- to
seven-year hold period before equity shares are sold or companies

complete their initial public offering (IPO) of stock to a public market, as
well as the expectation that a few high performers will compensate for
poor performance elsewhere in the portfolio. Achieving rapid growth can
be challenging in less-developed markets, and timely exits can be
particularly difficult (Bannick et al., 2015). In addition, investment in the
African agriculture sector (particularly production and primary
processing) has a reputation among commercial investors for having a
risk-return imbalance owing to the following inherent factors:
 High costs: Investing in Africa requires substantial staff time for

collecting market and sector data, originating deals, performing due
diligence, and supporting investees (EY, 2014; McKinsey, 2015a;
Hall, 2016).
 Low financial returns: The sector—especially businesses based on
primary production—has low profit margins.
 Long tenor of returns: Much learning and many improvements are
restricted to seasonal cycles, so the rate of optimizing systems and
increasing efficiency to increase value may be slow.
 High failure rates: Many external factors may cause failure,
including unpredictable government policy, climate extremes, value
chain collapse, volatile global prices, and exchange rates.
 Limited deal flow: The difficulty of finding sufficient investable

opportunities and of achieving exits results in a relatively high
illiquidity of investments in this sector.
 Misalignment of incentives: Many SME agribusinesses lack the
mindsets or aspirations that commercial investors look for.
Risk: The commercial investment sector as a whole is not inherently risk

averse, but those who do have an appetite for investing in high-risk
ventures expect investment returns to be proportionate to the risk they
take. Investors in early-stage, high-risk enterprises generally put in place
processes to minimize and mitigate identified risks, with the expectation
that these will enhance operational profits and increase the value of their
investment at the point of sale. Such activities require skill and capital to
implement and are considered an integral part of the additionality that the
private equity model brings, but investors expect to be rewarded for this.
In the agriculture sector, this work often requires substantial context-
specific technical skills and considerable time, yet success may still be
heavily dependent on external factors beyond the control of the business
and investors. As such, it is difficult for investors to accurately estimate
the level of risk they are taking or the appropriate level of investment in
risk mitigation strategies.
Tenor: Investors’ poor perceptions of opportunities in the agriculture

sector are exacerbated by the average hold periods (tenor) of many
investors: 3–5 years for venture capital investors and 3–7 years for
private equity investors, driven by the normal 10-year life of an
investment fund. Direct investments by DFIs may in certain
circumstances employ a more patient approach in order to achieve a
demonstration effect and/or specific development impact goals.
Nevertheless, the average DFI hold period is still in the 5- to 10-year
range. Thus, the whole investment sector has little appetite for the long
tenor needs of the agribusiness sector in Africa.
11.2.1 Constraints to investment
This section looks at the issues underlying investors’ reticence to invest

in the agri-food sector in Africa.
11.2.1.1 Lack of infrastructure

Despite a decade of intensive investment in Africa’s infrastructure, lack

of infrastructure remains a major barrier to entry for commercial
agribusinesses, not least owing to the high costs of transport, bulk water
supply, electricity connections, and feeder roads. Transport costs and
times in Africa are among the highest in the world, hugely constraining
investment, productivity growth, and market integration (ISPC, 2016).
Lack of infrastructure leads to high capital setup costs for any greenfield
start-up and increased risk during the establishment and growth phases.
Poor infrastructure, especially in rural areas, will continue to provide
the overarching constraint to scalable first-mile aggregation and last-mile
distribution in agricultural value chains. Helping SMEs, especially those
associated with primary production by smallholders, strengthen these
first-mile and last-mile functions is a highly effective means of
professionalizing smallholder production, increasing food security, and
enhancing rural incomes and livelihoods. This will also help growth-
phase SMEs drive aggregation in farm size and foster the entire
agribusiness value chain. Development corridors offer one solution to
infrastructure constraints (discussed in more detail in section 11.3.6).
11.2.1.2 Deficiencies in the broader value chain
The diversity and fragmentation of agricultural value chains in Africa are

major reasons for the lack of investment in this sector, particularly at the
production end of the value chain. SMEs that focus on linking
smallholder farmers to processors and traders are highly exposed to
inefficiencies and failures in elements of the broader value chain over
which they do not have direct control. The lack of a supporting network
of service companies (e.g., input suppliers, logistics companies, and rural
finance providers) is particularly severe and further increases operating
costs and risks for pioneering agricultural investors. Even if companies
are in place, they may not be able to deliver the desired quantity or
quality of service or product (BCG, 2014).
Many of the large-scale success stories associated with agricultural
production in Africa, whether driven by large companies or fostered by
DFIs, have had strong vertical integration from production to trade. This
arrangement allows companies to reduce their risk exposure by removing
dependency on partners in the value chain, taking direct control of

quality and quantity of supply from primary production, and capturing
maximum added value. It requires, however, very large upfront
investment and thus represents a barrier to entry for most SMEs. Smaller
investors have tended to sidestep these issues by focusing on processing
companies in urban areas.
Neither approach has made a significant impact on the
professionalization of smallholder agriculture in the region or on
economic development and food security in rural areas. The network of

dependencies within agri-food value chains creates a significant need for
careful coordination and holistic development of any new intervention.
This has led to calls for a focus on building entire agribusiness value
chains, including agricultural infrastructure development and investment
in greenfield start-ups led by professional teams, with SMEs anchored in
smallholder production supported by concessional finance (discussed in
section 11.4).
11.2.1.3 Limited deal flow
A large proportion of the impact investors operating in the agri-food

sector in Africa have insufficient resources or incentives to provide the
intense, tailored support and mentoring that their portfolio companies
need to become attractive to commercial investors. In addition, pre-
investment support is somewhat countercultural to commercial investors
but is often essential for SME agribusinesses to even enter the screening
process of these investors. Consequently, many investors in this space
tend to focus on safe bets. One solution to these problems is the
establishment of grant-funded technical assistance to provide SMEs with
the support they need to become more attractive to more commercial
sources of finance (FSG, 2016).
11.2.1.4 Position on the cost curve
From the 1960s to 1990s, the agriculture portfolios of most DFIs focused
on large-scale cash crop production for export: oil palm, rubber, coffee,
cocoa, tea, sugar, and fruits. More recently Africa has struggled to
remain price competitive in global trade of many of these commodities.
Meanwhile increasing local demand for a range of food commodities

(especially cereals, oilseeds, and sources of animal protein) has outpaced
local supply, leading to annual food imports of over $50 billion across
the region. At the same time, increases in global food commodity prices
(a trend that is forecast to continue) are improving profit margins for
some commodities and making agriculture in general a more attractive
sector for investors. Thus, targeting import substitution in local markets
provides a valuable opportunity for newly established agribusinesses to
establish a foothold while also contributing to broader economic

development by saving national sources of foreign exchange. However,
national governments need to improve the enabling environment for
agribusinesses in ways that enhance their cost-effectiveness of
production rather than trying to implement quick-fix policy changes such
as tariffs and subsidies (Economist, 2016a).
11.2.1.5 Insufficient supply of talent for managing large-scale

agricultural operations
There is a lack of managers with the right skills and experience for large-
scale agribusinesses because neither national governments nor
companies themselves have invested adequately in training and staff
development (BCG, 2014). In addition, once companies attract high-
quality middle managers, it is difficult to retain them given that they are
a scarce resource. However, where companies have invested in training
programs in their local communities, they have seen substantial
commercial benefits (FSG, 2012), partly because this approach offers
cost savings and partly because employing expatriate staff often leads to
a focus on replicating imported business models rather than innovating
tailored solutions.
11.2.1.6 High environment, social, and governance (ESG) risk
Agriculture carries inherently high risks associated with acquisition of

land and water rights, application of labor and working practices, and a
wide range of potential unintended ecological and sociological impacts.
Outgrower programs compound these risks (especially regarding labor
and livelihood issues) given the reduced oversight and influence that
investors have over supply chains managed by investees through
smallholder operations. Business integrity risks in African countries are
also often high, and conducting adequate due diligence to understand
those risks is costly, particularly for greenfield agribusinesses—for
example, regarding policies for interactions with government agents and
relationships with local partners. Most of these issues are not
insurmountable, but companies do need to systemically embed risk
management processes across their organization. In many cases,

operational structures and processes need to be specifically designed to
mitigate foreseen risks as well as quickly address problems when they
arise (BCG, 2014). These are areas where granted-funded technical
assistance can have substantial impact.
11.2.2 Lessons from the past
From the 1940s to the 1990s, the vast majority of equity investments
across Sub-Saharan Africa were driven by the DFIs. Starting in the mid-
1990s, however, there was a flood of unsophisticated commercial
investment where a few high-profile big winners distracted many
observers from the numerous losses elsewhere. Since the financial crisis
there has been more measured and pragmatic growth in the African
private equity sector, where intensive hands-on management and support
of investees is helping to build real value for those with patience.
However, a large proportion of business opportunities are not suitable for
the traditional private equity model. This is particularly true in
agriculture, where a horizon of 15 years or more may be required to
achieve reasonable returns. In these cases, philanthropic foundations,
insurance and pension funds, and wealthy families may be increasingly
important sources of capital. Meanwhile, fully commercial private equity
funds are likely to continue to focus on companies providing goods and
services to the growing middle class across the region. Blended capital
approaches are likely to dominate in the next decade, especially to
demonstrate new models of achieving social impacts in financially
sustainable ways that DFIs can scale up and pass on to more commercial
investors (discussed in section 11.5.1.4).
11.2.2.1 Analysis of CDC’s agriculture investments in Africa

(1948–1998)
CDC’s investments in African agriculture ranged from less than $0.5

million to more than $300 million, with a quarter below $5 million and
less than 20% over $50 million (at 2011 US$ equivalent values). The
majority of investments were considered to have achieved their
development impact goals although they frequently took longer than
expected to realize their financial value. Investments were designated a

financial failure if they lost more than 25% of their equity value and/or
repaid less than half of their debt (Tyler and Dixie, 2013). On this basis,
average failure rates were closely associated with size of investment:
50% for investments under $5 million, 30% for investments of $5–20
million, and 20% for investments greater than $20 million. Around 60%
of failures could be directly linked to flawed plans in terms of agronomic
or economic fundamentals, or bad management. Other investee
companies failed owing to unexpected external shocks such as sudden
changes in global trade or national politics. Analysis of these investments
provides some value lessons (Tyler and Dixie, 2013):
 Macroeconomic due diligence: Informed choice of commodity,

subsector, and geography is fundamentally important for reducing risk
at the individual investment level, but portfolio diversification across
these factors is essential to protect against unexpected external
shocks.
 Agronomic and ESG due diligence: Understanding market demand
dynamics and agronomic fundamentals, as well as consultation with
local communities, is critically important for the success of all
agricultural investments.
 Operating model: Mitigating side selling and including added-value

processing are critical for financial success.
 Cycle timing: It is good to be in a cluster but not to be the pioneer or
early entrant in that cluster as early movers absorb the costs of initial
exploratory investments without capturing proportional benefits.
 Execution optimization: The nucleus farm model offers a good
balance between development impact and financial return and has

been historically less risky as long as production systems are
optimized at the nucleus before out-grower schemes are added.
11.2.3 Current trends and opportunities for the future
11.2.3.1 Choice of country

Those with the financial might are flocking to the biggest markets in
Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, creating strong competition for new
opportunities in these countries. In contrast, there is much less
competition for the low-hanging fruit in other countries, such as Malawi,
Mozambique, and Rwanda (Soltes 2014).
11.2.3.2 Distribution of new agribusiness investments in Africa by

segment
Preliminary analysis of the distribution of recent investments in African

agribusinesses is shown in Table 11.2. Data were highly consistent
between subregions. This distribution reflects the high profit margins of
animal protein production and the lower risk profile of value chain
services businesses, compared with primary production.
Table 11.2. Distribution of recent investments in African agribusinesses.
Share of recent
Agribusiness investments, by
segment Definition value
Plant production Production and primary production: 5–10%
staples, annual and perennial cash crops,
and forestry
Animal protein Cattle and dairy; sheep and goats, etc.; 40–50%
production poultry and eggs; fish
Value chain Seed, feed, chemicals and irrigation, etc.; 40–50%
services trading along (including processing and
storage); food processing alone; retail
alone; beer and wine production
11.2.3.3 Choice of commodity
Analysis of production data across different food commodities for each

subregion of Africa compared with the value of imports of that
commodity in the same region (using data from FAOSTAT, 2016)
provides valuable insight into potential hot spots for investment,
particularly regarding import substitution opportunities.
Staples: Production of rice and wheat in particular is around half of total

demand, with $7.5 billion in imports of rice and $15.9 billion of wheat
(compared with production valued at $8.9 billion and $11.3 billion,
respectively). However, since profit margins are relatively low for these
commodities, it is likely that the best opportunities will be for mega-
farms that can harness significant economies of scale and thereby attain a
strong position on the cost curve compared with global commodity
producers. A number of rice mega-farm developments are already
responding to this opportunity. In contrast, wheat production is more
geographically constrained in the region, but this situation might signal a
long-term need for local breeders to develop wheat varieties adapted to
more eco-regions across the continent. There is a much smaller
opportunity for maize and coarse grains (where import value represents
just a 15–20% shortfall from current production value), whereas for
clonal crops there is a balance between supply and demand (perhaps

owing to lack of international trade in these commodities). However,
general population growth and urbanization are likely to drive substantial
increases in demand for these commodities that may provide good
opportunities for SME farmers located close to towns and smaller cities.
It is also worth noting successes such as the award-winning
Babban Gona in Nigeria, which has a franchise-based approach to

professionalizing smallholder production of cereal crops, including
maize and rice (Skoll, 2017). Babban Gona highlights the existence of
opportunities that fall outside the generalized trends discussed above for
innovative new business models.
Annual cash crops: Annual cash crops are benefiting from all three
macro-factors driving increasing demand (population growth,
urbanization, and an increasing middle class). Given the higher profit

margins of these crops, it is likely that there are good opportunities for all
types of farmers (mega-farms, SME farmers, and smallholders) in these
crops. The most important substitution opportunity is in oilseeds, where
production value is at a similar level to import value ($10.5 billion versus
$8 billion, respectively).
Perennial cash crops: Although total production value for perennial

cash crops is surprisingly low compared with that of the two preceding
groups, there is clearly a massive import substitution opportunity for oil
palm and sugar. Import value for oil palm ($5.8 billion) is significantly
higher than production value ($4.2 billion). The disparity is even wider
for sugar (in fact, the largest for any major agricultural commodity), with
two-thirds of consumption satisfied by imports: production is valued at
$3.7 billion and imports are valued at $7.3 billion. The oil palm industry
has long-established nucleus farm models, so this crop may present a
good opportunity for smallholders, SME farmers, and mega-farms. Since
sugar is labor intensive to produce yet relatively high in value, it may be
a promising crop for all types of farmers, particularly given the scale of
the import substitution opportunity.
Animal protein: Compared with all other commodity groups, the

livestock sector offers much greater total value and higher profit
margins. This value will be enhanced by all three macro-factors driving
increasing demand (population growth, urbanization, and increasing
middle class). The private sector has long since recognized these trends,
and meat production has become a primary focus for investors in the
agri-food sector (as shown in Table 11.2). Import substitution

opportunities are relatively low in the red meat sector, except for
supplying North Africa, and in poultry/eggs (imports are worth $2.9
billion for red meat and $2.5 billion for poultry/eggs). Such opportunities
are significantly larger in the fish and dairy sectors (with imports valued
at $5.3 billion and $5.2 billion, respectively). However, the price
elasticity of demand for red meat compared with poultry and eggs is
leading to increasing substitution of the latter among the poor. Strong
growth in SMEs associated with poultry and eggs is already addressing

this opportunity, but such growth is not occurring for fish, which remains
an undertapped investment opportunity. Given the large environmental
footprint of red meat production, substitution with alternative sources of
protein will be a substantial opportunity during the coming decades.
11.3 Creating Shared Value in African Agriculture
11.3.1 Development thesis of impact investors
Africa has built the fundamentals for strong structural growth, but the
scale of job creation is below the rate of population growth. As such, it is
not a given that countries across the region will be able to capitalize on
their strong potential demographic dividend and increasing domestic
demand. Moreover there is a serious threat that in the absence of faster
economic growth and institutional development, poverty and social
instability will rise significantly in the coming decades (ISS, 2017).
Africa’s growth needs to be more inclusive, and agriculture has a huge
role to play here. Small growing businesses, which are key to large-scale
job-creation in Africa, need more help (IP, 2015; BSDC, 2017).
11.3.1.1 Agricultural development
More than 2 billion people depend on smallholder agriculture, but the

returns on their labor are insufficient to pull them out of poverty (Hazell
and Rahma, 2014). Three-quarters of the world’s 1.4 billion extremely
poor people live in rural areas (Oxfam, 2009), and agriculture provides
employment for 60–80% of the population in Africa (Oxfam, 2009;

Banerjee and Duflo, 2011; DFID, 2015a, 2017). It is widely agreed that
the poorest stand to benefit significantly more from agriculture growth
than from growth in other sectors of the economy (DFID, 2014).
DFID’s Conceptual Framework on Agriculture highlights the need
for professionalization of agriculture to improve national food security
and human nutrition; to enhance rural opportunities, incomes, and
livelihoods; and to reduce urban migration. The agriculture sector
generates employment (including for women) and economic opportunity

in rural areas, and investors may deliver important sustainable production
benefits through the use of good farming and production practices and
adherence to international standards and best practice. However, it is
expected that a significant portion of those currently engaged in
agriculture will ultimately move to urban areas or into other sectors
(DFID, 2015a).
There is consistent evidence of the link between investment in
agriculture and broad economic growth in Africa, but few investors are
committed to working with early-stage businesses with exposure to
primary agricultural production, especially those including smallholders
(DFID, 2014). Yet working with smallholders and SMEs offers the
opportunity to develop tailored and niche solutions to Africa’s
agricultural diversity. In addition, there is an immediate need to create
opportunities for rural livelihoods to lessen the rate of urbanization
across the region.
11.3.1.2 Rural job creation
Less than one-fifth of working-age adults in Sub-Saharan Africa have

access to a regular wage-paying job. The poorest countries in the region
already face serious social tensions resulting from demographic pressures
and climate change. Recent political crises in West and Central Africa
have often been rooted in young people’s economic hardships and their
struggles to find employment (IP, 2015). Evidence from South Asia
suggests that large-scale job creation has in general led to a dramatic
decline in poverty levels in the region (ANDE, 2012).
Research suggests that although SMEs generate only 20–50% of
GDP, they contribute approximately 66–84% of total full-time

employment and up to 86% of new jobs (Banerjee and Duflo, 2011;
World Bank, 2011; IFC, 2013a; DGGF, 2015; IP, 2015). It is important
to recognize, however, that not all employment delivers the same
development impact. Not only the level of income, but the variability of
income characterizes the lives of the poor. Regularity of formal sector
wages enables a family to save money and plan for the future and
improves their access to credit, housing, and children’s education. It is
the larger SMEs (with 50–200 workers) that tend to offer higher wages,
more stable incomes, and in many cases better working conditions. Thus,
as with smallholders, it is important to recognize that achieving different
development goals entails targeting different subgroups of SMEs.
More than 60 percent of Africans are under 25, and roughly 350
million young people will enter the labor force between now and 2035.
By 2040, Africa will have a larger working-age population than China or
India (BCG, 2014). Even under the most optimistic projections, wage
jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa will absorb only 25 percent of these 350
million workers. Farming and self-employment will have to provide
gainful employment for at least 70 percent of young Africans entering
the labor force until at least 2030. Unfortunately, agriculture is
not currently attractive to young people because earnings in the sector
are too low and farming is not seen as profitable (AfDB, 2013a). To be
more attractive, the smallholder sector needs to be professionalized, and
rural areas need greater scope for capturing added value through
processing.
11.3.1.3 Development of the agri-food sector
Grant-based approaches to agricultural development have been pursued

in many countries across Africa but have struggled to create a
competitive and sustainable network of agribusinesses. This is at least in

part because such efforts are too fragmented in time and space, and the
incentives driving development goals are insufficiently aligned with
those driving the private sector.
Inclusive businesses involving smallholders have a particularly high
development impact. Supporting smallholder access to markets and
productivity-enhancing inputs improves the livelihoods of small-scale

farming families, creates on-farm jobs for others, and drives up rural
incomes. This approach also contributes to a dynamic rural agribusiness
network by creating a range of entrepreneurial opportunities in
agricultural value chains, including provision of inputs to smallholder
production and value-added processing.
There are situations where mega-farms and vertical integration have
proven to be financially sustainable and able to capture significant
economies of scale. However, these situations are still relatively rare and
likely to remain a small proportion of the total area. Thus indigenous
SMEs will need to play a major role in addressing the overall food
security and rural development challenge of the region through their
production, processing, and services.
11.3.2 Key agricultural development models
Two approaches for harnessing agribusinesses and investors appear to

have particularly good potential for transforming the African agricultural
sector and associated rural communities over the coming decades:
 value-chain clusters including the broader supporting

environment, the creation of shared value, and analysis of
product life-cycle costs; we look in detail at Nestlé’s cocoa
initiative in West Africa; and
 infrastructure development corridors including nucleus farms

and associated out-grower programs; we look in detail at the
SAGCOT corridor in Southern Africa.
Both offer opportunities for balancing commercial sustainability and

large-scale social impact. Both might be considered different approaches
to creating shared value (CSV), although the concept evolved out of the
broader cluster model. Indeed, the corridors and nucleus farm model
might be thought of as an agriculture-specific evolution of the original
CSV concept. Neither provides a panacea or a blueprint, but both provide
useful frameworks for evaluating constraints and opportunities and

designing tailored solutions.
It is important to stress that approaches involving the private sector
can only be expected to have impact on a portion of the array of
challenges facing the rural poor in low-income countries. It is useful in
this respect to consider the different strategies for economic development
of different segments of the rural poor (Dorward et al., 2009; DFID,
2015a):
 Hanging in: Investing in agriculture as a holding strategy during the

economic development and urbanization transition processes,
alongside interventions to promote mobility, while individuals hold
assets and carry out activities in order to maintain their current
livelihood levels.
 Stepping up: Promoting growth in commercial agriculture and

agribusiness through investments in assets and activities that increase
production, raise incomes, create agri-food–sector jobs, and lower
food prices, enabling individuals to improve their livelihood levels.
 Stepping out: Promoting labor-intensive growth in manufacturing

and services, where individuals invest in assets that enable growth in
the rural nonfarm economy, leading to higher and/or more stable
incomes, promoting good health and nutrition, and enabling new
connections within and between regions.
This chapter is focused on the “stepping-up” group, where the UK

Department for International Development (DFID) emphasizes the need
for a strong enabling environment, together with the application of
technology and innovation, to drive productivity and value addition
(DFID, 2015a). The African Development Bank highlights seven

essential enablers for this group (AfDB, 2016b):
1. increase productivity through better input systems and reduced

postharvest waste;
2. enhance investment and incentive mechanisms for value addition;
3. increase investment in soft and hard infrastructure;

4. develop an enabling environment through better policies and
regulations;
5. catalyze capital flows to scale up SME agribusinesses;
6. ensure inclusivity, sustainability, and effective nutrition where the
market does not; and
7. coordinate and bridge actors to the stage where the private sector
crowds in.
11.3.3 Value-chain clusters and creating shared value
Clusters are concentrations of industries most commonly arising when

lack of information flow and/or the absence of coordination of activities
between one or more of the following is rate limiting for the entire value
chain:
 Knowledge spillovers: need to access outputs from specialized

institutions
 Skills: labor market pooling is critical
 Input-output linkages: value chain relationships are rate limiting
 Technology synergies: interaction between innovators and users is
crucial
 Access to institutions: trade organizations and local government are
rate limiting
Clusters are not defined by physical proximity but by interaction

between members of the value chain wherever they are. A growing body
of empirical literature (reviewed by Delgado et al., 2014a) has shown
that clusters are associated with cost or productivity advantages for
industries, as well as job creation, technology development, and new
business formation. By sharing, members of clusters can operate more

efficiently and innovate faster (Delgado et al., 2014b), enabling business
growth and social impact at scale (FSG, 2012).
11.3.3.1 Fostering clusters and enhancing entire value chains

Value chain–based clusters bring together related businesses, suppliers,

service providers, and institutions (such as academic programs, trade
associations, and standards organizations). These organizations all have
essential roles to play in each other’s success, yet they work more often
in opposition than in alignment. This may be due to competitive forces,
but often it occurs simply because the relationship and its associated
bottlenecks are effectively invisible to them. When all members of a
value chain take a more systems-based approach, everyone can gain.
Thus, clusters can help improve productivity, innovation, and

competitiveness through collective action that leads to a positive cycle of
economic progress. This same approach can be applied to achieve
“collective social impact,” but all players in the value chain must
implement a common agenda, share a common measurement system, and
coordinate mutually reinforcing activities. A dedicated “backbone” of
coordination and facilitation support from one or more of the
organizations is required to ensure that all groups remain aligned and
informed (Porter and Kramer, 2011).
To support cluster development, companies need to identify gaps and
deficiencies among those operating in the target value chains. Companies
that do not carry out this type of analysis are prone to developing isolated
interventions and overlooking critical complementary investments.
Single-point interventions often fail because they ignore interrelated
obstacles or omissions that need to be addressed at the same time.
However, multipoint interventions are often beyond the capacity of any
one organization to implement (BSDC, 2017). Thus, shared value
initiatives allow pooling of resources, and insight from different
perspectives, to simultaneously initiate improvements across the entire
value chain for the benefit of all participants. In addition, corporate
pragmatism, accountability, and data-driven decision making can cut
through the red tape and ideological disagreements that often reduce the
efficiency and momentum of governments and NGOs. Nevertheless, for

optimum operation of the cluster, members must not attempt to lead or
control but instead must focus on providing the necessary impetus and
ensuring that each participant’s perspective and interests are taken into
consideration and used to forge a common understanding of the problems
and the way forward.
Governments can adopt an enabling role in cluster development, but

impact at scale will occur only if all players across the value chain are
well aligned and functionally connected. This is particularly important
for inclusive engagement of primary agricultural production. In this
respect, commodity-trading firms may be highly suited to play the role of
value-chain coordinators. The scale and reach of these companies is
enormous—for example, the top five commodity trading firms (ADM,
Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, and Glencore Xtrata) control more than
70% of global grain trade. Traditionally these companies have

maintained an arm’s-length distance from producers (IFC, 2013b).
However, this is changing in response to increasing pressure from key
customers for assured supply of product complying with an increasing
array of food safety and quality parameters, and more recently the
increasing demand from consumers for supply-chain tracking of
environment, social and governance (ESG) performance. In response, the
leading commodity-trading companies have intensified their vertical
integration and increasingly operate as global cross-sector value-chain
managers (Clapp, 2015). This provides an enormous opportunity for
these companies to drive shared value across their value chains.
11.3.3.2 Creating shared value (CSV) through reconnecting

business and society
Outsourcing and offshoring have distanced companies from

communities. As the role of the state has declined, the public has become
increasingly concerned that companies are prospering at the expense of
the broader community. Thus, in 2011, Porter and Kramer
conceptualized “creating shared value” (CSV), where productivity in the
value chain is redefined to minimize environmental impacts and
maximize the viability of key players along the value chain and in the
communities where the products are produced and sold. Shared value is
central to a holistic mindset, where efforts to support players across the
target value chain and to engage with stakeholders generate benefits for
the company making those investments. In Africa, companies also need
to align with the national government’s economic development
objectives by helping countries achieve their Sustainable Development
Goals while making long-term, sustainable, but modest profit margins

(BCG, 2014; PRI, 2017).
11.3.3.3 Responding to growing resource constraints
Political leaders have attempted to set policies to address the imbalance

between business incentives and social and environment well-being, but
these policies often have unintended consequences that undermine
competiveness and sap economic growth. Meanwhile, charitable

foundations have often struggled to achieve the scale of social progress
to which they aspire. Resource scarcity creates opportunities to develop
substitute materials or to recover materials from waste, particularly for
new entrants to a sector who are not constrained by the assets and
mindsets of the previous paradigm. Thus environmental sustainability is
likely to be one of the biggest sources of future business success and is
already one of the most significant trends in financial markets, with more
than 20% of global assets already managed in a sustainable and
responsible manner (Clark et al., 2015).
11.3.3.4 Responding to consumer demands
Shared-value approaches can help businesses build trust with the public
in a way that also enhances the long-term success of the company. The
shared-value concept gives companies a framework to justify their
actions to both communities and shareholders based on a win-win
strategy. A company operates in a business ecosystem where societal
conditions may curtail its markets or restrict the productivity of its
suppliers or distributors. Companies cannot thrive in communities that
are not succeeding. Even where smallholders raise their levels of output,
this increase does not necessarily lead to better outcomes for household
nutrition, food security, or economic development. Shared value focuses

on ensuring mutual progress of both the company and the broader value
chain in which the company operates, across diverse types of capital:
human, natural, physical, and social, as well as financial (IFC, 2013b).
When companies broaden their vision in this way, they quickly realize
that they have been missing fundamental opportunities to create value
and competitive advantage by serving new needs, gaining efficiencies,

creating differentiation, and expanding markets (Porter and Kramer,
2011).
11.3.3.5 Focusing on sustainable growth
The long-term competitiveness of a company and the long-term health of

the communities around it are closely intertwined. The concept of shared
value blurs the line between for-profit and nonprofit organizations and
supersedes corporate social responsibility (CSR). Many MNCs believe
that shared value could be the key to unlocking the next wave of business
innovation and growth. Critical to this is that purpose need not arise out
of a sense of charity but can be more sustainably driven out of a deeper
understanding of competition and economic value creation. Shared value
is not philanthropy but self-interested behavior to create economic value
by creating societal value. The CSV framework was developed through a
series of studies over a period of nearly a decade, where corporate
philanthropic activities were found to generate more economic benefits
for the business when they were more closely related to the company’s
activities (Porter and Kramer, 2002). When a company uses a value-
chain approach to chart all the social consequences of its activities, it
concomitantly creates an inventory of potential problems and
opportunities (Porter and Kramer, 2006). Companies can use this
approach to avoid short-term behavior that is socially detrimental or
environmentally wasteful in order to achieve long-term economic
performance. It has now been shown that that this approach can generate
substantial financial gains for the business while also generating
significant benefits to society (Kramer and Pfitzer, 2016).
11.3.3.6 Mega-farms
Mega-farms are farm units larger than 1,000 ha—typically 5,000–10,000

ha, but occasionally larger. At this scale, many uncertainties related to
poorly developed local value chains can be cost-effectively addressed by
in-house services and vertical integration with processing, marketing,
and logistics. Mega-farms capture economies of scale through financing,

infrastructure, technology, and bargaining power for the price of inputs
and outputs. Some mega-farms also develop smallholder out-grower
schemes, but the most important development opportunity presented by
mega-farms is job creation and efficient production of low-margin
staples for large-scale import substitution. Mega-farms can also offer
important opportunities for testing, adapting, and demonstrating
sustainable intensification methods in local environments. Moreover,
mega-farms have the opportunity to create substantial shared value

within their value chains.
11.3.3.7 CSV and smallholders
The public in high-income countries is demanding increasing levels of

information on the sources and safety of products and on the
management of social and environmental issues in product supply chains
(IFC, 2013b). Many leading consumer brands are responding to these
new demands by embracing the CSV approach, demonstrating how
social outcomes directly drive tangible business value creation (FSG,
2012), and providing increased traceability and transparency in the food
system (FSG, 2015). It seems inevitable that governments will ultimately
develop legislation on product labeling in this area, and a substantial
portion of food trade in the coming decades will compete on
sustainability issues (Simons, 2015). This represents a significant
opportunity for balancing longer-term, sustainability-related risks with
more short-term financial decision-making.
11.3.3.8 Critical role of partnering
The private sector has the power to address many international

development challenges by bringing resources to bear at scale and
leveraging market presence. Businesses are often far more effective than
governments and NGOs at marketing that motivates customers to
embrace products and services that create societal benefits. But the target
market must be clearly defined so companies can appropriately tailor the
design of their business model from the outset. Businesses can then
understand how many people are affected by that problem and the
economics and other issues involved in solving it (Pfitzer et al., 2013).

Conversely, companies will be less successful if they attempt to tackle
societal problems on their own, especially those associated with cluster
development. Major competitors may also need to work together within
an agreed-upon precompetitive framework, something that has not been
common in reputation-driven CSR initiatives. In addition, improving
environmental sustainability will require action from both supply and
demand sides. Here, governments have an important role to play, and
PPPs may provide the best framework for collective action (KPMG,
2012).
11.3.3.9 Product life-cycle cost analysis
Major food companies have tremendous direct and indirect impacts on

the health, social, and environmental conditions of consumers and
communities through their global value chains, product design,
ingredient choice, and advertising. Calculating the total cost of a
product’s life cycle requires engaging producers, processors, distributors,
consumers, government, and civil society. Life-cycle analysis includes
costs borne by the firm that sells the product or service, the user, and any
third-party agent activities associated with the consequences of that
product across time, including the following:
 producers: costs of design, production, and marketing

 distributors: costs of transport, storage, and sale
 consumers: costs of purchase, use, and maintenance
 waste companies: costs of dealing with packaging, byproducts of use,
and product disposal
This is a refinement of so-called triple-bottom-line accounting

(environmental, social, and economic) and is based on the principle that
many types of capital are not visible in a company’s financial accounts,
so it is difficult for the firm to consider trade-offs between them and their
financial capital assessments (Fiedler et al., 2017). Recent analysis of
agricultural production has quantified the top three external costs not
reflected in the sale price of food products as water use, water pollution,
and energy use (True Price, 2016). These three factors constitute nearly
70% of the unpaid environmental and social costs of global food
production.
Life-cycle analysis helps companies avoid negative externalities and
risks and helps promote innovation, efficiency, and reputation. Once
social and environmental costs can be accurately monitored, they can
often be dramatically reduced. Moreover, it is expected that the market
will increasingly reward positive social and environmental impact

through premium prices for products or services or through more
valuable market opportunities (BSDC, 2017). Thus the expected effect of
these interventions is a lower total life-cycle cost due to a smaller true
price gap, but also improved profit margins and higher volumes of sales
(True Price, 2014).
11.3.3.10 Legislation and labeling
There are currently two major opportunities for using legislation to

leverage impact valuation: public procurement and eco-labeling. Public
procurement policies often require contracts to be awarded on the basis
of best value, but including life-cycle analysis in that value judgment can
have substantial direct impacts and demonstration effects. Government
regulations can enhance shared value goals and stimulate innovation.
They can set prices for resources (such as water) that reflect true costs.
The right kind of regulation can foster economic value creation and
enhance the functioning of markets. Ultimately it is expected that
government legislation will require polluters to pay the real costs of their
activities. Meanwhile, some sectors already regulate themselves
voluntarily (often driven by consumer demand), speeding the adoption of
these approaches in some sectors and geographies (Fiedler et al., 2017).
11.3.3.11 Power of the market
As middle-class income levels increase, consumers can spend more on

the quality, social impact, and environmental sustainability of products
(True Price, 2014). Eco-labeling, for example, allows consumers to
change their food-buying, consumption, and waste habits in return for
healthier diets or better environmental impacts and social costs (Fiedler

et al., 2017). As consumer demand and government legislation intensify,
so in turn will pressure from shareholders and investors. This internal
drive for accurate reporting of these factors may ultimately be matched
by government legislation requiring such reporting alongside financial
audits. Governments may also attempt to leverage life-cycle costing to
encourage positive change in consumer behavior, thereby improving
demand factors (and not just supply factors).
11.3.3.12 Reporting standards
The area that currently requires greatest attention is the standardization

of analyses (methodologies and assumptions), so that results can be
compared across products, companies, production methods, and time
(Fiedler et al., 2017). The International Integrated Reporting Committee
(IIRC) is establishing standards for linking a company’s social and
environmental impact to its financial statements. Puma, for example, has
created an “Environmental Profit and Loss Statement,” which includes a
notional cost for greenhouse gas emissions and water use in its supply
chain, thereby reflecting full life-cycle costs in its financial statements.
Eventually, governments could tax these externalities to encourage
companies to better manage these costs (FSG, 2012). Once a transparent
reporting standard has been established and broadly adopted, experience
from other sectors shows that market forces drive a race to the top in
terms of performance toward those global goals (BSDC, 2017).
11.3.4 CocoaAction: Using CSV to regenerate a sector reliant

on smallholders
Hundreds of projects have sought to improve the cocoa sector by raising

yields and smallholder incomes—some with annual budgets over $10
million and targeting more than 100,000 smallholders. Few, however,

have taken a concerted holistic approach, and owing to competition
within and between companies, NGOs, and development organizations,
many have not coordinated their approaches and consequently had little
or no sustained impact on smallholder livelihoods (Hütz-Adams et al.,
2016). Moreover, these projects have not addressed the structural
deficiencies in the cocoa value chain, which lacks sustainability. Many

farmers are locked in a cycle of low productivity, low incomes, and little
opportunity to invest in their farms (Hütz-Adams et al., 2016).
Certification alone is insufficient to provide a better future for cocoa
farmers. Fair-trade certification has only marginal benefits for farmers,
who remain trapped in the low value-added segment of the cocoa value
chain with little bargaining power to influence price. There is no direct
relationship between farmgate prices and cocoa producers’ cost
structures—prices are driven largely by supply and demand factors:

global production (mainly affected by weather) and storage volumes
(largely held by traders) (Hütz-Adams et al., 2016; Harris, 2016).
Consequently, the long-term rise of chocolate prices has not lifted prices
for cocoa producers. In fact, the inflation-adjusted average price of cocoa
fell from $4,000 per tonne in 1950 to less than $2,000 per tonne in 2015
(LMC, 2016).
11.3.4.1 Key constraints for smallholders
Many cocoa farmers do not have the resources to invest in the assets and
activities that would enable them to “step up” their incomes and
livelihoods. Replacing old and unproductive cocoa trees offers potential
for increasing cocoa productivity, but tenure insecurity discourages
landlords from allowing tenants to replant trees. In addition, high costs
and the long period before production starts inhibits most small-scale
farmers from accessing loans or credit for tree replacement (Hütz-Adams
et al., 2016; USAID, 2017a). It is reported that establishing a new
plantations costs approximately $12,500 per hectare, and nearly double
that if irrigation is included (Hütz-Adams et al., 2016).
11.3.4.2 Applying a CSV approach to the cocoa sector
Industry experts predict that without major interventions there could be a

severe global shortage in the supply of cocoa within 10 years (Harris,
2016). The cocoa community has realized that its fragmented,
competitive approach cannot address the underlying structural problems
in the cocoa sector. Cocoa farming, particularly in West Africa, needs

rebuilding. This challenge is too big for any single company, but if
achieved it would substantially benefit all members of the value chain.
Hence, resolving the complex and systemic problems threatening the
sustainability of the sector has become a non-competitive issue
representing an ideal opportunity for creating shared value. CocoaAction
was created in 2014 as a pre-competitive space for cooperation,
collaboration, coordination, and pooling of resources among competitors
and stakeholders focusing on a mutually agreed-upon holistic approach

(Pfitzer et al., 2013; CocoaAction, 2016; Hütz-Adams et al., 2016).
11.3.4.3 Performance to date
CocoaAction has made good progress on facilitating agreed-upon plans,

monitoring structures, and standards. The overarching challenge for this
program, however, is to scale up implementation activities to a level that
can have transformational impact on smallholders across the sector.
Investors remain an important yet underrepresented element of the cocoa
value chain and must be brought into the dialogue if large-scale
rehabilitation investment and inclusive business models are to be rolled
out at scale. Investors can also play a role in bringing about changes in
company behavior. For example, companies with high ESG performance
tend to have lower costs of capital, because addressing sustainability
issues is widely agreed to lower the risk profile of a company (Visser,
2017).
11.3.4.4 Dealing with price volatility
There is no evidence that concentration of companies in the cocoa value

chain has put additional pressure on farmgate prices. However, cocoa-
producing countries would have much more power to influence the
market price if they had high-quality storage for large volumes of raw
beans. In addition, farmer cooperatives need to develop approaches to
protect their members from price volatility to parallel the effect that
traders and chocolate manufacturers achieve through hedging
mechanisms (Hütz-Adams et al., 2016).
11.3.4.5 Capturing value from downstream processing
Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana aim to develop a large-scale industrial in-

country processing sector by introducing tax incentives and subsidies,
including export-free zones (EFZs). However, the scale of job creation in
modern and highly mechanized cocoa-processing plants is limited and
may be insufficient to justify the loss of tax revenues (Hütz-Adams et al.,
2016). Rather, a balanced combination of subsidies and tax incentives
should be targeted at inclusive vertically integrated business models

associated with grinding facilities and production of artisan chocolate
and other cocoa products. This would encourage entrepreneurs to
develop innovative triple-bottom-line business models in this space.
Cocoa collectives could enhance smallholder incomes through an equity
share in downstream value-capture activities: grinding, processing, and
retail (Harris, 2016). In addition, there are opportunities for local SMEs
to capture value from the 80% fresh weight of the cocoa pod that is
discarded after cocoa bean extraction.
11.3.5 YieldWise: Reducing postharvest losses across Africa
Postharvest food loss is a large, urgent, but addressable problem. Fruits

and vegetables account for nearly half of all food loss worldwide (IFC,
2013b). Yet the majority of agricultural research investments over the
past 30 years have been directed at increasing productivity; only 5%
have been aimed at reducing food loss. This disparity is starting to be
addressed in response to growing public awareness of the losses at
various stages along the food value chain (FSG, 2015).
In the global South, these losses are particularly severe because
markets are complex, supply chains are fragmented, and infrastructure is
suboptimal (FSG, 2015). In Sub-Saharan Africa, 30–50% of food
production is lost at some point along the value chain (Dalberg, 2017).
However, past attempts to reduce food loss in rural supply chains have
struggled to achieve impact because they tended to focus on just one
point in the supply chain. CSV initiatives are inherently suited to
addressing this type of challenge, and they have the potential to generate
substantial financial benefits for all members of the supply chain as well
as reducing food insecurity.
11.3.5.1 Improving supply chains for smallholders
Small-scale producers are rarely able to efficiently aggregate products to

reach the volumes that buyers seek. Conversely, large buyers are reticent
to source from smallholders because of the challenges of obtaining
consistent, high-quality supply at the right volumes and the right times.
This situation creates large supply and demand fluctuations and price
volatility that discourages investment in postharvest loss–reducing
technologies and practices in smallholder value chains.
The Rockefeller Foundation launched YieldWise in 2016 as a $130
million, seven-year initiative to reduce postharvest food losses in Africa
by building a shared value partnership system. Initial emphasis was
placed on convening multiple perspectives and aligning interests. The
foundation has helped project partners create a common language and
understanding of the problem and then use this to develop a mutually
agreed-upon strategy (FSG, 2015, 2016).
The Rockefeller Foundation has played the key role of system
integrator, knowledge disseminator, and advocate for donors and the
private sector to incorporate food loss as a primary driver and to co-
create innovative solutions. Initial projects are working with 20,000
tomato farmers in Nigeria, 30,000 mango farmers in Kenya, and 50,000
maize farmers in Tanzania. To achieve this, Rockefeller Foundation has
built value-chain partnerships with companies such as Coca-Cola,
Dangote Farms, AGCO-GSI (storage and solar-powered cold chain), and
Meru Greens (exporter) (FSG, 2015).
11.3.5.2 MNC value chains in perspective
The largest commodity trading firms (Cargill, ADM, and Glencore

Xtrata), each with annual revenues of more than $50 billion, operate at a
vast scale. Indeed, the top five companies in this sector control more than
70% of global grain trade. The leading agricultural input companies
(BASF, Dow, and Bayer), each with annual revenues of about $50
billion, operate on a similar scale. Although there is tremendous
opportunity for creating shared value across MNC-dominated value
chains based on production in Africa, the strategies and visions are
highly influenced by MNCs’ constraining economics: to capture
sufficient economies of scale, an MNC needs to focus on a small number
of large highly homogeneous markets. In contrast, many agricultural
production and markets in Africa are highly heterogeneous, and the
associated value chains are insufficiently large or homogenous to catch

the attention of most MNCs. In contrast, SMEs, as a group, are well
suited to providing the mosaic of solutions to the heterogeneous
challenges of smallholder agriculture in Africa. In addition, SMEs will
be the engine of rural job creation more broadly. However, the challenge
of supporting the growth of these SMEs is substantially harder and more
complex than building partnerships with MNCs.
11.3.6 Development corridors and nucleus farms
Growth corridors, also known as spatial development initiatives (SDIs),

were conceptualized to provide the physical backbone of transport
infrastructure for a range of industries and are often developed along
historical transport connections across the continent (ISPC, 2016). Many
high-income countries and emerging economies have used this model to
good effect. Strong government support (both financial and regulatory) is
important to help establish a corridor, but once a threshold density of
production companies and service providers is reached, this critical mass
will in itself be a key attraction to others to join (FAO, 2014).
National governments across Africa and international development
agencies are investing heavily in development corridors, which are
widely considered an important tool for inclusive economic development
including in the agriculture sector. Over 30 growth corridors are being

developed or planned across the region (Weng et al., 2013). Efforts are
also being made to leverage infrastructure funded by the minerals
industry to broaden corridor-related opportunities across sectors and
geographies. This includes connecting these transport systems to farms,
input providers, storage facilities, and agri-food markets (ISPC, 2016).
Connecting previously fragmented value chains can have enormous

benefits for the efficiency and development of the agricultural sector in
that region. Research by the Asian Development Bank has reported
significant economic impacts of corridors (in the Mekong region and
elsewhere in China) on smallholders, including increased and diversified
incomes through enhanced access to markets and credit plus improved
landownership (ADB, 2008a, 2008b).
Africa is already estimated to be spending more than $45 billion a
year on infrastructure, of which more than two-thirds is domestically

funded. However, corridors offer the opportunity to focus and coordinate
that investment, align it with government strategy, and use this focus and
profile to leverage additional external investment. There is an implicit
expectation that national governments will develop supportive policies
and regulatory frameworks to help the corridors become established and
grow. When all these factors converge, a dynamic business environment
can develop along the corridor that enhances productivity and value
addition, as well as harnessing synergies between sectors. Where
corridors stretch across countries they create an incentive for
harmonizing regional policies, regulatory frameworks, and technical
standards and for increasing cross-border trade (ACMA, 2017).
The agri-food system of every country is made up of a complex set of
interdependent entities. For the system to operate well, all of its entities
must work efficiently and effectively. Constraints or failures in one part
of the system will affect the performance of other parts of the system
(Hesterman, 2011). Thus, agricultural development is essentially a
“weakest-link” challenge, in which each individual player depends on
many others to succeed (McKinsey, 2015a). Large companies have
attempted to circumvent this problem through extensive vertical
integration of mega-farms, in-house support services and logistics,
processing, and trading. Because of the highly heterogeneous nature of
agriculture across the region and the limited state of infrastructure on

multiple levels, these efforts have been successful in only a few locations
in Africa and for just a few commodities. For sector-wide improvements,
national governments need a more holistic and inclusive approach:
investing in the pioneers but also strengthening the weakest and hardest-
to-reach links. This is not to advocate waiting for everything to be fixed
at the same time—getting started and learning along the way are equally
important—but this should be pursued based on a holistic perspective
that takes account of all potential factors that may influence the success
of individual businesses.
Infrastructure is considered one of the most important constraints to
agribusiness development in more than two-thirds of African countries
(Linklaters, 2015). Corridors are a way of strengthening the entire
agribusiness value chains for the benefit of all players by concentrating
agricultural industries and other relevant institutions from across the

value chain. This approach is expected to increase the competitiveness of
businesses and enhance delivery of public services. Once agricultural
corridors reach a critical mass of value networks among sector actors,
they can fuel evolution of agricultural development in the region at
unprecedented rates (FAO, 2014).
Besides inadequate transport and logistics infrastructure, most
agricultural production systems in Africa suffer from other weak links,
including lack of affordable access to input and output markets and
finance plus a poor regulatory environment (Jenkins, 2012). Corridor
investments in soft (regulatory issues) and hard infrastructure can help
overcome coordination failures and bottlenecks and improve market
linkages. In addition, the convergence of investment power offers the
opportunity to address multiple bottlenecks at the same time and improve
the overall enabling environment. Thus, some corridors have expanded
their focus to include linking smallholder farmers to large-scale farms,
which can provide a backbone of supply-chain predictability for small-
scale farmers in terms of both affordable access to inputs and
competitive access to markets. Corridors can also link different agro-
ecological zones—for example, connecting areas of surplus production
(or unexploited regions) to areas with a deficit of production (ISPC,
2016).
11.3.6.1 The Southern Agricultural Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT)
Agricultural statistics for Tanzania are characterized by stark contrasts.

Only 24% of Tanzania’s 44 million hectares of arable land is currently
under production (Jenkins, 2012), yet the agriculture sector receives less
than 5% of foreign direct investment (DFID, 2012). Around 95% of the
currently farmed area in the corridor is managed by smallholders, with

just 5% in the hands of about 20 large commercial farmers. Only 5% of
smallholders in the SAGCOT area use mechanized tools or ox plows
(CCAFS, 2014; DFID, 2012; FAO, 2014).
Yara introduced the agricultural growth corridor concept in 2008, and
the next year the Tanzanian government launched its plan for a corridor
from Dar Es Salaam to northern Malawi, Zambia, and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC) reaching many of Tanzania’s main food
production areas. SAGCOT was designed as a market-driven, private

sector–led, public-private partnership (PPP) agricultural growth initiative
with a primary goal of lifting smallholders out of poverty (Jenkins,
2012). The corridor has a particular focus on building clusters around
nucleus farms and out-grower schemes, storage and processing facilities,
and access to infrastructure (roads, water, and energy).
The corridor has brought together players with distinct but
interdependent interests as a mechanism for addressing constraints across
the agri-food sector in a coherent and coordinated way. The target
outcomes of SAGCOT are to bring an additional 350,000 ha under
production (an increase of more than 15% of the current 2 million ha),
create 420,000 jobs, lift more than 2 million people out of poverty, and
generate annual revenues of $1.2 billion by 2030. The total investment
required for this corridor is expected to exceed $3 billion, of which one-
third will come from public sources while the other two-thirds should
come from participating private enterprises. Approximately half of the
investment will be focused on the agriculture sector (FAO, 2014).
Catalyzing large volumes of responsible private investment is perhaps
the most important critical success factor for a corridor, especially during
the early stages. Private investment in the SAGCOT corridor is
increasing (DFID, 2015b). In addition, important policy reforms have
already been made for rice and sugar markets; the government has ended
its export ban, waived taxes on irrigation equipment, eliminated a crop

tax, generated new land-use plans, and spent more than $200 million
modernizing the port. There are currently more than 50 partners
(including agribusinesses, development partners, NGOs, and farmer
associations) across agri-food value chains including the postharvest
subsector: processing, storage, and packaging (FAO, 2014). Meanwhile,
aid agencies have financed road building and facilitated farmer co-ops,
while Yara has focused its direct investment on port infrastructure and
agro-dealer networks (Kramer and Pfitzer, 2016).
Members of a corridor should benefit from a number of activities
carried out on behalf of the collective, such as awareness raising,
building of a shared vision, and positioning. These should benefit
individual businesses in terms of fund raising, operational efficiency, and
ability to link to markets (Jenkins, 2012).
SAGCOT puts particular emphasis on synergistic relationships

between large estates and smallholders, and on linking these to regional
and international markets. Corridor programs have attracted agro-dealers
and financial services providers as well as supporting agro-processing
facilities and transport services. CDC analysis has shown that well-
designed and carefully managed nucleus farms can provide good returns
on both financial and development impact levels (Tyler and Dixie, 2013).
There have even been reports of out-growers achieving higher yields
than their associated nucleus estate (Nakano et al., 2014). However, out-
growers perceive several negative factors related to involvement in such
schemes, including reduced transparency in price determination
mechanisms, loss of autonomy, increased risk of indebtedness, and
power imbalances in relationships (Schupbach, 2014). Corridor
initiatives are also prone to land grab claims. For this reason, SAGCOT
has developed guidelines for its partners (Bergius, 2016). It should be
noted that most of the publically available documents on SAGCOT focus
on ex ante impact analysis, and there are currently few published data on
the extent to which actual net benefits from corridor investments have
been realized for the full range of stakeholders.
11.4 Commercial Investment Opportunities in African

Agriculture
11.4.1 Addressing the missing middle in the SME investment

ladder
A range of impact investment funds declare agriculture a high-priority

area, but their actual investments in the sector are often small and highly
dispersed. The “missing middle” exists for valid reasons and is
perpetuated by those who enter it and subsequently gravitate to larger
investments and/or shift their focus further along the value chain, leaving
a void around early-growth-phase SMEs, particularly those with a major
component of primary production. This reality reflects a natural reaction
to the risk-reward imbalance in this space and the economics driving
most investment funds.

Patient capital of impact investors has the potential to bridge the gap
between the efficiency and scale of market-based approaches and the
social impact of pure philanthropy (Ngoasong et al., 2015). However, the
challenge is to blend the right type of financial support with the right
type of mentoring and alignment of incentives. Focusing on the missing
middle gives DFIs and impact investors the opportunity to champion
inclusive business models, including those working with smallholders.
Greater coordination between grant programs, DFIs, and commercial
investors will bring coherence to the progression of SMEs along the
investment ladder, which is currently highly fragmented.
Addressing the missing middle between grant funders and
commercial investors will allow for the scale-up of capital flows to this
sector. Commercial investors who have signed the UN’s Principles of
Responsible Investment charter have more than $65 trillion under
management. Attracting just 1% of this capital pool would go a long way
toward addressing the estimated shortfall in investment in African
agriculture.
11.4.1.1 Helping SME agribusinesses graduate across the missing

middle
Some of the structures and alignment of incentives of impact investors

(derived from the commercial venture capital and private equity
community in general) conflict with the mindsets and strategies of
agripreneurs and managers of inclusive businesses (Ngoasong et al.,

2015). For example, there is a reticence among agribusiness SMEs in
Africa to accept the private equity model requirement to forgo a share of
ownership (and control) in return for risk capital. Grant funders and
commercial investors need to better inform SMEs on the pros and cons
of the private equity model, prepare companies to be more investment
ready, and incentivize commercial investors to reach into the missing
middle (IFC, 2015).
Many aspects of the private equity model are highly appropriate for
scaling up agribusinesses in Africa. Equity investment is a high-
depth/low-breadth model. Investors select a small number of high-
potential companies each year on which they concentrate all of their
financial and operational resources so that these businesses achieve rapid
growth. As shareholders, they participate in the company’s governance
and strategy. Their success is directly proportional to the performance of
investees, and so it is in their interest to provide the most effective
support possible (IP, 2015). The investor helps the company mature by
improving processes and reducing key risks and helps make the business
ready for follow-on investment. However, the level of support required
by agri-food SMEs in the region is often far beyond what a normal fund
is willing or able to provide. In addition, the cost of origination,
screening, and due diligence of early-stage investment opportunities in
this space is also often prohibitively high (IP, 2015).
Grant support often plays an important role during the relatively long-
term and high-cost technical and commercial proof-of-concept and
incubation phases for inclusive agribusinesses. Success depends,
however, on providing that grant investment from a highly commercial
perspective. Where this is not the case, companies may develop
structures, processes, and mindsets that constrain their ability to attract
commercial follow-on investment, which then severely limits their
ability to achieve impact at scale. To improve the trajectory of these

companies, during the incubation phase grant providers must implement
sequentially more commercial key performance indicators that are
prerequisites for receiving subsequent tranches of grant funding.
Program managers also need to be highly cognizant of the needs of
potential follow-on investors.
Mentoring companies through the transition out of grant funding and

through concessional investment is challenging for all parties and needs a
tailored program of support and appropriately structured investment
(FSG, 2016). Improving the investment readiness of agribusinesses will
provide DFIs, impact investors, and commercial investment teams with a
pipeline of opportunities to take highly developmental businesses to
scale. However, to stimulate interest from private sector capital, funds
must establish track records with competitive financial returns and offer
an array of investment products. Given the high transaction costs of

investments in SMEs, there is a strong need for the development
community and national governments to operate alongside these funds to
provide granted-funded technical support and where appropriate to also
provide concessional investment capital.
Investment funds attempting to address the missing middle must be
appropriately resourced and staffed to coordinate the provision of these
services. Philanthropic donors must provide for technical assistance (TA)
costs when they support the establishment of new funds (AAF-TAF,
2017). However, grant-funded support activities must be carefully
firewalled from commercial investment activities in order to retain
appropriate alignment of incentives. A wide range of potential financial
instruments has been proposed for addressing the missing middle
(reviewed by UNEP, 2015). In addition, there is still a need to find
optimum partnership models and risk-return relationships to encourage
sufficient capital to meet the needs of agricultural SMEs. One option is
for DFIs and foundations to co-invest in SMEs alongside mainstream and
impact-oriented investors (Capria, 2016, 2017).
11.4.1.2 Preparing SMEs for commercial investors
Agriculture has historically been perceived as a low-margin business

compared with other economic activities, but this perception is changing
in the new era of higher food prices (Oxfam, 2009). Moreover, analysis
of CDC’s historical agribusiness portfolio suggests that where a strong
technical strategy and rigorous investment thesis have been combined

with patient capital and strong execution, there was a high proportion of
successes both on financial and development impact levels (Tyler and
Dixie, 2013).
Commercial investors are not well motivated, skilled, or incentivized
for reaching into the missing middle to mentor businesses that in the
future they can grow, add value to, and sell at a premium. Consequently
investors commonly report that a shortage of high-quality investment
opportunities is a major challenge to the growth of the industry (GIIN,

2015). In fact, they mean that there is a lack of ready-made investment
opportunities providing sophisticated investment pitches that can be
easily screened by their standard processes.
There is a clear need for funding to support long-term relationship
building between investors and entrepreneurs, as well as for pre-
investment technical assistance to SMEs. This would deal with two of
the major underlying constraints to addressing the missing middle:
 Preparation: Typically, early-stage enterprises seeking investment

have multiple issues that need to be addressed before commercial
investors will risk engagement. These often require intensive tailored
capacity building and mentoring support in order to move the
company toward investment readiness. Investors are not usually in a
position to help enterprises address these issues (owing to their
funding structure) nor are they naturally incentivized or motivated to
support enterprises that are still some way from being investable (pre-
investment support is countercultural to most investors). SMEs must
also have the right legal structure to receive equity investment. In
Kenya, for example, nearly half of all SMEs are sole proprietorships
that would not be suitable for receiving private equity investment.
 Matching: Matching the right investors to the right enterprises is far

from straightforward owing to fragmentation of the support network
and lack of information on service providers. The limited pipeline of
investible opportunities that impact investors so frequently report
is as much about the difficulty of identifying viable investment
opportunities with any degree of certainty in the absence of extensive
due diligence as it is about their apparent rarity (DGGF, 2015). This

problem is common for the venture capital industry (although less so
for the private equity industry) and is generally resolved by replacing
deep due diligence (which is rarely possible or meaningful for early-
stage SMEs) with the building of long-term relationships. This
approach enables close observation before and after investment and
spreads risk through multiple smaller investment rounds triggered by
progressive performance.
11.4.1.3 Program-related investments (PRIs)
In program-related investments (PRIs), fully commercial venture capital

and private equity teams work collaboratively but autonomously with
grant-funded project teams. An early example of this approach was the
$1.5 billion advanced market commitment made by the Gates Foundation
and other donors to subsidize the purchase of 2 billion doses of a
vaccine. For the donors, this investment guaranteed sale of that vaccine
to low-income markets at an affordable price. For the company, it
guaranteed a sale price that was sufficient to justify investment in
research and production costs (GAVI, 2013).
11.4.1.4 Blended finance approaches
Development donors are increasing their emphasis on public-private

partnerships while at the same time seeking a closer link between
investment and results. This trend has led to an increasing interest in
blended finance models, which allow development donors and public
funds to reallocate risk from investors to institutions. In addition,
blending grant, concessional, and commercial capital can create balanced
incentives to encourage companies to enter less attractive markets. In
return, donors are able to develop results-based contract agreements

associated with agreed social outcomes. This model was initially used in
the microfinance sector but is increasingly being considered in
agriculture, health, and education sectors. For agriculture in particular, it
offers the opportunity to address the risk-reward imbalance and close the
viability gap that has hitherto constrained the flow of commercial capital
into the missing middle (Lampert, 2014; UNEP, 2015).

Concessional capital may be used in blended finance approaches to
help subsidize costs, reduce risks, and/or underwrite losses as a
mechanism to attract more commercial investment into this space.
Justifications for using public funds in this area include the
demonstration effect, the ability to leverage commercial capital, and
enhanced development impact. There is a danger, however, that if not
carefully designed and implemented, blended finance approaches could
become the worst of both worlds, subsidizing bad deals.
11.4.2 High-priority investment themes
At the highest level, three key issues appear likely to most strongly
influence future investment trends in the global agri-food sector over the
next few decades (Godfray et al., 2010; Pretty et al., 2010; IFC, 2013b;
NEPAD, 2014; BSDC, 2017):
1. competition for resources, especially water, energy, and land, and

the associated need to increase efficiency of use and reduce waste, as
well as broader ecosystem services issues;
2. health concerns, including consumer-driven and science-supported
links between health and diet; and
3. increasing volatility of food commodity prices due to globalization
and of global production due to climate change.
Innovations are needed on three levels if the continent is to

adequately respond to the demographic trends described in section 11.1:
 Increase supply: Higher productivity per unit of land, per unit of

input, and per unit of environmental cost is essential.
 Decrease demand and increase quality: With more obese people

than hungry people, there is an increasing need to provide the global
middle class with better-balanced diets.
 Reduce waste: Reducing food waste globally could make a
significant contribution toward balancing supply and demand.
Cost-based and consumer-preference factors are creating strong

opportunities for disruptive technology–based solutions (DSV, 2017).
Although consumer trends are most obvious in high-income countries,
they are becoming increasingly important for the middle class across the
global South. These factors relate equally to plant and animal production,
including both agroforestry and aquaculture. Such solutions will include
the following:
 Input resources: Use of fertilizer, pesticide, water, and energy use in

production must be reduced for cost, environmental, and health
reasons. Approaches should include integrated pest management
strategies; better use of legumes, mycorrhizae, or other
microorganisms; and production of fertilizer more efficiently or from
nonpetroleum sources. Inputs need to be stored more efficiently and
applied according to biological need, including soil additives to retain
and regulate release of water and nutrients.
 Environmental footprint: Consumers increasingly demand food
production with reduced impact on biodiversity, reduced greenhouse
gases from production and transport, and better tracking and
reporting. Replacing red meat with fish, eggs, milk, and insect-based
and non-animal-derived protein sources could have diverse ecosystem
benefits.
 Consumer demands: Demand is rising for products with high
nutrient density (instead of carbohydrate and fat density) and better
flavor (but less sugar and salt content). Consumers also demand
enhanced food safety, reduced postharvest losses, and increased shelf
life through improvements in transport and storage, including low-
cost sensors for early detection of damage and rotting.
 Smallholder profitability: New technologies are urgently needed to
help smallholders improve productivity, harness economies of scale in
production, and develop local value-added processing. Smallholders

also require tailored guidance and support for rapid on-farm learning
as well as better data on soils, weather, pest and disease outbreaks,
and the growing environment, linked to knowledge on the needs of
specific varieties.
 Scaled-up finance: New technologies are needed to reduce the cost
of providing small loans to many rurally dispersed SMEs, as well as

to allow them to build credit histories as collateral and gain access to
credit for working capital.
 More efficient first-mile and last-mile logistics: There is a need for
new technologies and novel business models that increase the
efficiency (decrease the cost) of local logistics, especially in rural
areas, including through actual and virtual vertical integration. Also
needed are mobile processing units to operate in areas of production
to serve local markets, and more efficient ways to handle and/or

preserve perishable produce.
Three themes are consistently high on the radar of commercial

investors:
 Technology leapfrogging: The past decade has brought a series of

technology-driven leapfrogging successes in Africa. Adoption has
been helped by the lower burden of entrenched institutions, consumer
behaviors, and infrastructure lock-ins that have constrained
leapfrogging in other regions of the world. Tailoring innovations
through local entrepreneurial knowledge has also been an important
factor (Chleuh, 2014). Insights from leapfrogging in the
communication (mobile phones), finance (M-Pesa), and power sectors
(M-Kopa) may provide useful insights for foresight on developments
in agriculture (BCG, 2014; Economist, 2016b). From the perspective
of scale of demand (McKinsey, 2009, 2010a; Goldman Sachs, 2013)
and long-term history of constrained investment in innovation versus
hot spots of emerging technologies, water is a promising candidate for
the next wave of infrastructure technology leapfrogging (McKinsey,
2009, 2010b; Bain, 2011; FAO, 2012b; World Bank, 2012; Goldman
Sachs, 2013; Accenture, 2014; Goosen et al., 2014; Grubert et al.,
2014; Schäfer et al., 2014; Wright and Winter, 2014; DIE, 2017;
SCW, 2016; Amy et al., 2017; FMO, 2017; IDA, 2017).
 Lower total product cost substitutes: Product life-cycle analysis has
highlighted the huge disparity between prices and true production
costs in the agricultural sector, primarily due to substantial
unaccounted environmental costs. This is a global challenge that
intensifies wherever the middle-class expands (INSTEPP, 2014). It

has been estimated that more than half of the world’s agricultural area
is devoted to producing livestock either directly or indirectly. As
such, it is unlikely that incremental improvements to current
approaches will enable the industry to supply the projected increase in
global protein demand. In addition, intensive production systems pose
increasing health and environmental risks (FAIRR, 2016). In response
to these macro-trends and constraints agripreneurs and venture capital
firms see the food industry (and protein-based food value chains in
particular) as ripe for disruption (Economist, 2016c). Among meat
products, chicken produces the least greenhouse gas emissions and
has the least virtual water content. The lower price of chicken meat
has driven strong growth in this segment across Africa for both meat
and egg production. Demand-side measures to reduce animal product
consumption, including shifts toward greater consumption of eggs and
alternatives such as insect-based protein, will also be necessary to
meet climate change targets. Alternative cheaper sources of protein,
especially those currently less preferred by humans, are already
becoming important substitutes in feeds used for intensive livestock
production (FAO, 2013b; Beski et al., 2015; Kupferschmidt, 2015;
Alexander et al., 2017; Badenhorst, 2017).
 Disruptive technologies: The digital revolution has the potential to
transform entire systems of production, management, and governance
(WEF, 2016). Unfortunately, approximately 4 billion people remain
offline, leaving them unable to reap “digital dividends” (World Bank,
2016). MNCs are launching projects to fill coverage gaps for those in
rural and remote areas, where they see huge untapped market
potential (Google, 2016). Meanwhile, emerging economies showed a
dramatic increase in smartphone ownership during the past few years,
and a similar trend is expected to follow across the developing world
(Accenture, 2017). This growth is critically important: mobile phones

have already connected about 75% of those earning $1 per day or less,
and smartphones have the potential to become the universal link to the
benefits of the big data revolution. Once smartphones enable
technology leapfrogging over the rate-limiting factor of connectivity,
the cost-effective collection of data will become the next rate-limiting
factor for African smallholders. The Internet of Things is expected to

be the primary driver of big data quantity and quality as everyday
objects are armed with sensors (plus associated electronics and
software) to passively collect data that can be automatically acted
upon in real time. This will provide the opportunity to enhance
efficiency, responsiveness, and timeliness along the value chain as
well as improve impact on social and environmental factors. As a
company’s databases grow, so will their ability to harness predictive
analyses for improving products and services and creating completely

new offerings. It is estimated that the Internet of Things will have an
annual global economic impact of more than $11 trillion by 2025
(Accenture, 2013; McKinsey, 2015b; WEF, 2015), and this will have
significant spillovers for agriculture globally (McKinsey, 2013;
Kshetri, 2014; Hilbert, 2016; SAS, 2017; Accenture, 2017).
These investment opportunities are a focus of attention among many

venture capital and private equity funds interested in African agriculture.
It is likely, however, that during the coming decade new disruptive
technologies and consumer trends will emerge that will dramatically
change the profile of what is possible and what is most appropriate. For
that reason, this chapter has focused on describing the mindsets and
screening frameworks of commercial investors, in order to provide the
CGIAR foresight process with a commercial perspective on how market
forces might respond to different innovations emerging from the
agricultural development community.
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Part IV
Bioeconomy, and
Sustainable Resource Use
Agricultural Transformation,

b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Chapter 12
Agricultural Transformation
Pathways toward the SDGs
Marie-Hélène Schwoob, Peter Timmer, Martin Andersson,

and Sébastien Treyer
12.1 Introduction
Achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) conjointly is

generally presented as a transformation agenda.1 Although the notion of
transformation is not explicitly defined in official texts, it is associated
with profound changes in social and economic systems and presented as
a necessary process if the ambition is to achieve the economic, social,
and environmental objectives. Food and agriculture systems are at the
heart of this challenging transformation, and changes in these systems
impact nearly all of the SDGs (ICSU, 2017). Yet many pieces of the
foresight literature concur that current trends in food and agriculture
systems are incompatible with the conjoint achievement of economic,
social, and environmental objectives (Godfray et al., 2010; Paillard et al.,
2011; IAASTD, 2009). Although these foresight studies propose various
elements for assessing the performance of sustainable or agroecological
intensification options, they lack consensus on the nature and magnitude
of the transformations of food and agriculture systems that would be
1Resolution 10/1 of United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2015, under
which all governments adopted the SDGs, is entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030
Agenda for sustainable development.”
417
needed to achieve the SDGs. Missing in their analysis are the

transformation pathways that can shift these systems from their current
state toward a future sustainable state.
This chapter builds on two research fields that focus on
transformation in the agricultural sector from two different perspectives:
first, an agronomy-centered farming system transformation aimed at
improving environmental performance, and second, national-scale

transformation of the agricultural sector and its links with the rest of the
economy in view of improving its socioeconomic performance. The
analysis of transformation pathways is a critical challenge for each
approach. Such an analysis requires linking a rigorous historical analysis
of past transformation pathways to a future-oriented perspective. The
chapter shows not only the commonalities between these two
approaches, but also their differences and complementarities in scope
and scale. It suggests that achieving the SDGs requires linking these two
analytical perspectives in order to take into account the diversity of
national-scale situations and to assess the performance both of generic
solutions and of these diverse possible transformation pathways in each
specific national case.
12.2 Environmental and Socioeconomic Performance and

Changes in Farm Structures
The environmental impacts of agricultural production systems are

studied in a variety of communities with respect to their impact on, for
example, global carbon or nitrogen cycles (Billen et al., 2013). Long-
term transformation of these production systems is considered necessary
both to mitigate these impacts and to adapt to global environmental
changes. Mainly centered on the field of agronomic sciences, the debate
about how to achieve such transformation is polarized between support
for incremental change and support for radical change in farming
systems: one side consists of changes in practices and technologies to
optimize efficiency in resource use and identify opportunities for input
substitution; the other side consists of a complete redesign of the
Agricultural Transformation Pathways toward the SDGs 419
production system (in line with the Efficiency–Substitution–Redesign

framework initially developed by Hill and MacRae, 1995).
In some of these analyses, technological changes are presented as
delivering win-win solutions for both economic and environmental
objectives: for instance, precision agriculture can limit environmental
impacts and increase profitability by reducing the level of input use
(Plant et al., 2000). Such studies do not deal with longer-run

transformation pathways; nor do they analyze whether such changes can
tackle the magnitude of long-term environmental challenges. More
specifically, they do not address the linkage between technical changes
and changes in other farm structure characteristics—in particular,
changes in labor intensity. The substitution between labor and capital
linked to technological changes and investment in technology are rarely
analyzed in conjunction with achievements in terms of environmental
performance. The long-term socioeconomic performance of such

technology changes would require analysis of their differentiated impact
on different types of farms, depending on their level of labor intensity
and capital intensity (physical capital and land), their capacity to access
credit, and the consequences for concentration or specialization
processes in farms at a regional level (Laurent et al., 1999). To what
extent do such changes contribute to transformation pathways that
deliver both environmental and social results—assessed, for instance, in
terms of employment and income levels in the farming sector at a
regional or national scale? This may seem like a basic research question,
but developing and assessing such a regional- or national-scale scenario
remains a methodological challenge.
At the other end of the spectrum, system-scale changes are viewed
as enabling better environmental performance, for example, by
rediversifying farming systems and reintroducing legumes in cereal
production systems. Such changes would help reduce fertilizer inputs.
Integrated pest management or conversion to organic agriculture would
help drastically reduce pesticide use. System redesign proposals also
include the reintegration of livestock and crops to close nutrient cycles
(Franzluebbers et al., 2014. Given the systemic nature of the
environmental challenges, system-redesign changes are presented as
having a greater potential to address these challenges conjointly
(Freibauer et al., 2011). Larger-scale studies also provide tools for

analysis of the changes necessary at the scale not only of farming
systems, but also of the whole food system to ensure better management
of nutrient cycles, as in the case of nitrogen management at the scale of a
large country like China (Schwoob et al., 2016). Some scenarios even
assess the feasibility and consistency of global-scale changes towards
organic agriculture or agroecological systems. Muller et al. (2017)

provide an exhaustive analysis of the agronomic characteristics of a
systemic change to organic agriculture, enabling an assessment of how
carbon and nitrogen cycles could be better closed and exploring
important system-scale changes such as the changes in feed flows
between regions. Agronomic studies of nutrient and material flows at a
macro-scale have enabled considerable headway to be made in the debate
on the environmental performance of different technical options.
These studies also provide some insights for analyzing the potential
for system redesign—for instance, a redesign based on agroecological
principles—to achieve both environmental and social objectives. These
analyses rely on the fact that such changes generally lead to more labor-
intensive systems: the hypothesis is that the agricultural sector would
thus provide more employment opportunities. This could have a positive
social impact, provided labor productivity also increases, in contexts
where other sectors of the economy are failing to provide enough job
opportunities, as argued by some such as Dorin et al. (2013). In the
longer run the economic performance of such system-redesign transition
pathways is documented in different contexts and shows a capacity to
maintain or increase benefits at farm scale by reducing input and
operating costs (Guillou, 2013). However, the impact of such system-
scale changes not only on labor intensity but also on the income
generated as a result of the jobs created still needs to be assessed at a
larger scale. Making this assessment would require, for example,
analyzing at a regional scale how to make farm-scale diversification
strategies compatible with the strategies of collecting and processing
industries, which are generally focused on economies of scale (Meynard
et al., 2013). Regional-scale scenarios would be necessary to assess the
effects of such changes on social dimensions such as jobs and incomes.
All the above-mentioned studies concur that solutions to the

sustainability challenge will be highly knowledge-intensive. They will
have to take into account, much more than the agricultural modernization
of the late 20th century did, the fact that each local situation, and each
national context, presents specific challenges. Innovations will need to be
designed with the objective of conjointly addressing the specific
environmental, economic, social, and even historical and political

conditions in which these solutions will need to develop through changes
in existing farming systems (Godfray, et al. 2010; IAASTD, 2009).
Most studies—whatever type of solution they examine—do not
undertake a diachronic analysis of the future transformation pathway of a
given agricultural sector (at a local, regional, or national scale). This type
of analysis, however, was exactly what was advocated by Lamine (2011)
among others. Current studies of the relative performance of different
agronomic options focus on the consistency of the future state of the

farming system but do not discuss whether a pathway can ensure the shift
from the present situation to this hypothetical future state.
An even more challenging issue is that these studies are not designed
to integrate the changes that farm structures are already experiencing.
These changes include the following: the impacts of technological
changes, the substitution of labor by capital to increase productivity, the
consolidation of farms and consequent increase in farm size, the decrease
in farm size owing to demographic growth, concentration and
specialization, the dynamics of the land tenure market, and the dynamics
of investment and capital intensity and their impact on debt levels (Bosc
and Bélières, 2015). A proper analysis of transformation pathways to
reach sustainability on all three dimensions (economic, social, and
environmental) would require assessing not only the agronomic
consistency of a given future state of the system, but also the ways in
which envisioned technical changes interact with current trends in farm
structure, or are even able to reverse these trends if necessary, to reach
social objectives.
For instance, the Agricultural Transformation Pathways initiative
(Schwoob et al., 2016) was an exercise based on various pilot country
case studies (China, United Kingdom, and Uruguay). It aimed to develop
a backcasting approach capable of identifying the main obstacles, the
levers for change, and the sequence of actions and investments needed to
reach by 2030 a future state of the agricultural sector deemed by national
stakeholders to be radically more sustainable than the sector’s present
state. For example, in Uruguay, participatory processes with national
stakeholders made it possible to identify critical points for such a
transformation pathway (e.g., public investment in extension services).
However, the methodology did not allow for identification of current

trends in the evolution of farm structure, precluding an exploration into
whether these trends would favor or block the dissemination of the
intended changes in agricultural practices.
For a more effective analysis of transformation pathways toward
sustainability, a better understanding of current trends in structural
changes will be necessary. A few studies do link changes in practices,
changes in farm structure, and macroeconomic changes (Losch et al.,
2012; Bosc and Bélières, 2015). As will be presented in the next section,
there is also a substantial literature on structural transformation, some of
which incorporates sustainability issues (see Timmer and Akkus, 2008,
for a review). The methodological challenge is to use these existing
retrospective analyses to develop future transformation pathways at a
regional or national scale.
To better structure the debate on the different agronomic options or
different levels of systemic change involved in transforming farming
systems, specific change scenarios need to be developed. These scenarios
will make it possible to address situations at regional or national scales
given that each situation is different from others in terms of both initial
conditions and current trends in farm structure transformation.
Developing such regional or national transformation pathways toward
sustainability still poses important methodological challenges,
particularly when it comes to assessing the plausibility and feasibility of
a transition pathway in light of current trends and evaluating the social,
economic, and environmental performance of such scenarios.
12.3 The Critical Role of Agriculture in Economic

Transformations and the Heterogeneity of National
Pathways
Another key field of research for discussion on pathways to sustainability

focuses on the structural transformation of the economy in different
national contexts. The role of the agricultural sector in contributing to

poverty reduction in this transformation perspective is now well
recognized, particularly since the 2008 World Development Report
(World Bank, 2007). In recent political debates, strong emphasis has
been placed on the need for jobs in the agricultural sector in countries
and economies where the other sectors will apparently not be able to
provide jobs for a growing population (FAO, 2017). Given that there is a
high risk of a future lack of employment opportunities in countries with
strong demographic growth, the role and place of the agricultural sector
in each country need to be better understood: for instance, jobs in
primary production are not necessarily attractive for younger
generations; on the other hand, many diverse linkages exist between the
agricultural sector and the rest of the economy. Studies on the structural
transformation of national economies and the role of agriculture in these
processes lay particular emphasis on the plurality and heterogeneity of
possible future transformation pathways depending on national
circumstances, and in light of past structural transformation histories.
They also clearly show the importance, in most cases, of a dynamic
agricultural sector.
The developing world has not followed a uniform trajectory of
sustained agricultural and structural transformation, and this has resulted
in sharply different pathways of economic growth (Figure 12.1). This
broad heterogeneity reveals diverse dynamics in development processes
over the past six decades.
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
1951
1954
1957
1960
1963
1966
1969
1972
1975
1978
1981
1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
1999
2002
2005
2008
2011
2014
Asia Sub-Saharan Africa
Fig. 12.1. Annual rates of GDP growth per capita by year for Asia and Sub-Saharan
Africa (SSA) (1950–2016). Source: Data from the Conference Board, Total Economy
Database, 2016.
One way of drilling deeper into these dynamics is to explore the

wealth of historical records that show not only the great diversity of
agricultural transformations underlying the structural transformation, but
also how changes in agricultural labor productivity have heightened this
diversity. The research program at Lund University, which has provided
material for this chapter, attempts such in-depth exploration by taking as
a key variable how productivity of the rural labor force compares with
that of the urban labor force. This variable is specified as the difference
between the share of GDP produced by the agricultural labor force and
the share of total employment made up by agricultural labor. The gap
between these two variables (hereafter referred to as GAP) reflects the
difference between labor productivity of agricultural labor and that of
non-agricultural labor, and it is an indicator for how far the agricultural
transformation has progressed. A large GAP signals a failed or stalled
transformation and denotes a country where poverty is widespread and
the urban-to-rural income gap is large. Analyzing the development of the
GAP over time and space can reveal trends in the transformations and
show the various ways that countries have been able to close this gap in
the past. Such knowledge can offer both inspiring and cautionary lessons
for latecomers.
The diversity of pathways of structural transformation and the
varying roles of agricultural change in reducing or increasing that
diversity are quite vivid when one compares GAP dynamics across
countries or between regions. Figures 12.2 and 12.3 illustrate these GAP
dynamics for Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa from 1950 to 2012. The
historical tendency of this GAP to widen in the early stages of rapid
economic growth before converging to zero as countries become rich is
well documented (Timmer and Akkus, 2008). Managing the political
tensions created by a widening GAP (urban incomes rising more rapidly
than rural incomes) has been the basic test of modern political
economies, especially in a rapidly growing Asia (Timmer, 2015). As

Figure 12.2 shows, the Asian pattern of widening and then narrowing
GAPs is quite obvious. There is diversity in the levels and speed of
change, but the general pattern is unmistakable.
There is nothing obvious about the changing patterns of the GAP in
Figure 12.3, which presents the available evidence for Sub-Saharan
Africa. If we are looking for diversity not just in the levels and speed of
change in the GAP, but in the overall process that generates it, Sub-
Saharan Africa is the place to look. This region provides evidence not
only of the diversity of structural transformation processes but also of the
ability—or inability—of development pathways to sustainably reduce
poverty. It is important to understand the drivers of diversity in structural
transformation and the dynamic forces that shape the GAP over time and
find ways of avoiding pathways that increase this GAP.
Fig. 12.2. Pathways of structural transformation in Asia, 1950–2012: Evolution of the

GAP in labor productivity between the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors. The y-
axis shows the intersectoral productivity gap between agriculture and non-agriculture; the
x-axis shows logged income per capita. Source: Data from the Groningen Growth and
Development Centre, 10-Sector Database.
Fig. 12.3. Pathways of structural transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1950–2012:

Evolution of the GAP in labor productivity between the agricultural and nonagricultural
sectors. The y-axis shows the intersectoral productivity gap between agriculture and non-
agriculture; the x-axis shows logged income per capita. Source: Data from the Groningen
Growth and Development Centre, 10-Sector Database.
Heterogeneity in past transformation pathways can also be

documented by looking at transformation in the structure of farming
systems. Agricultural intensification pathways in Asia and Latin America
have differed notably in the increase in the size of farms and in the
number of active workers per hectare (Dorin et al., 2013; World Bank
2009). Even under apparently similar ecological conditions, high levels
of land productivity have been reached with a consistently high level of
labor intensity in Asia, while the same level of land productivity relies on
a much smaller workforce and larger farms in Latin America. These
differences in past transformation pathways have led to contrasting
current situations in the two regions, with different patterns of poverty
distribution. However, labor-saving technologies are now spreading
rapidly in Asian countries, particularly in the richer ones, which could
lead to a convergence between these contrasting cases or to a new type of

pathway.
Considering the past and current impacts of agriculture on
socioeconomic and environmental systems, it appears critical to ensure a
proper understanding of the links between agriculture and the rest of the
economy. This notion of “linkages” has long been core to the debate on
the role of agricultural development for poverty reduction (World Bank,

2007). In addition to the consensus on the need to focus more analytical
capacity on these linkages, there is also a need to study economic
dynamics as a historical process: in each national situation, the complex
social and economic processes of development need to be understood in
order to assess how future agricultural development would interlink with
the rest of the economy, and thus, what policies at a given point in time
are likely to be most effective. Agricultural transformation thus needs to
be addressed with “situational relativism” (Adelman and Morris, 1997)

in light of the diverse initial conditions (such as small versus large farm
sizes, geography and resource endowments, demographics). This
understanding also requires due recognition of historical processes
generated by the speed and nature of structural changes.
This focus on the diversity of processes, such as agricultural
transformation patterns or structural transformation pathways, can help
give greater insights into the fundamental processes that cause divergent
outcomes—for example, in terms of per capita incomes or labor
productivity, which lead to diverging levels of household welfare. Any
historical perspective strongly suggests that the key drivers of differences
in welfare levels are highly diverse, because differences in capital and
labor availability and their changes over time cannot alone explain the
widely diverging outcomes in economic performance. The real concern
for policy is to determine how the structural transformation can be set in
motion given that it is conditioned by myriad details. And despite the
diversity in initial conditions, there are also important commonalities of
the structural transformation across countries.
Agricultural systems are mainly linked to the rest of the economy
through food supply chains, and urbanization has made supply chain
linkages, primarily within the food sector, increasingly important.
Reardon and Timmer (2014) identify five interlinked transformations of
the agri-food system: (1) urbanization; (2) diet change; (3) agri-food
system transformation; (4) rural factor market transformation; and (5)
intensification of farm technology. These transformations, which are
interconnected in mutually causal ways in all directions, are now
acknowledged as having the potential to bring about a rapid and complex
transformation of an integrated system. Having an informed vision of
these dynamic interrelationships can improve the capacity to act

appropriately, through both private and public action (for instance, public
investments in infrastructure, especially rural roads, communication
systems, power grids, and irrigation are essential ingredients for virtually
all five transformations). As the authors point out, significant
interdependence now exists between the downstream (urbanization
and diet change driving changes in food demand), the midstream/
intermediation (processing), and upstream segments of the agri-food
supply chain (the combination of rural factor and service markets and the
farm segment). They conclude that “any food security strategy that
focuses on one of these points of the triangle and neglects the others will
fail in this new era of large urban markets, rural-urban linkages, and the
need for the enabling of farm intensification and commercialization”
(Reardon and Timmer, 2014, p. 9).
The research field that studies national-scale structural transformation
of the economy places the dynamic nature of transformation pathways at
the heart of its analytical framework. This is contrary to the farming-
system approach described in the previous section, which focuses
essentially on the image of a farming system at a given moment in time,
through synchronic rather than diachronic analyses. In fact, the technical
content of technological changes or system-scale innovations, which are
core to the discussion on environmental performance in the former
section, are not considered central in this second research field.
Certainly, technological change at the farm level is considered a crucial
element given its linkages to changes in labor productivity. It is more
challenging to study how technological and farm-structure changes
constitute constraints or opportunities for the different strategies
that farmers can develop to move toward economic, social, and/or
environmental sustainability (Bosc and Bélières, 2015). Among the
strategies studied, rediversification at the farm or landscape scale or
reintegration between crop and livestock production are potential options

for environmental sustainability, but they are more complex to represent
in analyses of national-scale transformation pathways than specialization
or monocropping strategies. Rediversification and reintegration strategies
or specialization strategies have different impacts on changes in land,
capital, and labor productivity at the farm scale. Their implementation
also depends on what is happening in other segments of the supply

chains (diversification in primary production and economies of scope in
downstream collecting or processing industries versus specialization and
economies of scale). Being able to account for the diversity of such
strategies remains an analytical challenge.
12.4 A Cross-Cutting Lesson: Transformation Pathways

Cannot Be Transposed from Past Experiences
Acknowledging the diversity of transformation pathways is the political

project of the Sustainable Development Goals: universality and
differentiation are central principles of the 2030 Agenda. This chapter
goes beyond this political statement, as the two first sections present
evidence that transformation pathways have always been diverse and will
be diverse in the future, and at the same time share important common
features. Although the two research fields presented here in separate
sections have developed independently, they exhibit an important
commonality: deciding on the right agricultural policy is going to be a
highly knowledge-intensive task, because transformation pathways able
to deliver social, economic, and environmental performance will be
specific to each national context and cannot be transposed directly from
past experiences or other national contexts, given the heterogeneity of
past transformation pathways, unique national histories, and the
multiplicity of possible future transformation options. This constitutes an
important challenge for research and education institutions and for
international cooperation.
How can the beneficial effects of agricultural policies on the rest of
the economy and on the social and environmental sustainability of the
agricultural sector be ensured? The answer cannot be simple. There will
be no “silver bullet” policy that perfectly addresses current and future

challenges everywhere around the globe. In addition, win-win solutions
are probably not going to come from a simple adjustment of existing
systems.
Instead of putting together the pieces needed for successful
transformation, countries will likely “muddle through” (Connors, 2005;
Lindblom, 1959) and implement actions through second-best institutions

(Rodrik, 2008). Yet research could contribute to a better understanding
of each national context and its specific circumstances with respect to
past and future structural transformation pathways at the level of the
macroeconomic structure of the economy and the microeconomic level
of the transformation of the structure of farming systems (Bosc and
Bélières, 2015).
This is a challenge for research institutions. At the level of a specific
country, it will require in-depth analysis of the historicity of the national

social, economic, and political context, as well as past changes in farm
structure. It also means analyzing the risks of path dependencies and
potential bifurcations in future pathways in order to inform short-term
investment or policy choices. At the regional or global scale, it means
defining comparative analyses across national situations, though without
attempting to transfer solutions from one context to the other. The
objective of a cross-country comparison is to open up the range of
potential solutions in each national context, to develop a common
framework for assessing the potential to conjointly achieve economic,
social, and environmental sustainability, and to draw lessons about what
drives or blocks transformation processes.
Feeding national policy debates with such research results would
usefully contribute to the dialogue among the different stakeholders in
the agricultural sector and potential investors or donors: identifying the
investments most likely to drive a country toward a sustainability
pathway—including objectives for climate change adaptation and
mitigation, poverty and inequality reduction, and food security—is an
increasingly pressing concern for the donor community among others.
12.5 A Critical Analytical Challenge: Linking Farming-

System Scale with National-Scale Transformation
The first two sections of this chapter show that past and future
transformation pathways need to be analyzed at both scales (national-
scale structural transformation of the economy and farming-system-scale
transformation of agronomic characteristics), using both approaches in

parallel. This is for two reasons. First, there is a need to explore
the relative relevance, feasibility, and performance of possible
transformation strategies for each specific national context, and changes
in farm structure need to be analyzed in parallel to macroeconomic
changes. Second, in order to explore solutions that can reach conjointly
social, environmental, and economic sustainability objectives, different
strategies for changes at farming-system scale need to be analyzed in the
framework of regional- and national-scale cross-sector transformation

scenarios.
Linkages between scales already exist in the agronomic approach
(national-scale nutrient cycle balances, for instance, can be approached
through flows of feed or nitrogen), as well as in the macroeconomic
approach (changes in labor productivity are linked to technological
change at the micro-scale and measured at the macro-scale). More
complex links need to be represented: for instance, how changes in
technologies or practices in farming systems influence the evolution of
farm structures and the distribution of different farm types in a given
region or country, and thus contribute to or interact with structural
transformation pathways in the region’s economy. This analytical
framework should also take into account change drivers linked to
competition for resources (such as land and other natural resources, for
which access can be organized in markets or not) or product market
competition between different types of farms. These factors can be major
drivers for the transformation of the whole sector and depend on the
different types of strategies developed at the farming-system scale—for
instance in the case of a diversification strategy. Another example
involves industrial strategies for the collecting, processing, or retailing
segment of the supply chain. These strategies can constrain or enable
strategies developed at the farming-system scale, and thus need to be
considered when linking farm-scale transformation with changes in the

agricultural sector and the rest of the economy. For instance, depending
on their capacity to deal not only with economies of scale but also
economies of scope, downstream industries will enable or prevent
diversification strategies at the farming-system scale and thus positively
or negatively affect the capacity of these systems to reach environmental
sustainability. Industrial strategies will also greatly determine the extent

of linkages between the farming sector and the rest of the economy.
12.6 Conclusion
Drawing on two different fields of research into the notion of

transformation pathways, this chapter suggests that, despite differences
in their research objects, there is a critical research frontier to be

explored at the interface between the two fields: the long-term
transformation of farming systems to ensure environmental
sustainability, and national-scale structural transformation of the
economy, including the role of the agricultural sector. Both fields suggest
that a better understanding of specific national circumstances and of the
diversity of past transformation pathways is necessary to identify
possible options for the transformational shift to future sustainability. To
provide national-scale policy dialogue with relevant research results, it
seems crucial to develop an analytical framework that takes into account
both the national scale and the farming-system scale, as well as
agronomic balances and socioeconomic structural change processes at
both scales. The variables of structural farm changes (in land, capital, or
labor intensity, and in the organization and social forms of farming
systems) and the linkage between strategies at both the farming-system
and industrial scales appear to play a particularly crucial role in this
analytical approach. To ensure progress on this highly complex research
frontier means having the capacity to conduct interdisciplinary work with
diverse epistemic communities that have so far not worked together. It
also implies linking in-depth country-scale analysis of historical
processes in a diversity of national contexts with cross-country
comparisons. This is not only a conceptual challenge for individual

researchers, but also an organizational challenge for research institutions.
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Chapter 13
Ecological Intensification
of Agriculture
Pablo Tittonell
13.1 Introduction
It is imperative to intensify agricultural production in the most vulnerable

regions of the world to improve food security and meet many of the other
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Keesstra et al.,
2016). Yet the means of achieving agricultural intensification must be
tailored to the social-ecological contexts where productivity increases are
needed. It is of little use to keep raising yields in developed regions
and countries, where agriculture is heavily subsidized and has a high
environmental impact, because this production rarely reaches the poor in
the poorest regions of the world (Tittonell et al., 2016). Only a fraction
of the energy contained in the food produced in developed regions is
delivered to the food system (Cassidy et al., 2013), suggesting that it has
not been effective to leave food security in private hands, i.e., in the
hands of the international market. This approach has led diets to become
more uniform, as shown by the ever-smaller number of crops from which
humans draw calories and nutrients (Khoury et al., 2014). This trend
has concomitantly reduced biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, with
negative consequences for ecosystem services, adaptation to climate
change, and resilience (Macfadyen et al., 2016).
A basic, if not exclusive, premise for achieving global food security is
that food must be produced where food is most needed. More than half of
437
the some 800 million hungry people are rural dwellers, many of them
farmers, who possess small portions of land where food can be produced
(FAO et al., 2017). These rural people tend to be located in areas that are
poorly served by infrastructure, information, and markets; they are
variously affected by climate change and climatic variability; and they
often farm on degraded or inherently poor soils (Tittonell, 2014a). What
model of agriculture intensification can work in such contexts? For

the past five decades, international agencies, governments, scientific
institutions, and nongovernmental organizations have been promoting
agricultural intensification technologies that fit the production systems
and models developed during the Green Revolution. The Alliance for a
Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) or the Abuja Fertilizer Summit
conveyed by the African Development Bank are conspicuous recent
examples. Yet in spite of the push for new germplasm, irrigation
schemes, veterinary services, sometimes mechanization, often fertilizers,

and other synthetic inputs, food production per capita in most of sub-
Saharan Africa remains at the same level as in the 1960s (FAO, 2017a;
FAO, 2017b). Even where donor-funded input subsidies became national
policies, initial short-term yield increases did not translate into
sustainable productivity gains (see the example of Malawi in Box 13.1).
Although agricultural intensification lies at the core of the debate
about food security, it is not enough to think only about food production
and productivity; food security is made up of food availability, access,
stability, and utilization (FAO et al., 2017). The latter is a particularly
important aspect of food insecurity in developing regions. The capacity
of human bodies to utilize food depends, among other things, on the
possibility of cooking food, which is often limited by the lack of
fuelwood in poor regions, and on ingesting the right balance of nutrients
in the diet (FAO, 2017b). This means that food security, energy security,
and human nutrition are tightly interlocked. Agricultural landscapes need
to host not just enough diversity in space and time to provide a diverse
diet—that is, they must not only be nutrition-sensitive landscapes
(Kennedy et al., 2017)—but they must also provide fuelwood, clean
water, and other ecosystem products and services that can contribute to
the global productivity, adaptability, and resilience of agroecosystems.
Ecological Intensification of Agriculture 439
The model of agricultural intensification necessary to feed 9 billon

people in a midterm future must
 take place in multifunctional landscape able to provide an array of

ecosystem services necessary for all forms of life on earth and for
sustainable human livelihoods;
 reduce the harmful environmental impacts of food production—

particularly its disruption of biogeochemical cycles and its
contributions to global warming and to loss of genetic diversity—as
well as curtail its dependence on nonrenewable resources;
 work to restore soils and ecosystems in order to secure the ability of
future generations to satisfy their needs, from cultural to
physiological;
 adapt to global change and build the social-ecological resilience of
agroecosystems; and
 contribute to erasing inequalities in access to food and natural
resources.
The ecological intensification (EI) of agriculture is proposed as a

means to achieve all of these goals (see Box 13.2). It consists of
combining the best knowledge and technologies available in a way that
allows farmers to make intensive and smart use of the natural
functionalities that ecosystems offer to produce food and ecosystem
services sustainably, to contribute to food security and nutrition, to
restore the productivity of their degraded land, and to contribute to
resilience and climate change adaptation and mitigation (Doré et al.,
2011; Tittonell, 2014b).
This chapter aims to (1) take stock of ongoing, evidence-based
research and development initiatives to promote the EI of agricultural
systems, with emphasis on smallholder family agriculture, considering
different scales and social-ecological environments, and (2) examine
opportunities and future challenges for EI from the perspective of
technological and organizational innovations. Because EI shares a
number of attributes and principles with two related concepts—
sustainable intensification and agroecology—the next section clarifies
the differences and commonalities between these concepts.
Box 13.1 The Malawi case
The Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP), often referred to as the

Fertilizer Program, launched by the Malawi government with the aid
of international donors in 2005 has been frequently used as an
example of how well-directed subsidies can contribute to improving

food security (e.g., Lawson, 2010), and of how fertilizer use is key to
achieving food security in Africa (e.g., Denning et al., 2009). Lately,
however, many voices were raised to criticize the limited impact of
this program, to point out farmers’ negative perceptions of it, and
even to document deficiencies in assessing actual productivity
impacts (e.g., Mmana, 2016). According to FAO’s datasets, grain
yields in Malawi fluctuated around 1 t/ha from 1961 to 1990, around
1.2 t/ha from 1990 to 2005, and around 2 t/ha from then on (Figure
1A). Yet productivity increases that were reported by the government
(MoAF), and hence captured in FAO’s database, were not confirmed
by other estimates, notably those obtained through remote sensing
(Messina et al., 2017; Figure 1B). Maize grain yields estimated in this
way (biomass) using a harvest index (HI) of 0.4 were on the order of
pre-FISP yield levels. Yields estimated with an optimistic HI of 0.6
were still below the yields reported by MoAF for 2009–2012.
Despite the reliability of the yield data, official results show that in
the first four years of FISP implementation total maize production
doubled at national level according to official figures, and the net
maize deficit moved from -78,491 MT to -50,398 MT (Dorward and
Chirwa, 2011). But total fertilizer use doubled too, and the increase in
the international price of fertilizer (from US$393 to US$1,250/MT)
resulted in a fivefold increase in the total cost of the subsidy program,
from US$51 million in 2006 to US$265 million by 2009 (or from 2.1
to 6.6% of Malawi’s GDP). Grain-to-fertilizer ratios were on the
order of 7 to 14 kg/kg, much below expected for the region (+/- 25
kg/kg; Whitbread, 2013).
continued
Continued
Sustainability was at stake in this case. The program did not

consider any alternative long-term strategy as a follow up if or when
subsidies would eventually dry out, or as a gradual transition to more
sustainable soil management strategies once the most urgent needs

of increasing production were fulfilled. The social-ecological
complexity inherent to smallholder production systems, to local
institutional arrangements and factual governance mechanisms on the
ground were disregarded, resulting in unforeseen inefficiencies,
corruption and frustration, as the poorest households were not the
main beneficiaries of this program (Holden and Lunduka, 2010). The
uncertainties associated not only with the climate but also with
market volatility were not part of the equation, resulting in a subsidy

budget following the spike in fertilizer prices, creating substantial
deficit in the public accounts.
Figure 1: Malawi’s yield statistics. (A) Grain yield 1961–2014 from FAOSTAT; (B)
Grain yields as reported by the government (MoAF) and in FAOSTAT (discrepancies
in 2007 originate from an error in actual area estimates by FAO), and as estimated
through remote sensing (biomass), considering harvests indexes of 0.4 and 0.6.
Source: FAOSTAT and Messina et al., 2017.
Box 13.2 Definition of ecological intensification
Ecological intensification is a process of gradual improvement of the

ecological efficiency of agricultural systems through technological
and institutional innovations, aiming to make use of the natural
functionalities that ecosystems offer in order to promote greater

productivity with less environmental impact, maintain or improve the
natural resource base, reduce the dependence on non-renewable
resources and favour adaptability, resilience and social equity
(Tittonell, 2013).
13.2 Ecological Intensification, Sustainability, and

Agroecology
The term ecological intensification (EI) was first used in francophone

research (intensification ecologique) to describe natural resource
management practices by pastoralists in tropical West Africa (e.g.,
Egger, 1986). More recently, Cassman (1999) referred to EI as an
approach to the intensification of cereal production based on precision
farming, improved germplasm, and soil quality. FAO’s (2011) Save and
Grow report defined ecological intensification as an approach to using
land, water, biodiversity and nutrients efficiently and in ways that are
regenerative, minimizing negative impacts, through knowledge-intensive
processes that require optimal management of nature’s ecological
functions and biodiversity to improve agricultural system performance,
efficiency and farmers’ livelihoods. EI has also been described as a
means to produce more but differently, and to produce new things (Doré
et al., 2011) or as the replacement of agricultural inputs by ecological
processes to increase factor productivity and reduce environmental
impact (Tittonell, 2014a). Both of these latter statements refer to the
principle of “more with less,” coined during the 1992 World Summit in
Rio, which implies increasing value while reducing environmental
impact.
Bommarco et al. (2013) referred to EI as “harnessing ecosystem

services for food security.” Ecosystem services were also mentioned by
Geertsema et al. (2016) and Cunningham et al. (2013), who named the
concept of “landscape approaches” as a prerequisite for EI as well. These
are not the only references on ecological intensification, but they are
perhaps the most widely cited. One factor that is missing in these
definitions (but addressed in some detail in Tittonell, 2014a; Tittonell

and Giller, 2013; and Tittonell et al., 2016) is the transition to EI, along
with the institutional developments needed to support it. EI requires both
technical and institutional innovation, including in markets and public
policy.
13.2.1 Sustainable intensification

The concept of sustainable intensification (SI) is often used to refer to

some of the same ideas expressed by the term ecological intensification.
Pretty et al. (2011, 7) define SI as “producing more output from the same
area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts and at
the same time increasing contributions to natural capital and the flow of
environmental services.” But the term has also been used by a wide array
of actors, including the seed and agrochemical industry, as window
dressing for technologies, inputs, and services that do not necessarily
contribute to reducing negative environmental impacts or to increasing
the flow of environmental services (see comprehensive reviews in
Tittonell, 2014a; Rockström et al., 2017). To be fair, the concept of
sustainability is difficult to define, and thus so is the concept of SI. It is
perhaps easier to define unsustainable intensification by, for example,
taking the planetary boundaries (Rockström et al., 2009) as a reference:
any form of intensification that contributes to trespassing the planetary
boundaries can be considered unsustainable. But this does not solve the
problem of defining SI.
There are many dimensions to sustainability: social, ecological,
economic, temporal, political, and others. If we narrow the concept of
sustainability to the realm of field agronomy, then we may with some
license assimilate it to the idea of resource use efficiency. Let us define
efficient systems as those that, among other things, make judicious use of
nonrenewable and limiting resources, reduce environmental impacts,

improve economic benefits, and conserve the natural resource base in the
long term. Efficiency in both plant and animal agricultural production
systems is commonly studied by means of production functions relating
inputs to outputs (Figure 13.1).
Fig. 13.1. A simplified representation of the concept of sustainable intensification using

production functions. Resources are those available (e.g., soil nutrients, rainfall,
radiation, grazing resources, labor) whereas investments are those that are brought in by
the farmer (e.g., fertilizer, irrigation, pesticides, seeds, concentrates, vaccines, extra
labor). Source: Adapted from Tittonell (2017).
Figure 13.1 shows a typical hypothetical S-shaped relationship

between agricultural productivity as a function of the level of resources
or investments available (line A). Along this line we can identify zones
of high or low marginal resource efficiencies or responses to
investments. Beyond a certain level of resource availability, indicated by
the line marking the environmental safety limit, there is no longer any
response to investments, and any additional resource unit will be used
inefficiently, increase economic risks, and likely affect the environment.
Let us imagine that a given agricultural system is in a situation of

intermediate resource investment and low productivity, represented by
point 0 in Figure 13.1. The system is below the attainable productivity
represented by the red S-shaped line A. There are two main ways to
improve efficiency in this case: either by increasing productivity to its
attainable level using the same amount of resources (point 1) or by
keeping the current productivity level but reducing the amount of

resources and investments used in the production process (point 2). Both
of these trajectories—plus any intermediate combination of these two—
will bring the system the attainable productivity level indicated by the S-
shaped line. This shift does not yet represent SI; rather, it represents a
closing of the efficiency gap. This is undoubtedly an important step,
often a prerequisite for SI, and it can be achieved through partial
measures that do not necessarily involve a thorough redesign of the
current system. For example, in the case of plant production systems,

efficiency gaps can be closed through precision farming, choice of
cultivars, integrated nutrient or pest management, or use of microdosing
or slow-release fertilizers.
Sustainable intensification involves much more. It implies a shift
toward a new production function, such as the one shown by the green
dotted line B in Figure 13.1. If we assume that our system is now in the
situation represented by point 1 (which, for several reasons, may be
preferable to point 2), there are various trajectories for improving
efficiency, represented by the green arrows and all possible combinations
of them within the green shaded area. All these trajectories lead to the
new production function or new attainable productivity frontier B, which
is not S-shaped. The horizontal green arrow defines the lowest limit of
the SI area, which indicates a trajectory characterized by maintaining
productivity while reducing the amount resources and investments used
in the process, resulting in higher efficiency. Closing the new efficiency
gap by increasing productivity using the same level of resources and
investments as in point 1 will similarly result in higher efficiency. The
right-hand boundary of the SI area, however, is defined by a trajectory
that implies increasing the level of resources and investments along with
modest further gains in productivity. This trajectory may be deemed
necessary when the objective is to maximize productivity, even by
compromising efficiency, pushing the system to the critical point in

production function B beyond which further efficiency gains are not
possible (i.e., the new environmental limit). None of the SI trajectories
implies producing less than point 1, and only the latter implies using
more resources or investments to intensify. This may be counterintuitive,
because the idea of intensification is often associated with increasing
input use, for example. Finally, any intensification trajectory from point
1 that leads to situations that require increased resources and are below
the initial attainable productivity frontier—i.e., below the S-shaped
line—such as those represented by the red arrows, can be considered
unsustainable intensification trajectories.
If SI is defined as illustrated in Figure 13.1, one may identify many
points in common with EI. Some authors provide an even wider
definition of SI and propose a large number of indicators beyond yields
and resource use efficiencies to measure SI (e.g., Smith et al., 2017). Yet
the difference between EI and SI remains in the means proposed to
achieve intensification. EI focuses on fostering biological processes, and
in that sense it has more in common with the concept of agroecology.
13.2.2 Agroecology
Agroecology is the use of the concepts and principles of ecology for the
design and management of sustainable agroecosystems. This definition,
originally put forward by authors such as Altieri (2002) and Gliessman
(2007), has lately been revised to refer to “sustainable food systems”
instead of agroecosystems, thus broadening the scale of agroecology to
embrace production, marketing, and consumption. The emergence of the
concept of agroecology dates back to the first half of the last century,
from the perspective of ecology in agriculture (Hanson, 1939). It was
much later, in the 1970s, that the term agroecology was used to refer to a
form of agriculture, a set of practices developed by farmers (Silici,
2014). It was only in the 1980s that agroecology started to become
associated with social movements, especially in Latin America,
alongside movements that support the rights of peasants, indigenous
people, and marginalized rural dwellers to land and natural resources.
Hence the confusion that often surrounds agroecology: it is at the same

time science, practice, and movement.
A common denominator in these various definitions is the idea that
agroecological farming follows five basic ecological principles:
efficiency, diversity, recycling, natural regulation, and synergies. To
many, especially to those engaged in agroecology movements, these
ecological principles fall short because they do not explicitly include the
notions of people or communities at the core of the system. For this
reason, some authors propose social principles to define agroecology
(Dumont et al., 2016). The difference is mostly semantic. The notion of
an agroecosystem already includes people or communities at its center—
this is what makes an agroecosystem different from a natural ecosystem.
Ecological intensification meets agroecology precisely at the idea of
using of ecological principles to design and manage agroecosystems. The
two concepts also share the idea of combining different sources of

knowledge and inspiration, from nature, from farmers, and from
scientific progress. Yet although the two definitions have much in
common, they also differ broadly. While agroecology can be defined as
science, practice, and movement, EI refers to a goal, a purpose, a
trajectory, or an intention. In epistemological terms, it is not an object; it
is a method, a means of achieving a goal. Ecologically intensive farming
uses the insights of agroecology and the management strategies of
agroecological practice, but it is not (or not yet) a social movement.
13.3 Agricultural Practices and Agroecosystem Design
One implication of the discussion so far is that a clear distinction should

be made between management practices (operational) and design
principles (strategic). Several practices and design principles are
proposed as alternatives to conventional agriculture. All of them
represent different forms of EI, using ecological principles to various
degrees. They can be classified based on two criteria: (1) their reliance
on ecological replacement—that is, to what extent they replace external
inputs with ecological functions, and (2) the scale or level of integration
at which they operate or are designed and implemented. Figure 13.2 is an
attempt to compare approaches. There are of course many exceptions to

these broad categories, which are separated by rather fuzzy boundaries. If
we define conventional agriculture as the result of implementing
classical agronomy (autoecology), reasoning at field scale, and following
Green Revolution practices, then its reliance on ecological replacement
can be depicted as nil or minimal. Conservation agriculture or
agroforestry are also designed mostly at field scale, but they rely more on
ecological replacement. Integrated pest management and integrated
nutrient management combine agrochemicals and economic thresholds
with natural regulation or organic inputs, and thus tend to consider levels
of integration that are higher than a single field. The same is true for the
design of polycultures and push-pull approaches. Organic and low-input
agriculture tend to integrate crop and livestock production and thus imply
farm-level design. These systems do not necessarily use agrochemical
inputs, but they may use other forms of inputs. For example, in low-input
smallholder agropastoralism, free-grazing livestock transfer nutrients
from communal grazing areas to agricultural fields; such transfers are
inputs to the farm system. Finally, agroecology exhibits the greatest
reliance on ecological replacement and accordingly needs to consider the
landscape level.
The practices described are the result of farmer management
decisions and design principles. “Design is the first sign of human
intention.” This sentence was coined by William Macdonough, a
proponent of the cradle-to-cradle approach to industrial design and
architecture. The approach relies on three major principles that are also
largely applicable to the field of agriculture: (1) waste is food, (2) use
current solar income, (3) celebrate diversity. The first principle refers to
recycling and reusing materials (nutrients, carbon, water) in different
production processes. The second points to maximizing capture and
utilization efficiencies of solar radiation. The third refers to various
forms of diversity; in the case of agriculture, this notion can be linked to
the idea of (agro-)biodiversity in space and time or to the concept of
combining diverse knowledge systems (e.g., scientific and lay
knowledge). Many sustainable agricultural production technologies and
practices, such as those used in agroecology or in conservation
agriculture, were originally built on the principles of recycling,
efficiency, and diversity, which are also key principles behind ecological
intensification (Tittonell, 2014a). A strong implication of these principles
is that they respond to the need to gradually decouple agriculture from
the mining and petrochemical sectors and from any other form of
exploitation of nonrenewable resources.
Level of integra on (scale)
Landscape Agroecology &

landscape
agronomy
Low external
input
agriculture
Farm Organic
agriculture
Polycultures
Integrated
pest/nutrient Push‐pull
management systems
Conven onal Conserva on Agroforestry Home

agriculture agriculture gardens
Field
Reliance on ecological replacement
Fig. 13.2. Practices and design principles associated with ecological intensification of
agriculture, classified according to their reliance on ecological replacement (replacing
inputs with ecological processes) and the scale at which they are designed and
implemented.
13.4 Examples of Ecological Intensification
There are innumerable examples of ecological intensification worldwide,

as the result of farmer innovations, private sector initiatives, or scientific
progress and experimentation. To illustrate EI here, I will focus on
smallholder African agriculture, and in particular on soil fertility
management and the restoration of degraded soils, which were identified
as urgent core priorities for achieving the Sustainable Development
Goals in Africa (Dobermann, 2014). I use results from experiments
conducted in farmer fields, from assessments of the functioning and
performance of real farms and landscapes, and from co-innovation
initiatives in which knowledge emerges from the interaction between
different stakeholders learning together.
13.4.1 Decoupling agriculture from nonrenewable resources
Is it possible to imagine a future for smallholder agriculture in which the

natural functionalities of the agroecosystem are used in a smart, intensive
way, reducing its dependence on fossil fuels and its impacts on the
environment while ensuring sufficient and stable food production in the
face of global environmental and demographic change? This is a

challenging question, but there are promising avenues to be explored.
One such avenue is the insufficiently tapped potential of biological
nitrogen fixation. Figure 13.3 shows evidence from a multiyear no-tillage
experiment in central Mozambique in which the maize response to
nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fertilizer is compared across cropping
systems consisting of continuous maize monoculture, maize and pigeon
pea (Cajanus cajan) intercrops, and maize in rotation with pigeon pea
(Rusinamhodzi et al., 2012). The maize monoculture showed poor

responses to chemical fertilizers, as well as poor yields without
fertilizers. Yields in the maize monoculture with or without chemical
fertilizers were on the order of 1 tonne per hectare (ha-1), which is
average for smallholder farmers in the region. The amount of crop
Maize grain yield (t ha−1)
Fig. 13.3. Yields of maize monoculture and maize intercropped or in rotation with pigeon
pea (Cajanus cajan) with different rate of N and P fertilizer application per ha under no-
tillage in central Mozambique. Source: Rusinamhodzi et al. (2012).
residue biomass was consequently low in these treatments and thus

insufficient to provide enough soil cover through mulching, negatively
affecting soil temperature and water regimes. In the maize–pigeon pea
rotation treatment maize responded to 20 kg ha-1 P, but not in the
intercrop. It responded to the addition of 30 kg ha-1 N only in the
intercrop. Maize yields without fertilizer in intercrop or in rotation with
pigeon pea were five times greater than the average maize yields of sub-
Saharan Africa, and of this particular region of Mozambique.
An interesting message that can be drawn from the example in Figure
13.3 is the importance of basic agronomic management to ecological
intensification. The experiment was conducted in farmers’ fields but
managed by researchers (without herbicides). A prerequisite for good
yields and good response to treatments—whether chemical fertilizers,
organic manures, or legume cover crops—is proper basic agronomic
management. Tittonell et al. (2007) showed through similar on-farm

trials on 60 farms in western Kenya that basic agronomy (such as sowing
dates, spacing, and variety) could double yields with respect to average
farmer management, even when fertilizers or manure were not applied.
But the example from Mozambique also shows that maize yields
obtained following all conservation agriculture principles (no tillage,
mulching, and intercropping/rotation with a legume) were five times
greater than yields of maize monoculture receiving mineral N and P
fertilizers (Rusinamhodzi et al., 2012). Others have reported similar
results (e.g., Thierfelder et al., 2012; Mupangwa et al. 2012; Jat et al.,
2014). Although most of these were multiyear trials, only a few of them
were sufficiently long to consider the long-term effects of these nutrient
management combinations, and especially the fact that soils tend to
degrade in the long run under control treatments. Assessing resilience in
smallholder agroecosystems entails much more than just looking at
agronomic trials (Tittonell, 2014b); limitations in terms of scalability and
adoption of these particular management principles have been also
pointed out repeatedly (e.g., Giller et al., 2009).
Much of the nitrogen that flows through natural and human
ecosystems worldwide does so through biological nitrogen fixation. In
Latin America, for example, about 27 million tonnes of N are captured
through N fixation in natural ecosystems, about 5 million tonnes are
captured through agricultural N fixation, and 6 million tonnes are

brought in annually through chemical N fertilizers (Fowler et al., 2013).
The figures for Africa are respectively 26, 2, and 3 million tonnes per
year; for Asia, 21, 13 and 44 million tonnes; and for Europe, 15, 4 and 13
million tonnes. These figures illustrate the variation in natural potential
for biological N fixation across world regions, but also the share of that
potential that is realized in agroecosystems. Agricultural N fixation in

Africa and Latin America represents 8 and 18% respectively of the
natural N fixation potential, compared with 62% in Asia. Of course these
figures are gross generalizations that do not account for differences in
size, climate, human population density, or vegetation types. Yet they
illustrate the untapped potential of biological N fixation to contribute to a
gradual decoupling of agriculture from the Bosch-Meiser reaction and
hence from finite fossil fuels. Of course, not all of the benefits of
ecologically intensive management in Figure 13.3 can be attributed to N

fixation. In a different tropical context, Sà et al. (2008) showed that the
maximum soil temperatures that can be measured in the soil surface
with or without a mulch cover can differ in 30°C, with enormous
consequences for water storage and organic matter dynamics. Mulching
per se must have contributed substantially to the results observed in
Mozambique too.
Current scientific developments provide growing evidence on the
relationship between soil biodiversity, soil trophic networks, and
nitrogen and phosphorus capture and use within agroecosystems, even of
applied nutrients (Bardgett and van der Putten, 2014; Nielsen et al.,
2015; Creamer et al., 2016). This points to another promising avenue
to be explored in the way toward decoupling agriculture from
nonrenewable resources.
13.4.2 Dealing with degraded soils
A major problem currently facing global agricultural production is the

degradation of formerly productive—although often fragile—soils. The
FAO estimates that about 25% of agricultural soils worldwide are in a
state of severe degradation. Restoring productivity of these soils will not
only contribute to food security (especially because such soils are mostly
located in resource-poor environments) but also represent a large sink for

atmospheric CO2, therefore contributing to climate change mitigation.
The hypothesis often put forward by science and industry during the first
decade of this century (for example, in the 2006 Abuja Declaration)—
that chemical fertilizers can be used to boost productivity and therefore
restore organic matter in degraded soils in Africa—has not yet been
demonstrated. Let us examine a few examples.

Maize grain yield (t ha−1)
Fig. 13.4. Yields of maize on a degraded sandy soil in Zimbabwe during three
consecutive years with application of fertilizer and manure. Source: Zingore et al. (2007).
Figure 13.4 shows evidence from a degraded sandy soil in Zimbabwe

(an “outfield”) published by Zingore et al. (2007). In such situations, an
absolute control (i.e., no fertilizer or manure inputs) is impractical
because the soils are too depleted in nutrients to produce a yield without
inputs. Consequently, even the control treatment in Figure 13.4 received
100 kg ha-1 N. The application of 30 kg ha-1 P was done either as simple
super phosphate or as the equivalent amount contained in cattle manure
(for which 15 t ha-1 had to be applied). The results show that productivity
is difficult to restore in these soils under conventional tillage, even with
relatively large amounts of fertilizers. Application of 100 kg N ha-1 for
three consecutive years did not raise yields above half a tonne per
hectare. Adding phosphorus more than doubled yields, but productivity
remained only around 1 t ha-1 and was very low during the third year
owing to poor rainfall. Adding manure lifted crop yields even in the face
of the lower rainfall received in the third year. Yet collecting 15 t of

manure for application on 1 hectare of land means that a farmer would
need to own 10–15 head of cattle, and this is usually not the case. Thus
the amounts of both fertilizers and manure in this experiment are
unaffordable for most smallholders in resource-constrained regions.
Kintché et al. (2016) analyzed data from 20-year experiments in Togo
where a maize-cotton rotation received fertilizers every year at the

recommended rates and at 1.5 times the recommended rates. All maize
crop residues were incorporated in the soil after each maize harvest.
Even though maize produced relatively good yields with fertilizers
(about 3 t ha-1 on average), soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus
declined over the 20 years of the experiment, and their levels in soil did
not differ significantly from the control fields without fertilizers. Ripoche
et al. (2015), who analyzed a 40-year experiment in Mali, reached
similar conclusions. Thus, boosting yields through chemical fertilizers

does not appear to be an effective way to increase soil organic matter or
maintain soil fertility in the long term.
Any management strategy to effectively restore degraded soils
includes three main steps:
1. minimize the effect of the degrading agent (e.g., reduce exposure to

wind),
2. bring in organic matter (and nutrient) inputs, and
3. produce biomass in situ, through annual or perennial plant species.
A major impediment to restoring degraded soils in many regions is

the lack of organic matter. As mentioned, acquiring manure is prohibitive
for farmers without livestock, and those who own livestock tend to apply
manure to the fields that already have good yields and pose less risk
(Tittonell et al., 2013). Producing in situ biomass is also challenging in
degraded soils. Ecologically intensive strategies to restore soil
productivity need to consider these shortcomings.
In Zimbabwe, co-innovation platforms consisting of farmers,
researchers, extension agents, government officials, and input suppliers
organized in so-called learning centers (Mapfumo et al., 2016)
developed, experimented with, and selected native herbaceous legume
species to be used to restore soil fertility during fallow periods (Nezomba

et al., 2017). Because they are adapted to local conditions, these legumes
can grow and fix N even in degraded soils where other species cannot
thrive. These indigenous legume species, locally called “indifallows,”
were randomly assigned and sown to parts of the fields that farmers left
fallow in smallholder farming areas, to measure their growth and
performance compared with naturally occurring vegetation. After one

year of indigenous legume fallow, aboveground biomass C and N
accumulation was on the order of 3,000 kg ha−1 and 200 kg ha−1,
respectively. In contrast, after one year of natural fallow, C accumulation
was 500 kg ha−1 and N accumulation was 14 kg ha−1 (Nezomba et al.,
2015). Two years of indifallow produced approximately three times the
biomass N attained under two years of natural fallow. Such differences
were of the same order by the late dry season. Notwithstanding these
positive biophysical results, this is not an easily scalable management

option because it depends on the occurrence of such indigenous legume
species. Yet the lesson that is worth scaling from this example is how the
solution to the problem of soil degradation was found locally, through
co-learning and sharing among a wide array of stakeholders organized as
an innovation platform.
13.4.3 Crop-livestock integration
Crop-livestock integration is crucial for the ecological intensification of

low-input farming systems. Livestock mediate nutrient flows to and
within the farming system, provide manure and draft power for crop
production, allow capitalization and diversification of the farm system,
and create opportunities to establish crop-grassland rotations or to grow
N-fixing legume cover crops with the dual purpose of improving soil
fertility and feeding livestock (Tittonell et al., 2015). For example,
integrated crop-livestock tree systems, as practiced in Brazil for example,
aim at not only greater efficiency of resource use but also greater
resource capture (radiation, water, nutrients), because they keep the soil
covered with a photosynthetic surface throughout the year, whereas
annual cropping of soybeans or maize leaves the soil uncovered during
half of the year (Balbino et al., 2011).
But crop-livestock integration can lead to farm-scale nutrient

inefficiencies when the system is poorly designed or its management or
infrastructure are inappropriate. In other words, although ecological
intensification demands more diversity, diversity per se does not do the
trick. Increasing the diversity of systems components and the complexity
of their interrelations leads to more favorable system regimes only when
such diversity and complexity are organized in a particular way. Such

organization can be studied by conceptualizing the system as a network,
in which the nodes of the network represent the various components
within the system, and the connections between nodes represent the
flows of energy, matter, or information between system components.
Table 13.1 presents a number of indicators of N flow network size,
diversity, and organization corresponding to case study farms with
higher or lower resource endowments from highland cereal-cattle
agroecosystems in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe (Rufino

et al., 2009; Alvarez et al., 2014).
Across sites, the presence of livestock or their increasing number was
associated with greater system N throughput, and in some cases with less
dependence on N imports and a greater proportion of N recycled on-
farm—in other words, with more ecologically intensive farming. System
N throughputs were larger in Ethiopia, where cattle “import” N by
grazing on communal land. Madagascar systems were the least
dependent on external N owing to the presence of grasslands or fodder
produced on-farm and substantially greater stocks of N in their soils. In
all cases the proportion of N recycled was less than 10% of all N flowing
through the farm system, and only the wealthier livestock-owning farms
in Kenya and Zimbabwe were able to recycle more than 5%. Substantial
improvements could still be made in terms of N recycling, even on the
most productive, wealthier farms. The relatively low values of average
mutual information (AMI) calculated across sites and farm types indicate
that system components are connected and that N flows through most of
them, but there is room for improvement. The presence of livestock and
their number increase the organization of N flows within the system,
notably in the case of Kenya and Zimbabwe. This contributes to
explaining the differences in N recycling, in whole-farm N use
efficiency, and ultimately in food self-sufficiency between poorer and
Table 13.1. Indicators of resource endowment, and of the size and organization of the network of nitrogen flows within eight case study
smallholder farms (from Rufino et al., 2009; Alvarez et al., 2012).
Farm N network
Farm N network size organization
Livestock Dependency Finn' s Average FarmNuse Food self-
Location/ Cropped owned Total system on imports cycling mutual Diversity of efficiency sufficiency
farm !}:':Qe land (ha} (TLU} throughQut (%} index (%} information flows (kgB kgN· 1} ratio
Ethiopia
Ecological Intensification of Agriculture

Poorer 0.3 1.2 230 72 2.9 l.l 2.2 23 0.4

Wealthier 2.4 10.0 1,340 66 2.6 1.3 2.4 18 1.7
Kenya
Poorer 1.0 0.0 45 45 2.2 l.l 2.5 74 0.3
Wealthier 2.9 3.5 190 34 11.0 1.7 3.3 216 1.2
Zimbabwe
Poorer 0.9 0.3 40 65 0.9 1.0 2.2 44 0.5
Wealthier 2.5 5.4 480 45 5.5 1.5 2.9 86 3.4
Madagascar
Poorer 2.7 3.0 110 33 3.5 1.2 2.6 122 1.9
Wealthier 6.9 12.0 400 31 2.5 1.4 3.4 198 4.7
Note: Total system throughput is the stun of all N flows between all components (activities) of the fanning system, expressed here in kg N per family member
to allow for comparisons across farms of different size. Dependency on imports is the ratio between N fiO\vs into the fann system and total system throughput.
Finn's cyclin11 index is calculated as the ratio of tlte stun of all internal flows to total system throughput. Ave.ra11e mutual information (AMI) is the average
munber of c01mections of each system component and the diversity of Oows (HR) or statistical wtcertainty is tlte maximwn munber of possible connections
between components, or the upper lintit to AMI; botlt AMI and HR are measured in bits (binary decisions); if all the components of a system are connected and
tlte total flow is equally distributed among all components, AMI will approach zero; typical values of AMI in natw·al ecosystents range between 0 and 6. Farm
N use eflicieacy is the ratio of total biomass productivity to total N flowing into the system. Food self-sufficiency ratio is the ratio of edible calories produced
on farm to caloric household needs.
457
wealthier households. Within each site, the size of the total N flow within
the farm is associated with food self-sufficiency, but not when
comparisons are made between sites. While open grazing systems like
the one in Ethiopia are often less efficient in using N imports, the higher
efficiency of N use by Kenya and Madagascar farms may be in part only
apparent, simply associated with greater stocks of N in the soil or with
more conducive environments for agricultural and animal production

(ample rainfall and deeper, more fertile soils).
When examining the relationship between N inputs, N throughput,
farm primary productivity, and food self-sufficiency, both Rufino et al.
(2009) and Alvarez et al. (2014) concluded that the ability of a system to
produce food (with given land, labor, and capital assets) depended less
on how much N entered the system per year than on what happened with
N once it is cycling within the system. Here again, efficiency, recycling,
and diversity are key attributes of ecologically intensive systems. It is

possible to extend the same reasoning to other resources. For example,
Duriaux-Chavarría (2014) used network analysis to examine energy
flows in farming systems in Ethiopia. Since current wisdom in
agricultural research for development shows that the true impact of yield-
improving technologies must be evaluated at the scale of the whole farm
rather than the field (e.g., Giller et al., 2011; Le Gal et al., 2011;
Erenstein et al., 2015), network analysis represents a viable way to assess
technologies at the relevant scale and from the perspective of key
agroecology principles: efficiency, recycling, and diversity (and how this
diversity is organized in space and time).
13.4.4 Landscape-level intensification
Landscape agronomy is a growing discipline that looks at the interaction

of crops and animals with other elements of the landscape, whether biotic
or abiotic, to understand the relationship between landscape structures
and functions and ecosystem services of support and regulation. Most
studies in this realm look at regulating services, such as water flow
regulation or pest control through natural enemies. For example, in
densely populated regions of southern Ethiopia, Kebede et al. (2018)
found five times more maize stem borers (Busseola fusca) in maize fields
with a lower density of perennial plants (trees, enset, shrubs) growing in

or around the fields than in fields with a high density of perennials. The
same study revealed that the diversity and abundance of natural enemies
(arthropods) was greater where the density of perennials was higher.
Other studies have focused on the relationship between landscape
biodiversity and household nutrition, coining the term nutritional
functional diversity (e.g., Remans et al., 2011). The term nutrition-

sensitive landscape has been introduced by the Agriculture for Nutrition
and Health Program of the CGIAR to describe an approach that
considers the diverse interactions and interconnectivity within a given
landscape to optimize the multiple goals of food and nutrition security,
sustainable use of natural resources and conservation of biodiversity,
both for human health, as well as environmental health (Kennedy et al.,
2017). With regard to ecologically intensive means of soil fertility
management and restoration, several examples illustrate the role that

landscape diversity can have in supporting soil fertility and soil
formation. Indeed, an alternative to using animal manure or growing
indifallows is the use of biomass sources from the surrounding landscape
as soil amendments—an approach that is not necessarily labor-free.
Scientific evidence is mounting on the benefits of integrating
agriculture with elements of the natural vegetation, particularly in
savannah agroecosystems. The example of growing cereals under
Fahiderbia albida trees in Africa is well known and documented (e.g.,
Garity et al., 2010). Less well known is the combination of crops and
native shrubs in Sahelian agriculture. Developed by smallholder farmers,
this practice is now being optimized through scientific research and has
been documented by Lahmar et al. (2012) (Figure 13.5). Deep-rooting
shrub species that grow on residual water during the dry season are a
source of biomass for soil amendment (mulching). Because of the
accumulation of organic matter and biological activity (e.g., association
with mycorrhiza) under the shrub canopy, the soil tends to have greater
water infiltration and storage and more available nutrients, creating
“islands” of fertility. Farmers recognize this effect and traditionally
prune the shoots of these shrubs at the onset of the rainy season to grow
crops in and around these islands. Alternatively, when shrubs are not
naturally occurring owing to soil degradation, collecting shrub biomass
Fig. 13.5. Illustration of a crop–native shrub sequence as practiced by smallholder

farmers in the Sahel (adapted from Lahmar et al., 2012). The inset shows phosphorus
availability in the topsoil under different shrub species (from Duponnois, 2011)
compared with uncovered soil. Farmers make use of such islands of fertility to grow
crops on degraded soils.
and applying it to crops can increase productivity and boost the response
of crops to fertilizer inputs.
In Burkina Faso, Barthélémy et al. (2014) reported that sorghum
yields did not differ significantly from the unfertilized control when they
received either chemical fertilizers (100 kg ha-1 of NPK plus 50 kg ha-1
of urea) or 2.5 t ha-1 of leaf biomass of Piliostigma reticulatum—a shrub
native to this region (Figure 13.6). Sorghum responded significantly,
however, to these relatively large amounts of fertilizers when they were
applied together with shrub biomass. Integrating crops with shrub and
tree species from the native vegetation shows great potential for
ecological intensification, particularly on degraded land, where
smallholder farmers are often unable or unwilling to invest in other
forms of inputs. Still, the scalability of these management options may

be restricted to relatively sparsely populated areas where communal land
and common resources are available to most smallholder families. In
densely populated regions such as in the highlands of East Africa (e.g.,
western Kenya, Rwanda, and southern Ethiopia), remains of native
vegetation are sparse or absent, and insufficient or inaccessible to most
families. But this example is meant to show one way in which landscape
biodiversity can contribute to sustainable farming, beyond the classical
examples of pest regulation or pollination.
Fig. 13.6. Sorghum yield in Sahelian Burkina Faso with application leaf biomass of
Piliostigma reticulatum at rates of 1.25 and 2.5 t ha-1, without or with application of 100
kg ha-1 NPK fertiliser and 50 kg ha-1 urea for topdressing. Source: From Barthélémy et al.
(2014).
13.5 Ecological Intensification of Smallholder Agriculture
Increasing agricultural productivity is one of the necessary stepping-

stones to achieve current and future food security at a global scale. Yet
further increasing yields in already highly productive environments will
entail enormous energy costs and environmental risks, and rather than
alleviating poverty, this approach will further deepen the North-South
divide. Increasing yields in the poorest regions of the world is more cost-
effective, requires fewer energy inputs, and can more efficiently
contribute to global food security and poverty alleviation. Most
agricultural systems developed during the second half of the 20th century
were designed with no regard for the structure and functions of the
original ecosystem to which they were introduced and the lay knowledge
of people managing those landscapes. Often their design responded to a
need for simplification of diversity in space and time, leading to uniform
and mono-specific crop and livestock systems. This facilitated
management practices, mechanization, and sanitary control.

Simplification of ecological structures led to loss of functionalities,
notably of the ecosystem-regulating functions provided by biodiversity
(Tscharntke et al., 2005; Bianchi et al., 2013). Oligo-specific
agroecosystems such as those that now predominate in the world are not
only vulnerable to pest and disease outbreaks but also less efficient in
making use of natural resources such as light, water, and nutrients. As a
result of such inefficiencies, a substantial portion of these resources must
be brought from outside the system in the form of energy, nutrient, or

financial subsidies.
The examples of ecological intensification presented in this chapter
show that the potential for synergistic effects between agriculture and
nature through crop diversification, crop-livestock integration, and use of
locally available resources and knowledge. The case studies from Table
13.1 in particular reveal that the total nutrient flow through a farming
system is only partly associated with food production or self-sufficiency.
They show that more can be done with less. Even when farmers can
afford fertilizer inputs, they can use them much more efficiently through
crop diversification (Figure 13.3), especially on degraded soils, where
crop responses tend to be poor (Figures 13.4 and 13.5).
The concept of a yield gap, or the difference between current and
potentially attainable yields, has become predominant in our current
parlance on agricultural research for development. The magnitude and
determinants of yield gaps vary from crop to crop, from region to region,
and from farm to farm (e.g., van Ittersum et al., 2013). At a global scale,
the average yields of most major crops have increased steadily over the
past 50 years (FAO, 2016). Yet closing yield gaps in smallholder African
agriculture, which are still on the order of 80% for many crops in several
regions (Tittonell and Giller, 2013), requires a paradigm shift in how we
think about agricultural technologies and intensification. We need to be

aware of the following:
1. Making agricultural inputs more accessible to smallholders may

in some cases be a necessary but not sufficient condition to raise
productivity.
2. Agricultural inputs do not work on degraded soils; soil

rehabilitation is a prerequisite for any form of agricultural
intensification.
3. Replacing the native vegetation of tropical landscapes with
annual crops and frequent tillage disrupts their basic ecological
infrastructure and leads to degradation and/or inefficient capture
and use of energy, water, and nutrients.
4. Smallholder farmers do not reason in terms of crops or cropping
systems; they make decisions that concern their whole livelihood

system.
5. Regulating ecosystem services that can contribute to pest and
disease management do not operate at the scale of a single field;
they operate across and are influenced by the wider agricultural
landscape.
Closing yield gaps in smallholder agriculture often requires research

that contributes to a thorough redesign of agroecosystems. This research
must draw inspiration from the structure and functioning of the natural
ecosystems that evolved in each region, while taking stock of the wealth
of local agricultural knowledge and institutions governing natural
resource management, and reasoning at scales broader than the
agricultural field plot. It is time to move away from the idea of crop yield
gaps and embrace the concept of whole-farm productivity gaps (Cortez-
Arriola et al., 2014). But even this approach will be ineffective if it does
not take account of the geographical and socio-political contexts in
which smallholders operate. In other words, closing yield gaps in
smallholder farming systems implies closing socioeconomic gaps,
technology gaps, and institutional gaps. The challenge is complex and
requires multidisciplinary action.
Failures of well-intentioned initiatives focused on input-oriented

technologies, such as fertilizer subsidy programs (Box 13.1), can be
instructive when the reasons for such failures are examined from the
perspectives of sustainability, complexity, and uncertainty (Tittonell
et al., 2016). These three dimensions are inherent to the social-ecological
systems that need to be considered if we are to for better target our
efforts in research, development, and policy making to address food

insecurity. Indeed, these are the three dimensions that were not
considered in the example of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Program
(Box 13.1). But such failures are not necessarily proof that “modern”
agricultural technologies are of no use. Taken individually, they have
often been shown to improve the production—if not always the
productivity—of single crops or animals, normally under controlled
experimental conditions or in researcher-managed or project-supported
demonstrations in farmer fields. Their true impact, however, on food

security and nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa has been less often
documented beyond such isolated examples and beyond the time horizon
of externally funded research or development projects.
Many of the examples of ecological intensification presented in this
chapter attract questions about their scalability and large-scale impact.
They are described as “local,” “nice but small,” or even “romantic” and
generally unrealistic. Yet the impact of process-oriented, agroecological
practices such as agroforestry or integrated pest management has been
thoroughly documented by Pretty et al. (2011) through analysis of a
number of large donor-funded and NGO-led initiatives in Sub-Saharan
Africa. The area of impact, the number of households potentially
benefited, and the potential productivity increase generated by each
technology or practice was computed. For example, integrated pest
management increased average productivity by a factor of 2.24 (more
than double) on an area of impact totaling 3,327,000 ha; agroforestry and
soil conservation increased productivity by a factor of 1.96 on 3,385,000
ha. One interesting result from this ex post evaluation of development
projects is the item termed “novel regional and national partnerships and
policies,” which is not a management practice but nonetheless rasied
productivity by a factor of 2.05 on 5,319,840 ha. This finding illustrates
why ecological intensification is portrayed as an approach that builds

upon both technical and institutional innovation (Tittonell, 2014b).
Novel technologies—beyond “modern” ones—offer great
opportunities for the ecological intensification of agriculture. Nano-
sensors mounted on GPS-aided mechanical weeding machines can detect
diseased plants before they exhibit any symptom, allowing them to be
selectively removed before they spread the disease inoculum. Most if not
all greenhouses in the intensive horticultural production sector of the
Netherlands use biological control solutions to manage insect pests, and
in some cases nematodes and diseases. Large-scale agroecological farms
in Argentina, ranging between 500 and 3,000 ha, use sophisticated
precision agriculture technologies to carefully implement complex
spatial arrangements of intercrops and agroforestry designs. Improved
cultivars of traditional Chiloé potatoes allow longer storage and greater
resistance to disease, contributing to steadier food supplies to households

over the year. Evolutionary breeding provides highly adaptable crop
cultivars particularly suited to crop species associations in variable
climates. These examples, out of many, show that there is no
contradiction between ecological intensification and technological
progress. On the contrary, it is often the old technological lock-ins, such
as toxin-producing genetically modified crops or chemical pesticides,
that are of no use for ecological intensification. The biggest factor
limiting the potential of novel technologies to improve food security is
that they are generally not available or of limited use to smallholder
farmers in poor regions, reducing their scalability.
Most of the agricultural land in the developing world is currently

producing below its capacity. Yield gaps, defined as the difference
between potential and current yield levels, are wide for most major
crops. Growth in both production and productivity has been unequal
across the world, and today’s yield gaps tend to be widest in the poorer
regions of the world, and even wider for farmers who have fewer
resource endowments in any given location. In the least-favored regions
of the world, food production per capita remains at the same level as in
the 1960s. Such is the case, unfortunately, in much of Sub-Saharan
Africa. I see three major reasons for such disparities:
1. Inadequate models of agricultural development (from policies to

technologies) coupled with increasingly dense settled
populations in rural areas have led to severe degradation of the

natural resource base.
2. Poor farmers in the poorer regions of the world do not have
access to, cannot afford, or are unwilling to adopt modern
agricultural technologies, which they perceive as either too risky
or ineffective.
3. Such technologies were not developed to fit the reality of
smallholder systems in these contexts, and hence they are
ineffective at increasing crop and livestock productivity

sustainably.
In the most affluent regions of the world, by contrast, agricultural

intensification through the use of inputs in excess of what their factor
elasticity would dictate has led to environmental pollution, with often
noxious consequences for human health and high costs for society as a
whole (costs that are never internalized in the price paid for agricultural
produce). The two regions of the world most emblematic of the success
of the so-called Green Revolution—the Punjab in India and the Yaqui
Valley in Mexico—are also the most conspicuous examples of
environmental degradation associated with agricultural intensification
(e.g., Maredia and Pingali, 2001). We do not want to take that road
again. More than a decade ago, Tilman et al. (2002) warned that the
doubling of yields experienced over the past 50 years had been
accompanied by a sevenfold increase in nitrogen fertilizer use, a
threefold increase in phosphorus use, and doubling of irrigation water. If
we need to increase food production by an extra 70% over the next 40
years, as the most pessimistic scenarios suggest, such an increase cannot
be fueled by further inputs of N, P, and water—at least not at the same
rate as over the past 50 years. We need new forms of agricultural
intensification to produce more but differently, to produce more food
where food is urgently needed, and to make use of the natural

functionalities that ecosystems offer in order to reduce the need for and
increase the efficiency of external inputs. This chapter explored some
promising avenues based on recent experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa, in
which agroecological principles are put at the service of designing
restorative and resource-use-efficient agriculture. Implementing such
promising initiatives at scale to address urgent poverty and food

insecurity remains a major challenge that must be prioritized in our
research-for-development agendas.
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Chapter 14
Renewable Energy
in the Energy Future
Jeffrey Skeer and Rodrigo Leme

14.1 Introduction
This chapter examines the growing role of renewable energy in the

global energy mix, bioenergy’s share in that role, the conditions that
favor renewable energy, the benefits coming from it, and policies for
reinforcing it.1
14.2 Energy Trends and Energy Transition
Keeping global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius,” as the Paris

climate agreement requires, will be a huge challenge, as shown in Figure
14.1. With no new policies, the likely emissions pathway will lead to
much greater warming. If all current policies, pledges, and nationally
1This chapter is based on preceding work at the International Renewable Energy Agency
(IRENA), including work by the costing team, led by Michael Taylor, and the Renewable
Energy Roadmap (REmap) program, led by Dolf Gielen, Deger Saygin, and Nicholas
Wagner. IRENA’s REmap program determines the potential for countries, regions, and
the world to scale up renewables. REmap assesses renewable energy potential from the
bottom up, starting with country analyses conducted in collaboration with country
experts, and then aggregating these results to arrive at a global picture. Further
information about the REmap program can be found at www.irena.org/remap, and details
of the REmap methodology can be found at http://www.irena.org/remap/Methodology.
473
determined contributions (NDCs) are implemented, the likely emissions

pathway (the gold area) is still not nearly enough—there would be only a
very low chance (just 0–4%) of keeping global temperature rise below 2
degrees. Much more ambitious pathways are needed to bring the world in
line with the Paris agreement—reducing 2050 emissions by 80% from
the reference case, from about 60 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent a
year (GtCO2-eq/year) down to 10 GtCO2-eq/year, and even these would

offer just two chances out of three to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees.
Fig. 14.1. Greenhouse gas emissions pathways to the year 2100 and corresponding
likelihood of keeping global average temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius. Source: Van
Vuuren (2017).
It is widely acknowledged, and in fact tautological, that such dramatic

reductions in carbon emissions will require the complete or nearly
complete decarbonization of the energy system. This implies the
substitution of substantially carbon-free renewable energy sources—
hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, ocean, and biomass energy—for carbon-
bearing energy vectors such as coal, oil, and natural gas. (While biomass
emits carbon when combusted or processed for energy use, it also
absorbs carbon when created, and properly designed systems can yield
Renewable Energy in the Energy Future 475
neutral or negative life-cycle carbon emissions. While other renewables

may entail carbon emissions in the manufacture of solar cells, wind
turbines, and other equipment for making use of them, they do not emit
carbon in their operations.) In addition to technologies for decarbonizing
energy systems, negative emissions options such as BECCS (bioenergy
with carbon capture and storage) and afforestation will likely have an
important role to play.

Two major trends suggest that the necessary reductions in carbon
could be achieved. First, there has been a long-term electrification trend
throughout the world—practically since the invention of electricity and
continuing today—that will facilitate the displacement of fossil fuel use
with renewable energy since many renewable energy forms are dedicated
to electricity generation. Second, there has recently been a sharp rise in
new forms of renewable energy production and a corresponding fall in
the fossil energy share, owing to continuing advances in renewable

energy technology and a steep decline in renewable energy costs.
The share of electricity in total energy end use doubled from 9% in
1971 to 18% in 2014. Meanwhile, industrial use of electricity—for
manufacturing, steel production, and many other applications—grew
from 15% to 27% (Figure 14.2). Use of electricity in buildings—for
appliances, heating, and air conditioning—tripled from roughly 10% to
30% of final energy use as new devices have become available and as
populations have become more wealthy and urbanized. Transport use of
electricity—mostly for electric trams and trains—is still very low but is
expected to increase markedly in coming years given that better batteries
have improved the range and performance of electric vehicles. As energy
use becomes more electrified, a pathway is opened up to make it less
carbonized, since fossil-fueled electricity can be displaced by generation
from renewables.
As shown in Figure 14.3, the overall share of fossil energy in the
primary energy mix has been rather steady in recent years, declining
modestly from around 86% in the 1970s to around 80% today. With an
initial push from the sharp rise in oil prices following the oil supply crisis
of 1973, and a persistent effort to improve vehicle fuel economy, the
share of oil fell from 45% to 47% in the 1970s to 38% by the mid-1980s
to 32% in 2014. The coal share grew modestly, despite persistent
Fig. 14.2. Electrification of energy use in buildings and industry, 1971–2014. Source:
IEA/OECD (2016).
Fig. 14.3. Global fossil and renewable energy shares of primary energy, 1971–2014. The
category “Solid biomass – residential” includes all types of solid biomass fuels used in
the residential sector. Source: IEA/OECD (2016).
expansion of electricity generation, for which coal is almost exclusively

used; it held steady at 24–26% throughout in the 1970s and 1980s,
declined slightly to 23% in the late 1990s, and rose to 28–29% from
2010 through 2014. The natural gas share rose slowly but surely from
16% in the 1970s, to 17–18% in the 1980s, 19–20% in the 1990s, and
21% in 2014. This trend has been facilitated by development of liquefied
natural gas (LNG) for long-distance gas trade and more recently by
hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), which have boosted gas supplies and
reduced gas prices. It is poised to continue because gas-fired power
plants are often less costly to operate than coal-fired plants.

Meanwhile, the share of renewable energy has been slowly increasing,
with traditional hydroelectric power increasingly supplemented by
geothermal power, combined heat and power production from wood and
other solid biomass, wind and solar power, and liquid biofuels for
transport. The growth in the renewable share, initially bolstered by
electricity portfolio standards and fuel-blending mandates, is now
accelerating owing to declining costs. Renewables appear likely to work in
synergy with gas in the power sector to reduce the generating shares of
more carbon-intensive coal in coming decades. In addition, as road
transport becomes electrified, renewables will be well placed to
significantly erode the share of oil.
14.3 Conditions Favoring Expansion of Renewable Energy
Renewable energy has expanded because supportive government policies

have led to technological advancement and rapidly falling costs, shown
in Figure 14.4. As of 2016, nearly all countries directly supported
renewable energy technology development and deployment through
some mix of policies (REN21, 2016). Renewable energy’s growth can be
expected to continue, as markets increasingly value the reduction in
carbon emissions brought about when renewable options replace fossil
fuel, as technologies continue to improve, and as costs continue to fall.
The costs of renewable electricity have fallen rapidly in the past
several years. While hydro, biomass, and geothermal power have long
been cost-competitive, wind and solar power now are as well. In the
seven-year period from the end of 2009 to the end of 2016, wind turbine
prices fell by 30–40%, solar photovoltaic (PV) module prices by around
80%, and the total levelized cost of PV generation by more than 60%.
478
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Fig. 14.4. Falling costs of renewable electricity. Each circle represents an electricity generation plant whose capacity is indicated by the circle' s
diameter. The center of each circle is the project' s cost on the y axis. The thick lines are the global weighted average levelized cost of energy
(LCOE) values for plants commissioned in each year. The real weighted average cost of capital is assumed to be 7.5% for countries of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and China and 10% for the rest of the world. The band represents the fossil
fuel-fired power generation cost range. Source: IRENA (2017b).
Costs have been falling not only because of research and

development but also thanks to policies promoting investment and
production, giving rise to economies of scale and technology learning.
The result is a virtuous circle, with investment leading to lower costs and
more investment. At least 173 countries have established renewable
energy targets (REN21, 2016). More than 150 have adopted specific
policies to promote renewable power, 75 to promote use of renewables in

heating, and 72 to promote renewables in transport (IEA, 2016). These
policies include a variety of regulatory instruments, such as fuel-blending
mandates, guaranteed access to power grids, and competitive power
auctions. They also include financial incentives, such as tax exemptions
and preferential feed-in tariffs for electricity sales.
The improving cost picture, along with strong policy support in most
countries, has led to rapid acceleration of renewable energy uptake. This
growth has been most dramatic in the electric power sector, where more
than half of all new generating capacity installed each year globally is
now renewable. By the end of 2015, investments in renewable energy
worldwide totaled US$360 billion, of which $330 billion—about 90%—
was invested in the power sector. In 2016, global renewable installed
generating capacity grew nearly 9% or 161 gigawatts (GW) to total 2,130
GW, including 71 GW of new solar power, 51 GW of new wind power,
30 GW of new hydro, a record 9 GW of new biopower, and 1 GW of
new geothermal power (IRENA, 2017a) (Figure 14.5). About half of
total installed capacity is located in non-OECD countries.
Pursuant to the Paris agreement, additional policy support going
forward will likely be in the form of a market value for carbon, either
taxes on carbon emissions or ceilings on carbon emissions that elicit a
price. To a large extent, “subsidies” for renewable energy in different
contexts can approximate the value of carbon emissions reductions
where a general market value for carbon is not in place. When such a
market value is in place, a wide range of renewable energy options are
cost-competitive.
Cheaper battery storage will make it cost-effective to use even greater
shares of variable wind and solar energy on power grids by helping to
balance out the peaks and valleys of output to match demand (Figure
14.6). And as batteries store more energy with less mass, they are
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Hydropower Wind Solar Solid biofuels Other renewables

Fig. 14.5 Cumulative renewable electric generating capacity (GW). Source: IRENA
(2017a). Other renewables account for biogas, geothermal, liquid biofuels, and marine
energy.
Fig. 14.6. Rapidly falling costs of battery storage. Dots represent individual price offers
for batteries in German residential storage systems (lead acid in light gray, lithium-ion in
dark gray). Narrow gray bars show median prices; gray shading shows the range from the
10th to the 90th percentile. Source: IRENA (2017c).
extending the range of electric vehicles (EVs), making them more

popular and further boosting storage capacity on power grids they are
plugged into. EVs could achieve purchase-cost parity with conventional

vehicles within the next decade, accounting for most new vehicles by
2030 and most of the fleet by 2050, providing a big boost to grid storage,
although the level of penetration and cost reduction will vary from
country to country.
Cost reductions can greatly expand the geographic scope and
practical potential of even some quite familiar renewable energy options.

A good example is energy from wind. Falling costs for floating and
offshore wind platforms are easing land constraints on wind turbine
development, making it possible to build wind power for densely
populated coastal areas where it had not previously been feasible.
14.4 Shifting Balance between Fossil and Renewable Energy

IRENA’s analysis shows that the primary energy supply mix could
change substantially by 2050. Total fossil fuel use could be a third of
today’s level and oil demand less than half of today’s level—roughly
equivalent to today’s oil production volume from the OPEC oil cartel.
Coal use could also fall by more than half. The world would not run out
of fossil fuels but would stop using the most challenging resources that
have high production costs, such as oil sands and Arctic oil. Although
natural gas can be a “bridge” to greater use of renewable energy, its role
will be short-lived unless it is coupled with high levels of carbon capture
and storage (CCS).
IRENA’s analysis was based on the REmap methodology, which can
be summarized as follows (for further details, see IRENA, 2018):
 A Reference Case to the year 2050 was created based on forecasts
submitted by IRENA’s member countries and developed through
expert consultations and workshops. Considered the baseline case of
the analysis, this case represents the implementation of current or
expected policies and is broadly in line with targets set forth by
member countries.
 Additional renewable energy potential by technology was investigated
for each sector and member country in consultation with country
experts and the literature. The technology potentials developed are
described as REmap Options. An approach based on options rather

than scenarios is deliberate; REmap is an exploratory study and not a
target-setting exercise.
 Fuel prices were forecast based on existing literature and IRENA
estimates; technology costs and performance criteria were estimated
to reflect conditions particular to each country.
 The REmap Case was created to reflect how the REmap Options
change the Reference Case in order to accelerate renewable energy
deployment. The results of these options are then quantified in terms
of their costs, investment needs, and benefits resulting from lower
levels of air pollution, lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and
other impacts.
In the Reference Case, the total primary energy supply is estimated to
grow more than 50% by 2050, or an average of around 1.2% a year,
roughly half of the rate seen in the past two decades. Despite this
slowdown, the total primary energy supply would increase to about 835
exajoules (EJ) by 2050 in the Reference Case. Just under 80% of this
total would still be supplied by fossil fuels in 2050, down slightly from
today’s level of 84%. Under today’s national energy plans, renewable
energy would bring little change in the supply mix over this time frame,
since those plans mainly reflect market trends.
Under REmap, the energy supply mix would change substantially.
The total global primary energy supply would reach 635 EJ per year in
2050, only marginally higher than today’s level and 26% less than in the
Reference Case. Total nonrenewable energy use would be reduced by
67%. The share of renewable energy in the total primary energy supply
would grow to about 65% by 2050.
In the REmap Case, the world would stop using the most challenging
resources with high production costs, such as oil sands and Arctic oil.
Even the role of natural gas as a “bridge” to renewables would be a short
one unless natural gas use were coupled with high levels of CCS. There
is a risk of path dependency and future stranded assets (such as pipelines
and liquefied natural gas terminals) if natural gas deployment expands
significantly without long-term emissions reductions goals in mind.
Because of the need to reduce carbon emissions, most of today’s fossil
fuel reserves would remain unexploited.
Final energy consumption in 2050 could remain around today’s level

thanks to intensive energy efficiency improvements, and the share of
renewable energy could rise from around 15% of the primary energy
supply in 2015 to around 65%. The energy intensity improvements
would be partially due to efficiency gains from renewable energy use for
heating, cooling, and transport. Electrification of end-use sectors will
gather speed, with growing market penetration of electric vehicles and

heat pumps. These trends are illustrated in Figure 14.7.
Fig. 14.7. REmap projections of total final energy consumption (EJ/year). This chart
shows final energy consumption, therefore the energy carriers account for resources used
directly in the end-use sectors (buildings, industry, transport, etc.). The energy carriers
district heat and electricity account for the heat and electricity generated outside end-use
sectors. The energy carriers used in the generation of heat and electricity are not shown in
the chart. Source: IEA/IRENA (2017).
In the Reference Case, current trends continue, yielding only minor

changes in the energy mix. Renewable energy covers only a quarter of
the total final energy demand in 205, including the consumption of
electricity and district heat sourced from renewables. While the share of
oil use remains nearly constant, the natural gas share increases at the
expense of coal. Electricity expands to represent a greater share of

energy use than any other energy carrier besides oil.
In the REmap Case, ambitious energy efficiency technologies reduce
projected final energy consumption in 2050 by nearly a third. The
renewable energy share grows to 60%, and the fossil fuel share falls to
30%. Notably, the share of final bioenergy use in total final energy
consumption rises from around 13% today to around 21% in 2050 (from
about 50 EJ to 80 EJ). This can be divided into 7% transport biofuels and
14% solid and gaseous biofuels for electricity generation and heating.
Solar water heater use grows for industry and buildings from negligible
levels to about 35 EJ.
Oil share decreases significantly, with transport relying more on
biofuels and electricity. Some amount of oil—equivalent to half of
today’s level—would be used to meet the demand in nonroad passenger
transport and freight. Compared with the Reference Case, the REmap
Case produces a major change in oil and its products in final energy
terms. Whereas oil use grows from 123 EJ to 170 EJ in the Reference
Case, oil demand drops to 55 EJ in REmap. Coal use is more than halved
from current levels, and coal remains in use for only a few applications
in the industry sector. Gas remains an important fuel in this transition for
supplying any heating in industry and buildings that remain unserved by
renewables.
Electricity’s role in energy use is poised to grow dramatically. Even
in the Reference Case, electricity-generating capacity increases by 180
GW a year to reach 12,400 GW by 2050. The largest additions are in
solar PV and wind power, representing 70–80% of the total. Installed
coal capacity remains at current levels over the entire period to 2050,
while gas capacity nearly doubles to 2,900 GW, representing the largest
share in total generating capacity by 2050. Renewable energy’s share of
electricity generation in the Reference Case grows from 23% in 2015 to
31% in 2030.
In the REmap case, more renewable generating capacity is added.
Solar PV capacity climbs to 6,000 GW and wind capacity to 4,800 GW
by 2050. While oil-based capacity drops to zero, total installed nuclear
capacity remains the same as today. The remaining fossil fuel capacity,
including 5,000 GW fueled by natural gas, offers flexible generation. So
do renewables including biomass, concentrating solar power (CSP), and

hydropower. With these changes, total installed electricity-generating
capacity triples to more than 20,000 GW. The renewable energy share
reaches 82%, more than twice as high as in the Reference Case and
nearly four times as high as it is today. The energy transition thus
requires a major scale-up of effort.
14.5 Potential for Renewable Energy Expansion
There are many practical and cost-effective options for expanding

renewable energy supply through 2050. IRENA’s REmap case envisions
235 EJ of total final renewable energy consumption in 2050, of which
the largest share (44%) would be for heat and other direct uses, the next-
Fig. 14.8. REmap view of final renewable energy consumed in 2050. Source:
IEA/IRENA (2017).
largest share (40%) for electric power, and the rest (16%) for transport
(Figure 14.8). Roughly three-eighths of the renewable energy supply
(37%) would be some form of bioenergy: 10% would be for bioenergy in
buildings, 13% for bioenergy to provide industrial process heat, 11% in
the form of liquid biofuels for transport, and 3% for power (electricity).
Almost all the renewable energy supply options shown are cost-effective
when the environmental and health costs of competing energy supply

options are considered (IEA/IRENA, 2017).
REmap envisions that renewables would become the largest primary
energy source—by taking market share away from fossil fuels, especially
coal. Looking at the picture in 2050, renewables could potentially supply
nearly two-thirds of total primary energy, with the remaining third
produced by nonrenewable sources (Figure 14.9).
Fig. 14.9. Renewables as largest primary energy source in 2050 (EJ). Source:
IEA/IRENA (2017).
Achieving this scenario, however, will be challenging—it will require

additional net investments of US$29 trillion between 2015 and 2050
(Figure 14.10). Gross investment required would be $54 trillion, of
which $16 trillion would be for renewable energy, while $25 trillion of
investment in fossil and nuclear energy would be avoided. Net
investment would average US$0.83 trillion yearly between 2015 and
2050, equivalent to 0.4% of global GDP in 2050.
Fig. 14.10. Energy investment requirements through 2050 (US$ trillion). Source:
IEA/IRENA (2017).
14.6 Benefits of Renewable Energy Expansion
Scaling up renewable energy supply to transform the global energy

system should have major economic, environmental, and social benefits.
It, along with enhanced energy efficiency efforts, will be essential for
limiting global temperature rise to below 2°C as specified by the Paris
climate accord.
From an economic perspective, the benefits of expanding renewables
should greatly exceed the costs, especially when health and
environmental externalities are counted (Figure 14.11). At least two-
fifths of the practical renewable energy options are already cost-effective
on a pure accounting basis, and this share should grow as costs continue
to decline. When the health effects of air pollution and the climate effects
of carbon emissions are considered, all of the practical renewable energy
options are cost-effective. Although the cost of transforming the system

through renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other low-carbon
options would average US$1.8 trillion a year through 2050, the benefits
would be two to six times greater, assuming an external value of $50 to
$110 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions reduction. The bulk of
the savings come from reduced coal use in the power sector and reduced
fossil fuel use in transport.

Fig. 14.11. Renewable energy savings greatly exceed costs through 2050 (US$
trillion/year). Source: IEA/IRENA (2017).
Environmentally, renewables will play a central role in limiting

global temperature rise to less than 2°C above 1990 levels. This will
require reducing the CO2 emission intensity of the global economy by
85% by 2050 (Figure 14.12). Because two-thirds of global greenhouse
gas emissions stem from energy production and use, the energy sector
must lead the effort, with energy-related emissions falling 70% from
2015 levels. More than half of the emissions reductions are expected to
come from renewable energy technologies, including 14% from
electrification of transport and 44% from other renewable energy
applications. Energy efficiency improvements would account for most of
the rest (32%), along with carbon capture and storage, lighter materials,
and structural changes in the economy (collectively 10%).
Fig. 14.12. Renewable expansion key to limiting temperature rise. Annual CO2 emissions
and emission reductions in 2050 (tCO2/year). Source: IEA/IRENA (2017).
Fig. 14.13. Renewable energy employment growth through 2050 (million jobs – direct
and indirect). Source: IEA/IRENA (2017).
From a social standpoint, the decarbonization of energy production

would have significant benefits for employment, income, and health
(Figure 14.13). Employment in renewable energy activity should roughly
triple from around 9 million jobs in 2015 to 26 million jobs in 2050.
Increased employment in the renewable energy and energy efficiency
fields should more than offset lost employment in fossil energy through
2050. In addition to associated job creation in construction and

manufacturing, significant induced job creation would take place in
service sectors owing to increased economic activity deriving from
higher incomes.
Income would increase owing to a global economic surge from
investment in capital-intensive renewable energy technologies and
energy efficiency improvements. Spending on energy could be reduced
thanks to declining prices for electricity and fossil fuel, freeing up more
household income for other things. Globally, an energy system

transformation in the Group of Twenty (G20) economies would boost
gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.8% in 2050, with cumulative
additional economic activity of US$19 trillion over a 35-year period.
Health benefits would stem from reductions in the morbidity and
mortality that result from air pollution. Indoor air pollution from dirty
and inefficient traditional cookstoves in developing countries would be
virtually eliminated as cleaner modern cookstoves come into use.
Ambient air pollution from coal-fired power plants, including sulfur
dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulates, would also fall sharply. Many
of the 4 million annual deaths that are currently attributed to pollution
would be avoided.
14.7 Potential for Bioenergy in the Renewable Mix
There is substantial potential to produce additional bioenergy by closing

the gap between projected and potential food yields. The Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) projects that
global average yield for major food crops will rise from 4.2 metric tons
per hectare (t/ha) in 2010 to 5.1 t/ha in 2050. But the potential yield is
10.4 t/ha, or more than double the projected figure. It follows that if the
yield gap were closed, less than half as much land would be needed for
food. For maize, a leading biofuel feedstock today, actual yield is less
than 25% of potential yield in most of Africa and India, shown in brown
(Figure 14.14). Similar disparities exist for other crops. And there are
practical ways to boost this potential while also producing energy. For
example, the World Agroforestry Centre has documented how
intercropping maize with gliricidia, a nitrogen-fixing short-rotation wood

crop, can triple maize yields (FAO/TECA, 2013).
Fig. 14.14. Ratio of actual to potential yield for maize. Source: Chart retrieved from
http://gaez.fao.org/Main.html#, chart title: Ratio of actual and potential yield for rain-fed
& irrigated maize, date: 2012-05-02, series: Yield and Production Gaps, collective title:
Crop yield ratio and production gap.
There is also potential to make land available for bioenergy crops

through sustainable intensification of pastureland used to raise livestock
(Figure 14.15). Beyond the 1.5 billion hectares of land used today to
grow food crops, 1.4 billion hectares of prime and good pastureland are
available (FAO, 2017). About 97% of the world’s food and feed are
grown on the cropland, while less than 3% are grown on the pastureland.
If this pastureland were used more intensively, food for livestock could
well be raised on a quarter of it, leaving three-quarters for energy crops
(IRENA, 2016a). Careful assessment should be undertaken, however, to
Fig. 14.15. Pastureland available globally for biofuel crops. Courtesy of Lee Lynd,
Dartmouth University.
prevent increases in greenhouse gas emissions due to tillage and the use
of nitrogen fertilizer.
Land for energy crops could also be made available by reducing
waste and losses in the food chain, which account for one out of every
three tons of food produced (Table 14.1). It is interesting to think how
much less would be wasted, and how much land could be freed up for
energy crops, if the best practices at each stage of the food chain were
adopted in every region. For example, at the consumption stage, the
region with the lowest share of food waste is Sub-Saharan Africa. The
lowest production losses are achieved in industrialized Asia. Postharvest
handling and storage losses are lowest in North America.
Additional energy crops can be grown by restoring degraded lands.
The Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration committed countries
to restore 350 million hectares by 2030. The African Forest Landscape
Restoration Initiative (AFR100), launched at the 2015 United Nations
Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris and joined by 25
countries, aims to restore 100 million of these hectares (Figure 14.16).
Altogether the potential from higher yields on farmland, better use of
pastureland, reduced waste in the food chain, and commitments to restore
degraded forest could theoretically make available more than 2 billion
hectares of land for growing wood or other solid biomass. Assuming an
average yield of 10 t/ha and an average energy content of 15 gigajoules
per metric ton (GJ/t), this land could produce more than 300 exajoules
(EJ) of biomass.
Table 14.1. Losses with best practice at each stage of the food chain.
Postharvest Processing Distribution:
Agricultural
Food type handling and and supermarket Consumption
production
storage packaging retail
Cereals 2% 2% 3.50% 2% 1%
Roots and
6% 7% 10% 3% 2%
tubers
Oilseeds
6% 0% 5% 1% 1%
and pulses
Fruits and
10% 4% 2% 8% 5%
vegetables
Meat 2.90% 0.20% 5% 4% 2%
Milk 3.50% 0.50% 0.10% 0.50% 0.10%
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, IRENA.
Fig. 14.16. African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100). Source: AFR-100
Pledges.
In addition, substantial amounts of additional biomass could be

harvested from agricultural residues on existing farmland. As food
production expands to meet the needs of growing populations, there is
also increased production of agricultural residues. One-quarter to one-
half of harvest residues and 90% of processing residues could be
sustainably collected, leaving enough behind to regenerate the soil and
feed livestock. Projecting the sustainably collectable amounts to 2050

and netting out use of residues for animal feed, IRENA has found that
46–95 EJ of farm residues could be available for bioenergy (IRENA,
2016a).
The components of bioenergy potential are summed up in Table 14.2.
The first column of numbers shows a total theoretical primary biomass
potential of 549 EJ. The third column shows the potential for advanced
biofuels from second-generation conversion processes, which are about
40% efficient. These processes use lignocellulosic feedstocks like

agricultural residues, forest wood, and grasses as well as short-rotation
coppice planted in pastures and on land freed by higher crop yields and
reduced food waste.
Table 14.2. Summary of biomass and bioenergy potential.
Primary End-use bioenergy with first- End-use bioenergy with

biomass /third-generation biofuel or second-generation biofuel
energy combined heat and power conversion (40%
Category content (80% efficiency) efficiency)
Agricultural
95 EJ 76 EJ 38 EJ
residues
Cultivating
141 EJ 112 EJ 56 EJ
forests
Subtotal A 236 EJ 188 EJ 94 EJ
Higher crop
88 EJ 70 EJ 35 EJ
yields
Pastureland 142 EJ 114 EJ 57 EJ
Reduced food
83 EJ 66 EJ 33 EJ
waste
Subtotal B 313 EJ 250 EJ 125 EJ
TOTAL 549 EJ 438 EJ 219 EJ
Source: IRENA (2016a).
The second column of numbers suggests what might happen while

waiting for advanced biofuel technologies to mature. Farm residues and
forest wood could be combusted at 80% efficiency to provide 188 EJ of
heat and power (subtotal A), while pasture and land freed by higher
yields and reduced waste could be planted with conventional biofuel
crops and also converted at 80% efficiency to yield 250 EJ of biofuel
(subtotal B). In all, 438 EJ of energy could be supplied. About one-fifth

of this amount would suffice to fulfill the REmap vision for bioenergy
use in 2050.
It is not clear what mix of biofuel crops would be planted to fulfill
this vision, but it would likely evolve in a gradual way from the mix that
exists today. The current mix is dominated by ethanol production from
sugarcane in Brazil and maize in the United States, biodiesel production
from oil palm in Indonesia and Malaysia, heat and power from wood in
Europe and North America, and wood for cookstoves in Africa. Some of
this mix is thought to have had an adverse impact on global carbon
stocks, for example by causing forest to be converted to farmland, but
there is hope that sustainable intensification of farmland and more
systematic governance of land use can reduce or even reverse this effect.
Just as importantly, as advanced biofuel conversion processes are
demonstrated at a commercial scale, they will make it possible to use a
wider range of feedstocks, as described, in ways that do not require new
land. Among the feedstocks from which a growing share of bioenergy
might be generated are high-yielding “energy cane,” which may have up
to four times as much energy content per hectare as sugarcane, short-
rotation coppice woods like poplar or willow in temperate climates and
acacia or eucalyptus in tropical climates, and fast-growing nitrogen-
fixing grasses like miscanthus in a wide range of climates.
14.8 Benefits of Energy for the Agri-Food Chain
There are important links between energy and agriculture at every stage
of the agri-food chain, from primary production to postharvest handling
and storage, to processing, to transport and distribution. At each stage,
the application of energy—including a wide range of decentralized
renewable energy options—has demonstrated potential to raise

productivity and enhance livelihoods. Key applications include water
pumping for irrigation at the production stage, drying at the postharvest
stage, milling and grinding at the processing stage, and refrigeration for
transport and distribution. Depending upon the specific application,
different forms of heat energy, mechanical energy, or electricity may be
used.
At the production stage, energy use is mainly to fuel farm vehicles
and to manufacture fertilizer (Figure 14.17). While energy use in
agriculture has been growing quite slowly and remains well below 4% of
energy use globally, it has been growing faster in rapidly developing
Africa (Figure 14.18).
Irrigation is a key option for raising agricultural yields where water
supplies are sufficient and investment capital is available. Such systems
require pumps to move water from source to field. In developing regions

without ready access to electricity, these pumps have traditionally been
powered by diesel fuel, but drastic drops in the cost of photovoltaics
have made solar pumps cost-effective. Their capital investment cost is
amply repaid by avoided diesel fuel cost. Renewables-based water
pumping has been shown to increase yields as much as fourfold
(Energy4impact, 2013).
Fertilizer is another key input to production. Techniques for smart
fertilizer application can reduce damaging runoff to lakes and streams as
well as emissions of nitrogen oxides, which contribute to global
warming. Agroforestry approaches, which combine naturally nitrogen-
fixing wood crops with food crops on small rural farm plots, can also
reduce the need for fertilizer and its associated energy use.
At the postharvest and transport stages, food drying and refrigeration
are essential to limiting product losses in the agri-food chain. The lack of
proper handling causes estimated global losses of as high as 45% for
fruits and vegetables and roots and tubers, 35% for seafood and fish,
30% for cereals, and 20% for dairy, meat, oilseeds, and pulses
(Fridgehub, 2014). So there is plenty of room for improvement, provided
the required energy is available.
Drying of agricultural products is typically performed through the
direct application of heat. In developing countries, heat has traditionally
16 Energy in Fertilizers
14
12 Fuels (other uses)
10
Fuels (transport and
8
tractors)
6
Electricity (irrigation)
4
2 Electricity (non irrigation)
0
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Fig. 14.17. Energy use in agriculture: World (EJ). Source: FAO data, Metz et al. (2007),
Worrell et al. (2000), IRENA analysis.
700
Energy in Fertilizers
600
500 Fuels (other uses)
400
Fuels (transport and
300 tractors)
200 Electricity (irrigation)
100 Electricity (non irrigation)
0
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Fig. 14.18. Energy use in agriculture in Africa (PJ). Source: FAO data, Metz et al.
(2007), Worrell et al. (2000), IRENA analysis.
been provided by fuelwood or sunlight, but modern solar and geothermal

energy devices can dry produce faster and more efficiently while
protecting it from insects, dust, and rain. Solar dryers are practical in
rural areas with no access to electricity as they are simple to build and do
not require electric ventilation or backup heat. Solar energy heats the air
and creates an airflow that carries away moisture, so that produce dries
with little attention from farmers, who are free to engage in other
activities (Shrestha et al., 2006).
Refrigeration has great potential to reduce food-chain losses in
developing countries, where its application has been restricted by limited
access to large-scale power grids, so decentralized energy options for
refrigeration are important to consider. Solar refrigerators, energized by

photovoltaic panels that also charge batteries to ensure continuous
service when the sun is not shining, can cool produce more cheaply than
refrigeration powered by kerosene. Biogas digested from the manure of a
cow provides more than enough energy to refrigerate the milk the cow
produces (Powering Agriculture, n.d.) Solar icemakers, which use solar
heat to evaporate a refrigerant and generate a cooling effect, have been
demonstrated for milk refrigeration as well (Erickson, 2009). In areas
without access to affordable energy, low-cost evaporative coolers—such

as “pot-in-pot” systems, where a smaller pot is placed inside a larger pot
and the gap between the two filled with sand to create a porous insulating
layer that is watered at regular intervals—can extend the shelf life of
vegetables for as long as 20 days (Elkheir, 2004; Practical Action, n.d.;
IRENA, 2016c).
At the processing stage, fossil or renewable sources can provide
energy for tasks like removing crop residues, milling and grinding grain
to flour, and pressing seeds and vegetables to oil. Many such tasks can
also be performed manually, but modern machinery and energy forms
save considerable time and effort. For rural areas without access to
regional power grids, mechanical energy can be provided by renewable
energy forms like water mills and windmills, and electricity can be
generated from solar panels or biogas. In water mills, the most
widespread renewable technology in areas lacking grid access, water
wheels transform the kinetic energy of flowing water into rotational
motion of parallel millstones that grind grains against each other. There
are some 25,000 water mills in Nepal and 200,000 in India (Ashden,
2007). Fossil-fueled mills are also an option, but diesel is costly to buy
and transport.
Throughout the food chain, energy adds value by enabling
communications and education. Portable electronic devices, increasingly
powered in rural areas by decentralized photovoltaic-battery systems,

improve farmers’ access to market and weather information, agricultural
extension services, and alerts for drought, floods, and diseases. This
information can help them plant and boost yields on the crops that have
the greatest market value. Home-scale lighting, newly affordable in
developing countries thanks to PV-battery systems in combination with
light-emitting diodes (LEDs), allows children to study during evening

hours, so that future farmers will be more literate and have greater
capacity to absorb complex agricultural information that can help them
raise yields. Modern cookstoves, more efficient than traditional ones, can
also increase study time and literacy by reducing the time spent by
women and children to collect fuelwood.
In the broader economy, the synergy of energy and agriculture should
boost output and employment. By enhancing productivity and output
while reducing losses, the application of energy creates employment

opportunities in the agri-food chain. Building, running, and maintaining
energy facilities also create jobs. Still more income and employment are
generated by the “multiplier effect” in the economy. The increased
productivity of labor that energy makes possible will reduce the amount
of labor required for many agricultural tasks, thereby tending to reduce
employment in those tasks. But in areas where farms are getting smaller
and more and more farmers are “part-timers” who derive much or most
of their income from other jobs—including many parts of Africa—higher
labor productivity may be a way of maintaining agricultural output in the
face of a looming labor shortage. Although developing economies are
labor intensive, an acute shortage of labor at peak harvest season has
been cited as an important cause of food loss and limited yields.
14.9 Policy Approaches to Assist the Energy Transition
Several courses of action could help achieve the renewable energy

investment desired. One is to create a level playing field for renewable
and other energy sources in the marketplace; in this sense, competitive
auctions are a cost-effective way to meet renewable energy targets.
Another course of action is to make energy systems more flexible,
designing them to adapt optimally to the variability of wind and solar

energy resources. Third, we can focus not just on renewable power, but
also on renewable process heat for industry and heating and cooling for
buildings. Fourth, we can promote renewable transport—from renewable
electricity and biofuels—through, for example, fueling/charging
infrastructure and production/blending targets. Fifth, we can take steps to
ensure a sustainable, affordable, and reliable supply of biomass feedstock

for liquid fuels, heat, and power.
A number of policies could help put more bioenergy in place. Some
relate to making more land available for energy crops by boosting crop
and livestock yields and reducing food waste. Crop yields could grow
faster if more resources were dedicated to expanding extension services
that promote modern farming techniques. Food waste and losses could be
reduced by better information on food quality, public education, better
transport infrastructure, and renewable refrigeration and food drying.

More livestock could be raised on less land through modern mixed
systems for milk and meat production.
Other policies and measures could focus on how to grow more on the
land that is available. Better data on available land could encourage
farmers and foresters to invest in it. Giving farmers a clearer
understanding of agroforestry practices for planting a carbon-
sequestering mix of trees and grasses could lead to higher yields and
profits. Secure land tenure and honest governance practices are essential
to give local stakeholders a stake in managing their land more intensively
by ensuring that they can reap the fruits of their investment. Introducing
incentives to plant trees on degraded forests may well be the solid
biomass strategy with the quickest, surest payoff.
To provide the political foundation for such policies, it is vital to
communicate to policy makers and the public that renewable energy in
general is increasingly cost-competitive and essential to sustainable
development. It is also important to send a clear message that bioenergy
crops can grow along with food production and carbon-sequestering
forest cover, boosting income and employment.
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rural-technology-crt-n.
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Elkheir, M. (2004). Refrigeration, the African way. SciDev.Net, 26 August.
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hope-farmers-kenya.
Erickson, C. (2009). Rural milk preservation with the ISAAC Solar Icemaker.
Annapolis, MD: Solar Ice Company. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/
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on_Paper.pdf.
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chain. Abu Dhabi.
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remap/Methodology.
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Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge and New York:
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productivity-incomes-dairy-farmers.
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Berkeley, CA: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Chapter 15
Bioeconomy
Regina Birner and Carl Pray
15.1 Introduction
The emergence of the bioeconomy is one of the major global trends

relevant for international agricultural research. One indicator of this trend
was the first Global Bioeconomy Summit, which brought bioeconomy
experts and stakeholders from more than 50 countries to Berlin in 2015.
As noted in the Communiqué of the Summit, there is no unified
definition of the bioeconomy, but there is a widely shared understanding
of
bioeconomy as the knowledge-based production and utilization of biological
resources, innovative biological processes and principles to sustainably provide
goods and services across all economic sectors (Bioeconomy Summit, 2015, p. 4).
This shared understanding refers to three different aspects of the

bioeconomy—sometimes referred to as three perspectives, pillars, or
visions (see Birner, 2017; Bugge et al., 2016)—that are prevalent in most
definitions of bioeconomy that have been developed by countries around
the world (BÖR, 2015a, 2015b) and in the academic literature on the
bioeconomy. The first is the “bio-resource vision” of the bioeconomy,
which focuses on the need to replace fossil resources with biological
resources for both energy and materials. The second is the
“biotechnology vision,” which focuses on innovations in the biological
sciences that create new opportunities for industrial production. The third
aspect is captured by the term “sustainably” in the above definition. It
503
refers to the goal of improving the sustainability of the economic system

by using bio-resources and biotechnologies, by adopting the principles of
the “circular economy” within the bioeconomy, and by focusing on the
provision of environmental services. This aspect has been described as
“greening the bioeconomy” (Birner, 2017) or as the “bio-ecology vision”
of the bioeconomy (Bugge et al., 2016). In this chapter, the term
“sustainability vision of the bioeconomy” is applied, because this term

captures the social dimensions of the bioeconomy, which have become
more prominent in recent years.
The bio-resource vision, the biotechnology vision, and the
sustainability vision of the bioeconomy are interrelated and can be
expected to remain relevant drivers for agri-food systems until 2050 and
beyond. This chapter identifies the challenges and opportunities that arise
for agri-food systems from the development of the bioeconomy and
derives implications for global agricultural research for development,

taking the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into account. In
particular, this chapter has the following objectives:
 to explain the concept of the bioeconomy and assess its current
relevance at the global level;
 to present a framework for assessing how the development of the
bioeconomy will influence agri-food systems in the future;
 to review the literature on future scenarios regarding bioeconomy
development and its implications for agri-food systems;
 to identify governance instruments that can be used to ensure that the
rise of the bioeconomy does not threaten food and nutrition security;
and
 to derive implications for investments in agricultural research with
specific focus on the CGIAR.
15.2 The Rise of the Bioeconomy Concept
The concept of the bioeconomy has different roots. In the 1960s and
1970s, two economists, Zeman and Georgescu-Roegen, used the term
“bioeconomics” to express the concern that unlimited growth would not
be compatible with the basic laws of nature (Bonaiuti, 2014, p. 54). This
Bioeconomy 505
concept of “bioeconomics” is, however, rather different from the concept

of the “bioeconomy,” which was, according to von Braun (2014, p. 7),
first used by two geneticists, Enriquez and Martinez. Another root of the
concept consists of the European Commission’s efforts to develop a
“knowledge-based bioeconomy,” based on a vision of transforming life
sciences knowledge into new, sustainable, eco-efficient, and competitive
products (Potočnik, 2005). Following a conference in Cologne, the EU

published its so-called Cologne Paper (European Union, 2007), which
highlighted both the potential of biotechnology innovation for industrial
development (biotechnology vision) and the need to use crops as
renewable feedstocks to produce biofuels, biopolymers, and chemicals
(bio-resource vision). The development of the concept of the
bioeconomy was accompanied by increased funding (European
Commission, 2013). The development of the bioeconomy concept by the
institutions of the EU was mirrored by efforts to establish this concept in

the EU member states (BÖR, 2015a, 2015b).
In the United States, the concept also gained prominence when the
Obama administration released an official strategy entitled the “National
Bioeconomy Blueprint” in 2012 (White House, 2012). Like the
bioeconomy concept developed in the EU, this document emphasized
both the benefit of using innovation in the biological sciences to create
economic activity and the need to replace fossil-based resources with
bio-based renewable resources. Other countries, both industrialized and
developing, have also published bioeconomy-related policies and
strategies in recent years. By 2017 most of the high-income countries, as
well as the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South
Africa), had developed at least bioeconomy-related strategies, which
indicates a commitment of the respective governments to promote
bioeconomy development in the future. Developing countries show a
trend toward adopting this concept as well (BÖR, 2017). Malaysia
published a “Bioeconomy Transformation Program” in 2012, and South
Africa released a bioeconomy strategy in 2013 (BÖR, 2015b). Although
the number of countries that have dedicated bioeconomy policies is still
limited, many countries have strategies related to biotechnology or
renewable resources (BÖR, 2015b).
The rise of the bioeconomy as a global concept is also depicted in the

increasing number of publications that refer to the bioeconomy;
according to a search of Scopus, mentions of the bioeconomy and related
concepts in publications went from near zero in 1990 to more than 250 in
2016 (Birner, 2017).
The concept of the bioeconomy has not been without its critics. One
can distinguish two major types of criticism: the “fundamental critique”

and the “greenwashing critique.” An example of the fundamental critique
are the writings by Birch and co-authors (Birch et al., 2010). These
authors analyze the emerging discourse on the knowledge-based
bioeconomy in the EU and argue that the development of the concept has
been dominated by what they refer to as a “neoliberal ideology.” The
second type of criticism, formulated by environmental organizations
such as WWF (2009), is not fundamentally opposed to the concept of the
bioeconomy. Rather it aims to ensure that the label “bio” is not

misused to portray an essentially nonsustainable economic system as
environmentally friendly and to ensure that innovations in the life
sciences are used to transition toward a sustainable economic system.
The rising criticism of the bioeconomy may have contributed to two
trends in the development of the bioeconomy concept, which have
become prominent in recent years. One is to embed the concept of the
bioeconomy more explicitly into broader concepts of sustainable
development and the green economy, thus fostering the sustainability
vision of the bioeconomy. The second trend is a shift in focus from the
supply side of the bioeconomy to the demand side—i.e., a shift from
technological innovations and companies that commercialize them to the
consumers and to society at large. Both trends are described below in
more detail.
15.3 A Framework for Forecasting Trends in the

Bioeconomy and Implications for Global Food Security
To assess how the development of the bioeconomy will affect agri-food

systems, and global food and nutrition security in particular, the
forecasting framework presented in Figure 15.1 was developed, based on
507 Bioeconomy
earlier frameworks investigating this link (see, e.g., Baffes, 2013; Ladu
and Quitzow, 2017). The framework classifies all items consumed by the
human population into three main categories: food, energy, and materials
(see boxes under the heading “Demand/consumption). In this framework,
“materials” refers to all materials except food that humans use or
consume (WBGU, 2011). The sources from which food, energy, and
materials are derived are classified into three categories (displayed under
the heading “Supply/production”): bio-based resources (biomass), non-
bio-based renewable resources (wind, solar and geothermal energy,
hydropower, etc.), and nonrenewable resources. Nonrenewables include
fossil resources (oil, gas, coal) as well as nuclear energy. As shown in
Figure 15.1, biomass as well as the other renewable and nonrenewable
resources may have to undergo conversion (e.g., agricultural products
must be processed for food or biofuel; solar and wind energy must be
converted into electricity; fossil resources must be refined), and they are
also traded. All processes involved in the production, conversion, and
consumption of materials and energy are captured in the grey box, which
can be interpreted as a simplified version of the economic system. The
effect of the economic system on income is shown by link j and the
interaction with the environment (natural resources and climate) is
shown by arrow k. Arrow k is a two-way arrow to indicate that natural
resources such as land, water, and biodiversity not only are influenced by
the economic system but also are inputs into the economic system.
Likewise, not only is climate affected by the greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions arising from economic activities, but it also influences
the economic system, e.g., by determining agricultural production
possibilities and the possibilities for using solar energy.
The components of the framework that refer to the bio-resource
vision of the bioeconomy are indicated by bold letters. The essential
feedstock material for the bioeconomy is biomass, which can be
generated by the agricultural production activities that the CGIAR
supports (crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture), but also
by microbial production and waste, which are outside the core focus of
the CGIAR. The arrows in Figure 15.1 indicate that biomass can be used
not only for food (link a), but also for supplying energy (link b) and
materials (link c). Renewable resources that are not bio-based, such as
Bioeconomy 509
solar power and wind, also provide energy (link g), but unlike biomass
they cannot replace fossil resources as feedstock for materials.
A major concern about the development of the bioeconomy is the
potential threat to food security (see box in Figure 15.1) that can be
caused by increased use of biomass not for food, but for energy and
material use. The framework displays major factors that will influence
this competition for biomass in the future. On the demand side, two
major factors will determine the amounts of food, energy, and materials
that will be consumed in the future: changes in population size (link l )
and changes in consumer behaviour (link m). Consumer behavior is
largely influenced by changing income levels and income distribution
(link n), but it can also be influenced by policy (e.g., by taxes on energy
consumption) (link q). As Figure 15.1 shows, social movements, such as
environmental movements, may influence consumer behavior both
directly, (e.g., reduced energy consumption due to increased

environmental awareness) (link o) and indirectly through policy changes
(link p).
Figure 15.1 also shows the supply-side factors that will determine the
extent to which the use of biomass for energy and materials will compete
with the use of biomass for food, and thus threaten food security. The
availability of fossil resources and the price, relative to the price of
biomass, at which they are available are major driving forces in this
competition, because until now fossil resources have constituted the
major source of energy (link e) and materials (link f ). The availability of
energy from renewable resources that are not based on biomass, such as
solar, wind, and geothermal energy (link g), will reduce the competition.
One important rationale behind the development of the bioeconomy is
the goal of reducing the environmental effects of the economic system, in
particular, the emission of greenhouse gases (arrow k). The extent to
which this is possible depends on environmental and climate policy
decisions (link r).
The framework also captures the fact that the extent to which policies
that promote the bioeconomy will lead to a competition for biomass is
also largely influenced by innovations in different sectors. The CGIAR
has a major responsibility for agricultural and biotechnological
innovations that improve the efficiency of biomass production (links t, u,
and w). The extent of the competition for biomass will also be influenced
by innovations in non-bio-based renewables (link w) and innovations that
influence the use of fossil resources (as in case of fracking) and other
nonrenewable resources such as nuclear energy (link x). These different
types of innovations are, in turn, influenced by policy decisions, most
notably by public investments in research and development (R&D) (link
s). As indicated in Figure 15.1, innovations are relevant not only for the
supply of biomass, but also for its conversion (link u). Such innovations
influence, for example, the option to generate bioenergy from nonfood
biomass (second-generation bioenergy from waste, ligno-celluloses,
etc.).
15.4 Driving Forces of the Bioeconomy

15.4.1 Perceived scarcity and price of fossil resources
Early on, concerns about the increasing scarcity of fossil resources were
a major driver promoting the shift from an economic system based on the
use of fossil resources to a bio-based economy. The concept of “peak
oil” captured this concern. The peak oil theory predicts that after the
peak of extraction rates has been reached, oil prices will continuously
increase (Bardi, 2009). The perception that peak oil was approaching was
fostered by the oil price crisis of 2007/08. The high oil prices prevailing
at that time indeed led to an increased substitution of fossil energy
sources by biomass-based energy sources. This substitution contributed
to a spike in food prices that was observed following the oil price crisis
(Headey and Fan, 2008), a spike that was seen as an indication of
competition between biomass production for food and for energy.
Research confirmed that it was mainly the combination of high oil prices
and policies that aimed to promote the use of biofuels that contributed to
the food price crisis (de Gorter and Drabik, 2016; de Gorter et al., 2013).
This experience triggered changes in biofuel policies, as further
discussed below.
The peak oil proposition lost importance as a driver of the
bioeconomy when oil prices started to drop substantially from mid-2014
Bioeconomy 511
onward (Baumeister and Kilian, 2016b). The adoption of new

exploration technologies, especially fracking, also led to a reassessment
of the scarcity of fossil resources. As discussed below, the need for
climate protection has now become the major driving force behind
substituting for fossil resources (BÖR, 2014).
To be able to assess the future development of the bioeconomy and
its implications for global food security, one still needs to consider how
oil prices will develop in the future, because there is strong evidence that
food prices have increasingly become linked to oil prices (Tadesse et al.,
2014). The challenge for foresight efforts is that our capacity to forecast
oil prices, and oil price shocks in particular, remains limited, even more
than 40 years after the oil price crisis of 1973/74. As Baumeister
and Kilian (2016a, p. 157) point out: “Although our understanding of
historical oil price fluctuations has greatly improved, oil prices keep
surprising economists, policymakers, consumers, and financial market

participants.”
Another economic driver of policies that support biomass for energy
has been the price of biomass and the political influence of farmers who
produce biomass. The latest example of this is China’s new biofuel
policies, which can be directly related to the surpluses of grain that built
up in response to high government price supports and high international
grain prices in 2007 and 2008 (USDA FAS, 2017). Grain prices are now
low in China, and so the government is promoting biofuels as a way to
ensure a market for major grain crops now that price supports are gone.
Low sugar prices in the 1970s and a powerful sugar industry were
important factors in Brazil’s biofuel policy. Similarly, low corn prices in
the United States have made Midwestern farmers big supporters of U.S.
biofuel policies since the 1990s (Zilberman et al., 2014).
15.4.2 Need for climate mitigation
The need for climate change mitigation has become an increasingly

important driver of the bioeconomy, especially after it became clear that
the scarcity of fossil resources had been overestimated, as discussed in
the previous section (BÖR, 2014). If the goals of the Paris agreement on
climate change are to be met, it is necessary not to exploit all available

fossil resources.
With regard to future projections, it is important to note that the need
for climate mitigation, as a driver of the bioeconomy, does not imply a
general push for replacing fossil resources with bio-based resources.
Rather, the goal is to concentrate only on those uses of biomass that have
considerable potential to reduce GHG emissions. As the evidence quoted

in the review by Lewandowski (2015) showed, converting intensively
managed and fertilized crops to bioenergy was found to have
comparatively low potential to reduce GHG emissions. Moreover, the
use of such biomass for energy has been associated with direct and
indirect land use change, which leads to GHG emissions and other
negative effects, such as loss of biodiversity and displacement of small-
scale farmers (Lewandowski, 2015). To avoid potential negative effects
on food security and land use change, it is now widely accepted that for
climate mitigation, preference should be given to non-bio-based
renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy (link g). As
further discussed below, it may well be possible to meet all of the
world’s energy needs from “wind, water and the sun.”
Biomass would, however, still be needed for material use (link c).
Moreover, biomass will still be used as a source of energy during the
transition phase to an economic system that may eventually rely only on
non-bio-based renewable resources. During this transition phase, the
trend will be to concentrate on second-generation biofuels, defined as
“derived from ligno-cellulosic feedstock materials, including by-products
(cereal straw, sugar cane bagasse, forest residues), wastes (organic
components of municipal solid wastes), and dedicated feed-stocks
(purpose-grown vegetative grasses, short rotation forests and other
energy crops)” (Sims et al., 2010, p. 1571). There is also a push for third-
and fourth-generation biofuels made from algae and other microbes
(Dutta et al., 2014). And it can be expected that life-cycle assessments
will become increasingly important to assess the GHG-efficiency of
using biomass for bioenergy (see Muench and Guenther, 2013, for a
systematic review) or material use (see Pawelzik et al., 2013, for a
review of critical issues).
Bioeconomy 513
15.4.3 Biotechnological innovations
The “biotechnology vision” of the bioeconomy has been driven mainly

by opportunities to use biotechnological innovations, and this driving
force can be expected to continue. Depending on the field of application,
a distinction can be made between green biotechnology (applications in
agriculture), blue biotechnology (marine and freshwater biotechnology),

white biotechnology (industrial applications), red biotechnology
(applications in the health sector), and yellow biotechnology (insect
biotechnology) (Ribeiro et al., 2015).
Biotechnological innovations that have applications in agriculture
(“green biotechnology”) are an important driver of the bioeconomy, and
these can be expected to have major implications for agri-food systems.
Some of the most exciting innovations are new research and innovation
tools such as gene-editing technology that can be applied in plant

breeding, livestock breeding, and pest and disease control. Evolutionary
progress in understanding the genome of plants and animals is increasing
the efficiency of research. There is also a range of innovations that are
relevant for the livestock sector, such as the use of biotechnology to
develop vaccines and other veterinary medicines.
Other innovations, such as biomimicry, may be relevant for
agriculture. The extent to which biotechnological innovations will be
adopted and become drivers of the bioeconomy will depend on societal
acceptance, as has been the case for transgenic crops (also referred to as
genetically modified organisms, or GMOs). The relevance of green
biotechnology is likely to differ across regions, following the current
patterns of GMO use.
In the industrial sector, “white” biotechnology has already been an
important driver of the bioeconomy, and it can be expected to become
even more relevant in the future. Examples include the use of the use
of recombinant DNA technology and protein engineering in the
fermentation industry and the use of enzyme biocatalysis to produce
detergents, technical enzymes, and food and feed enzymes (Lokko et al.,
2018). Genetically modified yeasts and enzymes have also contributed to
important advances in processing biomass for biofuels.
Whether the health sector belongs to the bioeconomy depends on how

bioeconomy is defined. Red biotechnology plays an important role in this
field, as “biopharmaceuticals generated by modern molecular biology are
by far the fastest-growing part of the whole pharma industry [and as the]
the number of biotechnological drugs has increased exponentially in the
last three decades” (Lokko et al., 2018, p. 7). Another application is the
production of pharma-products in genetically modified plants (Buyel

et al., 2017), which has also been described as the “biologization of
manufacturing.” Biotechnology innovation can be expected to remain a
major driver in these fields of the bioeconomy. In particular, “synthetic
biology,” which is relevant for agriculture, is expected to become a
major driver of the bioeconomy. Synthetic biology has been as defined
by the European Commission as “the engineering of complex biological
systems with novel functions, done in a rational and systematic matter, at
all levels of hierarchical structures (molecules, cells, tissues, and

organs)” (Flores Bueso and Tangney, 2017, p. 373). Another area with
many potential industrial applications consists of biomimetics,
biomimicry, or bio-inspiration: the imitation of biological principles or
systems in industrial applications (see Speck et al., 2017, for a review of
terms and concepts). Not all applications of biomimetics fall under
biotechnology, and it is also a matter of definition whether applications
of biomimetrics fall within the bioeconomy.
Even though the opportunities created by “white” and “red”
biotechnology are important drivers of the future bioeconomy, their
relevance for agri-food systems can be expected to remain limited
because the branches of the bioeconomy that use white or red
biotechnology do not require large amounts of biomass and thus will not
compete with food production for land and irrigation water. Even if
plants are used to produce bio-pharmaceuticals, the land and water
requirements of such production systems are not comparable to those
potentially required for bioenergy or bio-based materials. The volume of
pharmaceutical products (e.g., measured in terms of weight) is
comparatively small, and the use of genetically modified plants for
producing pharmaceuticals will likely be implemented in greenhouses
only (Buyel et al., 2017, p. 460), limiting the economic scale of such
operations.
Bioeconomy 515
15.4.4 Efforts to improve the sustainability of economic

systems
Most definitions of the bioeconomy refer to the goal of sustainability

(Bioeconomy Summit, 2015), and this goal has gained importance as a
driver of the bioeconomy in recent years for several reasons. The
sustainability vision of the bioeconomy was motivated partly by rising

criticism of the bioeconomy. In addition, the adoption of the 17
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations in 2015
underlined a global commitment to sustainability. Several of the SDGs
are directly relevant for the bioeconomy, such as SDG1 (no poverty),
SDG2 (zero hunger), SDG7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG7
(climate action), SDG12 (sustainable consumption and production), and
SDG15 (life on land). Other SDGs are indirectly relevant for the
bioeconomy, such as SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities) and

SDG4 (quality education) (see United Nations, 2015). The effort to
define measurable indicators for the SDGs and their subgoals and to
monitor those indicators can also be expected to maintain the SDGs as a
driving force for a sustainable bioeconomy.
Other global initiatives also promote sustainability in the
bioeconomy. One example is the Global Bioenergy Partnership, which
has compiled a range of environmental, social, and economic
sustainability indicators for the sustainable use of biomass for bioenergy
(GBEP, 2011). For the use of biomass for materials, there are global
initiatives that aim to promote sustainability. The Bioplastic Feedstock
Alliance, for example, promotes the sustainable use of feedstock sources
for bio-based plastic (http://bioplasticfeedstockalliance.org/).
Another factor contributing to the sustainability vision of the
bioeconomy can be seen the rise of efforts to establish a “circular
economy.” The Communiqué of the Global Bioeconomy Summit of
2015 emphasizes the need to align the principles of a sustainable
bioeconomy with the principles of a circular economy, which “would
involve systemic approaches across sectors (i.e., nexus thinking),
particularly innovation policy measures that aim at optimizing
Bioeconomy value networks and minimizing waste and losses”
(Bioeconomy Summit, 2015, p. 5). As a recent review shows, the
concept of the circular economy has been associated mostly with closing-
the-loop production patterns within an economic system and with
increased efficiency of resource use, placing a specific focus on urban
and industrial waste (Ghisellini et al., 2016, p. 11). As such, the concept
of the circular economy is narrower in scope than the concept of the
bioeconomy, but the demand to link the bioeconomy with the principles
of the circular economy can be seen as a driving force behind the

sustainability vision of the bioeconomy. In Figure 15.1, the policy
decisions that improve the environmental sustainability of the
bioeconomy are displayed by link r. These policy decisions aim to
improve the environmental impact of the economic system, which is
displayed in arrow k.
15.4.5 Innovation in non-bio-based renewable resources
Public awareness of the potential competition between biomass use for

food and for bioenergy, triggered by the food price crisis of 2007/2008,
has fostered efforts to replace fossil energy with non-bio-based
resources, such as solar power, wind power, hydropower, and geothermal
energy (link g in Figure 15.1). According to most definitions of the
bioeconomy, these energy sources do not fall under bioeconomy, but
under the wider concept of the “green economy” (Figure 15.2). Still,
innovation in the use of non-bio-based renewable resources will have a
far-reaching impact on the bioeconomy: because these energy resources
do not compete with food crops for land and irrigation water, they can
reduce the pressure on biomass for energy use (link g in Figure 15.1).
So far, one of the challenges of using solar and wind energy is the
fact that—unlike bioenergy—these energy resources cannot be stored
easily. Therefore, they have limitations in guaranteeing peak load power,
limiting their capacity to fully replace fossil and nuclear energy sources
(Griffin et al., 2014). To assess the implications of future developments
in non-bio-based renewables for the use of biomass, one needs to
consider that the potential of these resources depends largely on
technological innovations (link w). Regarding solar power, substantial
innovations in photovoltaics (PV) in recent years (link w) have
contributed to a rapid expansion. Globally, the annual growth rate in
Bioeconomy 517
cumulative installed capacity of PV between 2000 and 2015 was

estimated to be more than 40% (Jean et al., 2015, p. 1200). Still, since
there is a range of technological options for further developing PV
technologies, predictions remain difficult. As Jean et al. (2015, p. 1216),
point out, “Few—if any—industries have grown as fast or as
unpredictably as the PV industry in recent years.” Adding to the
uncertainty, the future use of non-bio-based renewables also depends on

innovations in the sectors that can replace fossil fuel through electricity
(especially the transport sector) and on consumer behavior.
Fig. 15.2. The bioeconomy as a component of the green economy. Source: Birner (2017,
p. 26).
In spite of these uncertainties, it is worth noting that according to

some estimates, it is in principle possible to supply all of the world’s
energy requirements from “wind, water and the sun” (Delucchi and
Jacobson, 2011; Jacobson and Delucchi, 2011). To what extent such a
complete replacement will be economically feasible remains subject to
debate (Griffin et al., 2014; Trainer, 2012).
15.4.6 Innovations in non-bio-based resources
The framework displayed in Figure 15.1 shows that the competition

between the use of biomass for food versus bioenergy and biomaterials
will also depend on innovations in non-bio-based industries. In
particular, all innovations that increase the efficiency of fossil energy use
will reduce the pressure on biomass, therefore link x has been included
in Figure 15.1. Some of these innovations are directly linked to
agriculture—e.g., if they affect the use of fossil resources in the
agricultural sector. One example is precision farming, which can reduce
the use of fossil resources for fuel and fertilizers in the agricultural sector
(link h).
15.4.7 Demand-side driving forces of the bioeconomy

While the driving forces discussed in the previous section refer to the
supply side of the bioeconomy and to policies that influence the supply
side, there are also important drivers on the demand side. One important
driver of the demand for the different products of the bioeconomy is,
obviously, population increase (link l). Another is the change in income
level, which is itself partly influenced by the development of the
bioeconomy. An increased income level is associated not only with an
increasing demand for food, materials, and energy, but also with a
change in consumption patterns (link n-m). With regard to the demand
for food, an important concern is the consumption of animal products,
which increases more than proportionally with increasing income,
driving up the demand for biomass for feed production.
The development of a sustainable bioeconomy will be greatly
facilitated if consumer behavior turns toward more sustainable
consumption patterns with regard to food, energy, and material use. As
mentioned, this change can be driven by social movements (link o). Most
relevant are the environmental movement and, to some extent, the animal
rights movement, which may result in reduced consumption of animal
products. These social movements are based on the activities of civil
society organizations or NGOs active at local, national, and international
levels. They have already played a major role in promoting the concept
Bioeconomy 519
of sustainability and the SDGs, which were developed with strong

participation from civil society organizations. Although it remains
difficult to predict how these social movements will develop and to what
extent they will influence consumer behavior, their role should not be
underestimated since they influence consumer behavior both directly and
indirectly, by influencing policy decisions (link p). In the sustainability
literature, such social movements have been linked to the hypothesis of

“societal transformation.” A recent review shows a diversity of emerging
concepts regarding such a societal transformation and a lack of rigorous
research on this topic (Feola, 2015). This makes forecasting challenging.
Still, one can predict a trend toward more sustainable consumption
patterns.
15.5 Future Trends of the Bioeconomy
In this section, the framework described will be used to discuss future

trends of the bioeconomy.
15.5.1 Trends in the use of biomass
At present, the use of biomass for nonfood purposes is still limited.

According to an estimate published in 2015, 62% of crop production
(based on mass) is allocated to human food and 35% is allocated to
animal feed, which contributes to food production indirectly. Only 3%
was used for bioenergy, seed, and other industrial products (Foley et al.,
2011, p. 338). Morrison and Golden (2015) have shown how biomass
from crop production and forestry is currently used in the emerging
bioeconomy and found that the forestry sector plays a major role in
supplying biomass both for bioenergy and for bio-based materials.
With the rise of the bioeconomy, there have been efforts in various
countries and regions to estimate the share of the economic system that is
already bio-based. Such efforts face major challenges, because current
national statistics and economic reporting systems are not set up to make
such assessments easily doable (Nita et al., 2013). Nonetheless, some
estimates have been made for the EU (Table 15.1). In terms of turnover
and value added, the food and beverage sector, followed by the
agricultural sector, are still by far the largest components of the
bioeconomy. Still, other sectors of the bioeconomy, such as bio-based
chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and rubber, have already reached
levels of employment, turnover, and value added larger than those of
liquid biofuels or bio-based electricity.
Table 15.1. Contribution of bioeconomy sectors to the total bioeconomy labor market,
turnover and value added (%), EU 28, 2015.
Sector Workers Turnover Value added

Agriculture 51.0 16.8 28.0
Forestry 3.0 2.2 3.8
Fishing 1.2 0.5 1.1
Manufacture of food, beverages and 25.1 51.0 37.6

tobacco
Manufacture of bio-based textiles 5.6 4.6 4.6
Manufacture of wood products and 7.8 7.7 7.6
furniture
Manufacture of paper 3.6 8.3 7.3
Manufacture of bio-based chemicals,
pharmaceuticals, plastics and rubber 2.5 7.8 9.1
(excluding biofuels)
Manufacture of liquid biofuels 0.1 0.5 0.4
Production of bioelectricity 0.1 0.5 0.5
Source: Ronzon and Barek (2018, p. 5).
The U.S. Department of Energy produces a “billion-ton” report that

aims to predict the economic availability of different types of biomass,
depending on marginal and average prices. It reports that agricultural
resources have the largest potential to deliver biomass, especially in a
high-yield scenario (U.S. Department of Energy, 2016).
Bioeconomy 521
15.5.1.1 Trends in the use of biomass for bioenergy
The use of biomass for bioenergy has so far mainly been policy-driven,
as outlined above. The policy instruments, which were implemented in
the United States, the European Union (EU), and a range of countries in
Asia and South America, include mandatory blending targets for fuels,
tax exemptions, subsidies, and import tariffs, among others (see Sorda
et al., 2010 for a review). Explicit efforts to promote the bioeconomy
have of course not been the only driving forces behind these bioenergy
polices. Besides concerns about ensuring energy security and meeting
environmental goals, especially climate protection, political incentives to
protect farm incomes and promote rural development have played an
important role in the political economy of biofuel policies (see, e.g.,
Naylor and Higgins, 2017).
The interest in biofuels has stimulated a range of studies aimed

at predicting the biomass potential for bioenergy by 2050. A critical
reassessment of such scenarios showed that these studies not only
produced widely divergent results, but were also often based on rather
unrealistic assumptions, especially if sustainability criteria were taken
into account (Searle and Malins, 2015).
The experience of the food price crisis of 2007/08 also raised
awareness of the potential negative effects of policies that promoted the
use of bioenergy on global food security. This awareness was supported
by analyses suggesting a strong causal relation between biofuel policies
and food prices. As already mentioned, there was a subsequent shift to
bioeconomy policies encouraging the use of biomass for biofuel that
does not compete with biomass for food (second-, third-, and fourth-
generation biofuels).
An example is a directive of the EU, which found it “appropriate to
limit the amount of biofuels and bioliquids produced from cereal and
other starch-rich crops, sugars and oil crops and from crops grown as
main crops primarily for energy purposes on agricultural land” that can
be counted in the EU mandate for biofuels (EU, 2015, p. 4). The fall in
oil prices also contributed to a reduced emphasis on using biomass for
biofuels. Globally, one can observe a leveling off of biofuel supply. A
similar effect can be observed for electricity derived from biomass

(www.enerdata.net).
A range of scenario analyses have aimed at predicting the future use
of biofuels and its implications, especially with regard to land use, which
reflects the growing concern about indirect land use change (iLUC)
caused by biofuel policies. One example is the paper “Competition for
Land in the Global Bioeconomy” by Hertel et al. (2013). The authors

find that, depending on the biofuel policy scenario used, biofuels may
account for nearly one-fifth of global land use change over the 2006–
2035 period. The study also shows that imposing strict policies to reduce
GHG emissions will lead to an increased supply of second-generation
feedstocks, which may become competitive as early as 2025 (Hertel
et al., 2013, p. 137). Another important example of global scenario
modeling of the bioeconomy is the study by Rosegrant et al. (2013),
which takes into account not only land use but also water use in
the bioeconomy. Comparing a “business-as-usual scenario” with a
“bioeconomy scenario,” the authors find that investments in the
efficiency of water use, together with investments in agricultural
productivity and the promotion of second-generation biofuels, will
significantly improve food security while reducing pressure on land and
water resources. Considering the potential competition with water, one
needs to take into account the large regional differences in the scarcity of
water and the potential to use more water for biomass production by
developing irrigation facilities. You et al. (2011, p. 780) estimate that the
irrigated area in Africa can be profitably expanded by 24 million hectares
over the next 50 years—a 177-percent increase over the existing
equipped irrigated area of 13 million hectares. In other parts of the world,
such as India, existing water resources are already overused (Birner
et al., 2011). In major water basins in China, demand for water now
exceeds supply by about 8%. With projected economic growth, current
water management practices, and climate change, that gap is projected to
expand to 40% in 2030 (Wang et al., 2017). One must also take into
account that the development of new irrigation systems, especially if
they involve large dams, will face major controversies and political
challenges (see, e.g., Baghel and Nüsser, 2010).
Bioeconomy 523
A more recent scenario analysis, based on a combination of a global

computable general equilibrium model and a crop model, derives more
pessimistic predictions (Hasegawa et al., 2015). This study is of
particular interest because it models three major impacts on the risk of
hunger: (1) crop yield changes caused by climate change; (2) land
competition between food and bioenergy crops; and (3) mitigation costs
associated with meeting an emissions target. The authors find that the
strong mitigation measures required to attain the 2°C climate target
reduce the negative effects of climate change on yields, but they increase
the risk of hunger owing to mitigation costs in low-income countries.
The findings of this study not only underline the need to reduce the land
competition between food and bioenergy crops, but also draw attention
to the income effects of different mitigation strategies on poor people.
To assess future trends in the use of biomass for bioenergy, it is also
useful to consider trends in patents, because the competitive advantage

of bioenergy will be influence by innovations, especially innovations
in conversion technologies. Some conversion processes rely on
biotechnological innovations (shown by link u in Figure 15.1), but
biomass can also be converted to bioenergy using thermal degradation
(pyrolysis, gasification). Biofuel patenting (covering biotechnological as
well as other inventions) grew until 2008 and has then leveled off since
then (Albers et al., 2016).
As in case of agricultural biotechnology publications discussed in
section 15.5.2 below, the main reason for the increase in biofuel
patenting was rapid growth of Chinese patenting. In 2001, fewer than 15
patents for biofuel inventions were first filed in China. By 2012, this
number had grown to more than 1,000 (Albers et al., 2016, p. 818).
With regard to the potential competition between the use of biomass
for bioenergy and food, it is disconcerting to observe that the number of
inventions for second- and third-generation biofuels has declined, while
the number of inventions for first-generation technologies continues to
increase (Albers et al., 2016).
Biofuel patenting also shows an interesting regional pattern: In China,
inventions in all six pathways have grown, but the pathways for second-
generation technologies have grown less rapidly than for first-generation
technologies. At the same time, inventions in all six pathways have
declined in Europe and in Japan, whereas the picture was more mixed in
the United States (Albers et al., 2016).
15.5.1.2 Trends in the use of biomass for biomaterials
The current use of biomass for bio-based materials is still relatively small
compared with other uses (BP Global, 2018). So far, bio-based products
include bio-chemicals, bio-plastics, bio-lubricants, bio-surfactants
(detergents, personal care products, etc.), and enzymes. Some definitions
of the bioeconomy (e.g., the definition used in the United States) include
the health sector (BÖR, 2015a, 2015b), and these definitions would
count bio-pharmaceuticals as part of the bioeconomy. Estimates for the
EU predict that up to 30% of oil-based chemicals and materials could be
replaced with bio-based ones by 2030 (Scarlat et al., 2015, p. 22). The
term “advanced biomaterials” is used for biomaterials derived from bio-

based polymers—and that therefore replace polymers from fossil
resources—to distinguish them from traditional bio-based materials such
as paper and wood products (see, e.g., Scarlat et al., 2015).
The extent to which the use of biomass for advanced biomaterials
adds to the competition with biomass use for food differs considerably
across different types of biomaterials. As indicated above, some types of
biomaterials, such as enzymes and bio-pharmaceuticals, do not require
large amounts of biomass. Substantial amounts of biomass are, however,
needed for the production of bio-based bulk chemicals that are used to
produce mass products, such as bio-plastics. There has been a rapid
increase in capacity to produce bioplastic in recent years, especially in
Asia and South America (Scarlat et al., 2015).
Like biofuels, these applications can rely either on crops that can also
be used for human consumption or on biomass that does not directly
compete with food use, such as woody biomass. As in case of bioenergy,
the essential question is whether the production of such nonfood biomass
still competes with the production food crops for land. While there is an
extensive literature that critically examines the use of food crops
for bioenergy, the literature on the production and use of advanced
biomaterials is still relatively scarce (Scarlat et al., 2015, p. 20).
Bioeconomy 525
Future trends in the use of biomass for biomaterials will be

significantly influenced by policy decisions. Based on EU bioeconomy
targets, Schipfer et al., (2017) model scenarios of advanced biomaterials
for the EU up to the year 2050. The results show that woody biomass
could replace biomass from sugar and starch plants by two-thirds for bio-
based polymers and almost entirely for bio-based solvents (Schipfer
et al., 2017, p. 23). This finding indicates that the production of

biomaterials in the bioeconomy does not necessarily compete with food
security.
Still, there is a need for policies that reduce this potential
competition; such policies include monitoring and measures to improve
efficiency of converting biomass into biomaterials (Philp, 2015; Schipfer
et al., 2017). Innovations in conversion technologies, which facilitate the
use of woody biomass, play an important role in this regard. Depending
on the type of conversion process, biotechnological innovations (link u in

Figure 15.1) are required to reach this goal.
A global analysis of patents related to bio-based materials,
comparable to that for bioenergy, is not available, perhaps because of the
diversity of potential conversion pathways and final products. An
analysis of patents for sustainable chemistry technologies, which
includes biochemistry (next to other non-bio-based sustainable
technologies) indicated that in 2011 patents classified as sustainable
chemistry technologies still constituted a rather low share (less than 7%)
of all patents in the chemical sector (Epicoco, 2016, p. 432). However,
the study also found that “biochemistry, including biopolymers extracted
from biomass, biological methods and biological microreactors, has
acquired a growing importance, while research on petroleum processes
seems to have lost weight” (Epicoco, 2016, p. 434). It remains unclear to
what extent these technologies rely on agricultural crops and to what
extent on biomass that does not compete with food production.
15.5.2 Trends caused by biotechnology innovations for crop

and livestock production
15.5.2.1 Trends in research funding
Trends in biotechnology innovations are based on research investment by

both the public and private sector. Like measuring the size of the
bioeconomy, measuring research can be challenging, particularly for the
private sector. Food and agricultural research investments by government
institutes and universities are relatively easy to identify. In general,
public research in wealthy countries is stagnating while research in large
developing countries led by China is growing rapidly (Pardey et al.,
2016). It is more difficult to get access to data on private research, but
such research is generally growing more rapidly than the public sector
research, starting from a lower base (Fuglie, 2016). Numbers on private

and public research on biofuels, bioenergy, and materials are even more
challenging to gather. There are sufficient data to show that biofuel
research grew rapidly from 1990 to 2008 and then leveled off or fell, but
the exact magnitudes or trends in research expenditure are unclear (Pray
et al., 2011).
15.5.2.2 Innovations in crop production
Trends in publishing and patenting provide one of the few sources of

recent data on research and innovation. Data relevant for the use of
biomass for bioenergy and biomaterials have already been presented.
This section deals with biotechnological applications that are relevant for
crop production.
Publishing on plant biotechnology in top biology journals by U.S.
authors grew rapidly from 1990 to 2004. The number of publications
then leveled off for a few years before growing slowly. In contrast, in
China publishing took off in 2003 and accelerated rapidly so that total
publishing increases up to 2015 (Deng et al., 2017).
The economic factors mentioned in sections 15.1 and the sustainability
goals in 15.3 have driven research and innovation in the bioeconomy.
However, breakthroughs and evolutionary changes in the biological
Bioeconomy 527
sciences, induced largely by societies’ demand for better health, have also
provided an exogenous stimulus to growth of the bioeconomy. Growth in
information technology is giving an important exogenous stimulus to
research on the bioeconomy as well. Both biological research and
information technology will continue to grow rapidly in the next 30 years
and continue to provide the basis for more rapid innovation in crops,
livestock, forestry, and materials.

Among the different biotechnologies for crop production, GMOs and
genome editing using CRISPR have attracted particular attention in recent
years. Genome editing offers unique potential for crop improvement (see
also Miglani, 2017, for a review).
The trends in publication about GMOs have leveled off since 2009 in
most countries with the exception of China. Since 2011 the number of
patents and publications on CRISPR has accelerated, led by the United
States and China. Figure 15.3 displays the number of CRISPR patent
families, both agricultural and non-agricultural, that had been assigned to
different institutions and companies by January 2018. Of these patents,
55.1% had their priority filings in the United States and 31.3% in China,
leaving 13.6% for the rest of the world (IPStudies, 2018).
What role this research tool will play in the future bioeconomy
depends not only on leadership in innovation, but also how this
technology is regulated and to what extent consumers accept products
made from genome-edited plants and animals. The initial reactions to
genome editing in agricultural crops suggest that the patterns of
regulation and consumer acceptance may well follow the patterns
established for transgenic crops. Although transgenic crops are widely
grown in North America, South America, Australia, and parts of Asia,
they are not grown in most of Africa and Europe. A large body of
literature examines why this is the case (see, e.g., Bernauer, 2003;
Paarlberg, 2008), and it is beyond the scope of this chapter to review this
literature.
The following observations are indications of why the acceptance of
genome-edited crops may follow a pattern similar to the one that
emerged for GMOs: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has
already decided that some genome-edited crops will not be subject to
regulatory oversight (Waltz, 2016). In contrast, in the EU, the decision
Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050 528

Bioeconomy 529
on how to regulate genome-edited crops is still pending in the European

Court of Justice (Belhaj et al., 2013). Moreover, NGOs critical of GMOs
have already expressed concerns about genome-edited crops (Helliwell
et al., 2017).
To assess the future role of environmental NGOs regarding genome-
edited crops, it is useful to consider their motivations. Political scientists
have argued that environmental NGOs’ opposition to GMOs in Europe is

based on a strategy of focusing on issues with a high “outcry potential”
(Bernauer, 2003). In 2016 a group of Nobel laureates wrote an open
letter to Greenpeace arguing that the group engages in “opposition based
on emotion and dogma contradicted by data” (Support Precision
Agriculture, 2016).
The study by Helliwell et al. criticizes this perception and points out
that the position of NGOs against GMOs and genome-edited crops is
rather based on concerns that these technologies opportunities offer

“opportunities for increased corporate capture of the agricultural and
food system at the expense of farmers, citizens and consumers” (2017,
p. 3). Moreover, NGOs disagree with the claim that the adoption of such
technologies is required to ensure global food security.
These findings show that the future acceptance of new biotechnologies
may partly depend on the effect that the new biotechnologies have on the
agricultural input industry. On the one hand, one might expect these
technologies to be made available only through an agribusiness sector that
is, considering the currently ongoing mergers, increasingly concentrated in
a small number of agribusiness companies (ETC Group, 2016). On the
other hand, CRISPR-Cas9 could greatly reduce the cost of developing
superior new varieties. It reduces the cost of gene-editing research and, if
products produced by CRISPR are not regulated as GMOs, reduces the
cost of commercializing a new variety by $135 million that would have
been spent in regulatory process (Philips-McDougal 2011). This could
allow more companies to compete with the biotech giants.
15.5.2.3 Innovations in livestock production
Biotechnological innovations also offer opportunities for livestock

production. So far, however, the role of livestock has been relatively
neglected in the literature on the bioeconomy. There is a wide range of

inventions that have the potential to improve livestock production and
that fall under the biotechnology perspective of the bioeconomy (Figure
15.4).
Animal
husbandry,
11.7%
Stem cells,
14.3%
Biotechnology,
41.5% New breeds of
animals, 10.3%
Cooking
equipment, 0.6%
Medicines–organic
ingredients, 20.9%
Fodder/foodstuffs,
15.1%
Immunoassay/gene Investigating/analyzing
therapy, 19.6% materials, 7.8%
Fig. 15.4. Types of inventions in livestock production. Source: Oldham et al. (2014, p. 9).
The number of patents related to the different types of inventions for

livestock production increased remarkably between the 1980s and the
early 2000s, but since 2003 there has been a decline in patents for all
categories of technologies (Oldham et al., 2014). The reasons for the
decline have not been studied intensively in the literature. One has to
take into account that the review by Oldham et al. does not yet include
the new opportunities offered by genome editing technologies (especially
CRISPR) and synthetic biology, which may well result in an increasing
number of patents. The patent review on which the figures are based also
found that patents related to animal breeding typically focus on breeding
methods and not on animal genetic resources per se. Patents for
transgenic animals were found to refer to the production of medical
products for humans (“animals as bioreactors”) rather than on animal-
derived foods (Oldham et al., 2014, pp. 6ff). This is likely to be due to
lack of consumer acceptance for transgenic animals. By 2016, the only
transgenic animal for food production that had gained full regulatory
approval for consumption in the United States was the AquAdvantage
Bioeconomy 531
Atlantic salmon produced by the company AquaBounty (Tizard et al.,

2016, p. 582).
One might expect consumer acceptance of animal biotechnology such
as genome-edited animals to follow a regional pattern similar to that of
crop biotechnology such as GMOs. For two reasons, however, it is likely
that the use of genome editing to produce livestock vaccines and
medicines will be more widely accepted. First, genetic engineering in the

health sector (“red biotechnology”) has never faced major acceptance
problems in Europe, since the benefits of these applications are more
obvious to the consumer. Second, major disease outbreaks in zoonotic
diseases, such as avian influenza, sensitize the public for the need of
livestock vaccines and medicines (Tizard et al., 2016, p. 577). Moreover,
there are other biotechnological innovations that may have a large effect
on productivity without causing acceptance problems. For example,
genomic selection has already been introduced in dairy cattle breeding

worldwide without causing any acceptance problems, and the technology
is expected to allow for major genetic gains in milk production and other
traits (Hayes et al., 2013). Hence, biotechnology applications may well
result in major improvements in livestock productivity in the future
bioeconomy.
15.5.3 Trends caused by efforts to increase sustainability in

the bioeconomy
The sustainability vision of the bioeconomy is expected to strengthen

policies that aim at increasing the sustainability of the production,
conversion, and consumption of biomass in all its forms—food, energy,
and materials. This has a range of implications for the future of agri-food
systems.
15.5.3.1 Rising importance of certification schemes and labels
One trend already underway is the increasing importance of

sustainability labels for agricultural commodities, based on life cycle
assessments. These assessments may refer to specific aspects, such as
GHG emissions. For example, agricultural products may be certified as
carbon-friendly or carbon-neutral. Smallholders may well benefit from

such initiatives, as shown by the case of Coopedota, a cooperative based
in Costa Rica, which was the first organization to certify carbon-neutral
coffee according to an internationally recognized standard (Birkenberg,
2017). The case showed that there is still considerable need for research
on, for example, the carbon sequestration potential of coffee plants.
Labels that refer to climate protection are just one example of a broad
range of sustainability labels. There have been efforts to certify
agricultural production systems or entire agri-food systems according to
environmental, social, and economic indicators of sustainability (for
reviews, see Nesheim et al., 2015; Schader et al., 2014). Although there
are still many challenges related to measurement and documentation in
these certification and label schemes, they can be expected to gain
importance in the future bioeconomy.
15.5.3.2 Structural change: From commodity-based value

chains to biomass-based value webs
The sustainability vision of the bioeconomy is also likely to lead to

structural changes in value chains. In particular, the goal of linking the
bioeconomy with the principles of a circular economy can be expected to
lead to an interlinkage of value chains. The concept of a “biomass-based
value web” has been developed to capture this trend (Mohr et al., 2015).
Scheiterle et al. (2017) apply this concept in a case study of Brazil’s
sugarcane sector. In this biomass-based value web, the by-products of
sugarcane processing, such as filter cake, vinasse, and bagasse, are used
to generate biogas or bioelectricity instead of being disposed as waste.
These by-products can also be used for new types of bioeconomic
products, such as flavors or pharmaceuticals, thus opening new branches
in the biomass-based value web.
The case study by Scheiterle et al. (2017) also shows that
successfully developing biomass-based value webs depends on changes
in the innovation system. Making use of opportunities for new high-
value bio-based products would require new partnerships, e.g., with
international biotechnology and chemistry companies. According to the
case study, these new partnerships had not yet been well developed,
Bioeconomy 533
partly owing to administrative obstacles in public sector research

organizations.
15.5.3.3 Novel food: Alternative sources of protein
The sharpened focus on sustainability in the bioeconomy can also

be expected to have effects on livestock production. Although

biotechnological innovations will improve the resource use efficiency of
livestock production, proponents of the bioeconomy, such as the German
Bioeconomy Council, have also called for the development of novel
alternative protein sources to reduce the environmental footprint of
livestock production while meeting the world’s growing demand for
protein (BÖR, 2017). These sources may include algae and insect-based
food, microbial protein, in-vitro meat, and novel sources of plant protein.
Such approaches require comprehensive and careful analysis with regard

to efficiency, sustainability, and consumer acceptance, since they are not
necessarily preferable to conventional approaches. Still, this is an area
where considerable research efforts by both the public and the private
sector are ongoing.
15.6 Implications for Agricultural Research
The bioeconomy concepts and trends described in the preceding sections

have implications for agricultural research, which are highlighted in this
section, with a particular focus on international agricultural research
carried out by the CGIAR.
15.6.1 Reducing the competition between use of biomass for

the bioeconomy and food security
International agricultural research will have to play a major role in

reducing the competition between the use of biomass for the bioeconomy
and food security. As shown earlier, there are many entry points for
reducing this competition, including innovations in non-bio-based
renewable resources and in demand-side management. The CGIAR has a
mandate to contribute to food security by focusing on the world’s food
major crops, which implies a responsibility for the CGIAR in this field.
Increasing the productivity of food crop production has long been a
major goal of the CGIAR, and the rise of the bioeconomy does not
change but rather strengthens this mandate. The CGIAR has also adopted
the goal of achieving increased productivity of food crop production in a
sustainable way (“sustainable intensification”). The sustainability vision
of the bioeconomy supports this goal as well.

The rise of the bioeconomy calls for specific attention to three
mandate crops of the CGIAR that are of dual use for food production and
biofuel: corn, sorghum, and cassava. Increasing their productivity will
reduce the cost of both food and biomass and could help meet both food
security and energy goals. Moreover, increasing the use of stalks and
residues from CGIAR mandate crops for industrial products can raise
small farmers’ incomes while supplying biomass for industrial uses. This
potential implies that as the CGIAR sets priorities for breeding programs,
it must give adequate attention to the use of by-products.
In addition, the CGIAR needs to make important strategic decisions
on the extent to which the system will contribute to the emerging
bioeconomy in other ways, apart from supporting the sustainable
intensification of food crop production. Two questions are of strategic
importance. First, to what extent should the CGIAR conduct research on
making more effective use of biomass in the entire value web? This
approach would include the cascading use of biomass as described in the
circular economy concept as well as reduction of waste along the value
chain. Second, to what extent should the mandate of the CGIAR be
expanded to invest in research on non-conventional crops that are of
value for the bioeconomy and that reduce competition with food
production because they can be grown on marginal lands? With regard to
the poverty reduction mandate of the CGIAR, biomass crops that can be
integrated in smallholder production systems might be of particular
interest in this regard. The CGIAR could build on current collaborations
with the private sector to finance research on more productive use of
CGIAR mandate crops and waste products for biomass production.
Bioeconomy 535
15.6.2 Consumers and citizens in the bioeconomy
As indicated above, consumers and citizens play an important role in the

bioeconomy. This has implications for the future strategic orientation of
the CGIAR. Several questions arise in this regard. First, to what extent
should the CGIAR engage in research on citizen and consumer
acceptance of biotechnological innovations that are likely to play an

important role for food security? The CRISPR/CAS technologies are
certainly most important in this regard. The CGIAR must learn to
communicate better about innovations because farmers and consumers in
Africa and Asia currently believe that anything new like biofortification
must be a GMO and is dangerous. Second, to what extent should the
CGIAR engage in developing research approaches that foster citizen
engagement, and in transdisciplinary research approaches in particular?
The CGIAR has gained important experience in using the innovation

platform approach. These insights could be applied in a broader setting
among the different actors in biomass-based value webs. Third, to what
extent should the CGIAR engage in research on policy processes related
to bioeconomy, especially with regard to food security? In the past, the
CGIAR’s focus has mostly been on normative policy analysis, and the
system (in particular, its policy-focused member institute, IFPRI) has
made important contributions in this regard—in particular with regard to
assessing the impact of biofuel policies on food security. Under the
CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (CRP
PIM), research has also been conducted on policy processes. It may well
be justified to strengthen this research to better understand how
bioeconomy policies can be shaped in such a way that they ensure food
security. This area would include regulations and policies on new crop or
biomass technology and transfer of technology between countries.
15.6.3 Global governance of the bioeconomy
In view of the CGIAR’s global mandate for food security, one can
clearly identify a need for the CGIAR to engage in research on global
governance mechanisms for the emerging bioeconomy. The global
modeling capacity of the CGIAR plays an important role in informing
global governance mechanisms and contributes to the global monitoring

of the bioeconomy. In this regard, it is essential to ensure that new
developments in the bioeconomy (such as the use of biomass for bio-
based materials) are adequately captured in the global modeling tools
that can be used to project the implications of the emerging bioeconomy
for world food security.
The CGIAR may also contribute to research on the governance

mechanisms that can be put in place to ensure food security in the
emerging bioeconomy. Given low oil prices, this topic has fallen off of
the agenda. Still, the food price crisis of 2008 showed that global
governance architecture is not well placed to deal with such crises and
that reform of global governance mechanisms is urgently need to ensure
better handling of such crises in the future (von Braun and Birner, 2016).
15.6.4 Implications for the organization of agricultural

research
Last but not least, the rise of the global bioeconomy has implications for
the future organization of agricultural research. Depending on the extent
to which the CGIAR expands its current mandate to address the future
challenges of the bioeconomy for food security, the system will have to
engage with a much wider range of stakeholders than it does currently. A
trend toward increased collaboration with the private sector has already
begun. As the Synthesis Review of the CRP programs showed, the
CGIAR would benefit from developing a new policy of engaging with
the private sector in ways that create new impact pathways while at the
same time managing reputational risks (Birner and Byerlee, 2016, p. 54).
In the bioeconomy, the range of private sector actors may increase
to include new actors, such as start-ups focusing on innovative
biotechnological applications.
As this chapter has shown, the emerging bioeconomy involves threats as

well as opportunities for agri-food systems and for global food security.
With its current mandate, the CGIAR already has an important role to
Bioeconomy 537
play to ensure that the opportunities are harnessed and the threats are
managed. There may also be a need to strategically adjust the mandate of
the CGIAR to play its role in the future bioeconomy more effectively. In
spite of its potentially important role, the CGIAR has remained relatively
silent in the global bioeconomy debate. The considerations presented in
this chapter suggest that the CGIAR may well need to play a more
proactive role in shaping the future development of the bioeconomy.
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Part V
Food Systems Policy Futures


b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Chapter 16
Food Systems Approaches

for the Future
John Ingram and Monika Zurek

16.1 Introduction
The topic of food security, and the closely linked notion of food systems,
has risen on political, societal and science agenda in recent years. This
interest was initially driven by the food price spike of 2007–2008, which
saw the number of hungry people leap 40 million in a few weeks to more
than 1 billion (FAO, 2008), and then another price spike in 2011. It was
also driven by assessments of future food requirements: 50% more food
will be needed by 2030, and possibly 100% more meat by 2050 (Godfray
et al., 2010), assuming no major dietary shift and/or significant reduction
in food loss and waste. It has been given further impetus with the recent
emphasis on reducing hunger and enhancing well-being in Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) 2 and 3.
While the historic emphasis has been on alleviating hunger, a
growing effort is now being directed toward a different cohort: those
who are not abjectly hungry but who have too few nutrients. Too little
iron, vitamin A, iodine, and zinc—the most prevalent deficiencies—
result in, for example, childhood stunting (De Onis et al., 2012) and
blindness (Abedi et al., 2015). A third cohort is also gaining attention:
the more than 2 billion people who consume excess calories (Ng et al.,
2014). Overconsumption, coupled with an increase in sedentary
lifestyles, is leading to a pandemic of overweight and obesity (Popkin
et al., 2012), which is bringing with it an increase in diet-related diseases
547
such as type 2 diabetes (Ezzati and Riboli 2013). Further, the

unnecessary overconsumption of food (from a physiological point of
view, at least) is a major source of food waste.
The existence of these three cohorts, all of which can be seen within a
single community or even a single household, has been termed the “triple
burden of malnutrition” (IFPRI, 2015). Although “malnutrition” is often
taken to mean only too little nutrition, it really means poor nutrition
(Ingram, 2017). This more-correct interpretation is in fact captured by
the word “sufficient” in the widely used definition of food security from
the 1996 World Food Summit: “Food security exists when all people, at
all times, have physical, economic and social access to sufficient, safe
and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for
an active and healthy life” (FAO, 1996a). According to the Oxford
English Dictionary, the word “sufficient” means “enough for a particular
purpose; as much as you need”; people should have neither too little nor
too much. As average wealth increases, especially among the emerging
“middle class” in much of the world (Kharas, 2010), average food
consumption patterns are rapidly changing to that typical of the
overconsumers, and many people are likely to consume more food
overall and more meat in particular (Vranken et al., 2014). By definition,
all three cohorts are food insecure.
Although improving access to food for those who do not have enough
must be kept high on the agenda, addressing the growing global epidemic
of diet-related diseases due to overconsumption is increasingly
important. Not only will this epidemic seriously undermine national
health systems, but the overconsumption of food also comes with a major
environmental cost. Agricultural production is known to be a major
factor in the Earth system’s exceeding a number of planetary boundaries
(Campbell et al., 2017). Current food-producing activities (including, to
a considerable degree, post-farmgate activities) lead to substantial
environmental degradation. They are responsible for about 33% of soil
degradation, 20% of fresh water aquifer overexploitation, 60% of
biodiversity loss, 29% of overfished marine resources, and 61% of fully
fished marine resources. Food systems also use 30% of all fossil fuel and
contribute about 24% of total greenhouse gas emissions (Westhoek et al.,
2016).
Food Systems Approaches for the Future 549
Food security research therefore needs to better balance the current

strongly productionist paradigm with a more consumptionist view;
addressing malnutrition is all its forms requires more understanding of
the determinants of what we eat rather than just what we produce
(Ingram, 2017). Reducing excess food consumption will also help reduce
overall demand, thereby better balancing the supply-demand equation.
Further efforts to reduce food loss and waste across food systems are
urgently needed.
In contrast to the historical situation, when value chains were
relatively short and food trade was not a global business, consumers and
their choices now constitute an important ingredient in farmers’ decision-
making processes (what to grow and how). These decisions are also
driven by what food processors and retailers perceive to be consumers’
preferences. A food systems – rather than food production – approach is
needed to understand how and why the system is changing and what
outcomes it will have for food and nutrition security, the environment,
and the financial sustainability of the many enterprises involved.
16.2 The Emergence of “Food Systems” Approaches
While a few argue that the world will be quite capable of feeding the
predicted 2050 population of 9 billion people (e.g., Paillard et al., 2011),
the majority view is that this is by no means certain in a sustainable
manner. The continuing research emphasis on producing food is
therefore not surprising given its long-established momentum, the
ongoing investment in this research, and the undeniable need to produce
more food in the years ahead (FAO, 2017). Nonetheless, even though the
world currently produces enough food for all, the number of food-hungry
and undernourished people worldwide (FAO, IFAD, and WFP, 2015;
IFPRI, 2016) reveals that our understanding and approaches are
insufficient (Ingram, 2011b). New concepts, tools, and approaches are
clearly needed to address the broader food security agenda. Their
development is all the more urgent given the complications that changes
in demography, economics, geopolitics, and climate and other
environmental factors are already bringing to the many people for whom
food security is far from easy. Rising temperatures are lowering yields
(Lobell et al., 2011), and increasingly frequent floods and droughts
(which are difficult to attribute to climate change per se but are widely
anticipated in future climate scenarios) disrupt food storage and
distribution systems. The situation is particularly worrisome if shocks
and stresses occur simultaneously, as seen in 1973–1974 in the Sahel and
in 2010 with the Australian drought, major floods in Pakistan, and

reductions in Russian wheat exports due to a heat wave (Coghlan et al.,
2014).
Given the importance of trade for food availability, the economics
and social science research communities have addressed these broader
aspects of food security for several decades. Socioeconomic aspects have
also been an important component of farming systems research since the
early 1970s, and Duckham and Masefield (1970) noted that “the
relevance of research and technology to any farming system can only be

assessed with a knowledge of both the ecological and economic factors
operating on that system.” The notion of food policy analysis (Timmer
et al., 1983) was a further step forward.
These developments were largely uncoupled from biophysical
research, but given the multiple dimensions of food and nutrition
security, the need for interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary,
approaches is now well accepted (Liverman and Kapadia, 2010; UK
Global Food Security Programme, 2011). Indeed, food and nutrition
security research is a good example of the need for greater
interdisciplinarity, with social science, economics, and the humanities, in
addition to the biophysical sciences, all playing critical roles (Pálsson
et al., 2011).
In parallel with the development of inter- and transdisciplinary
research in food security, the notion of “food systems” has also emerged
more strongly in recent years. It is now clear that while food and
nutrition security is the goal, it is food systems that underpin it. Defining
food systems clearly would provide a structured, analytical lens for
researching the highly complex food security agenda (Ericksen, 2008a;
Ingram, 2011a). Nonetheless, although the use of the phrase “food
systems” has grown rapidly in recent years, there are varied
understandings of the term. Several authors have put forward
frameworks for analyzing food systems, but most have focused on one
disciplinary perspective or one segment of the system. This trend is now
changing, and several multi-metric approaches have been recognized.
But for a food systems approach to be most useful in addressing food and
nutrition security, it must not only consider all food system activities
(i.e., beyond just agricultural production), but also look at the
consequences of the activities for the food security components of food

availability, access to food, and food utilization, all of which need to be
stable over time (FAO, 1996b). It must also consider consequences for
equity and other social issues, for enterprises and livelihoods, and for the
environment. It must recognize that food systems are, in effect,
assemblages of enterprises and that multiple actors often have multiple
motives. Finally, it also needs to include notions of direct and indirect
system drivers, which strongly influence the activities of the actors.
So, whereas primary production is often the focus of food security

considerations, post-farmgate activities (that is, the food chain consisting
of processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consuming, and
disposing of food and food-related items) are also important for food
security, and these also affect multiple enterprises and environmental
issues. A food systems approach therefore needs to recognize the
motives of different food system actors and the range of policy, market,
social, technological, and biophysical environments, or drivers, that
influence their activities. This approach allows food-chain activities to be
linked to their social, economic, and environmental context. Moreover,
because actors in each section of the food chain affect each other’s
behavior across space, time, and institutional scales (Cash et al., 2006),
multiple-way linkages need to be taken into account, particularly when
looking for entry points for food system change.
Figure 16.1 shows how these dimensions were integrated by the food
system concept of the “Global Environmental Change and Food
Systems” (GECAFS) research program (Ericksen, 2008a; Ingram,
2011a). Drawing on earlier food system approaches (e.g., Sobal et al.,
1998), this integrated framework provided a structured approach to
research on the two-way interactions between global environmental
change (GEC) and food security, with particular emphasis on interactions
with GEC drivers and vulnerability (Ericksen, 2008b).
552
Environmental fMd~cks
r e.g ., water quality, GHGs, btodrversity -------- i

-··
t:Nron.
SocioeconomlcfMdbacks
_______ ,
e.g., nutrition, busin ess, po litical stabil ity
Fig. 16.1. The OECAFS food system framework showing both socioeconomic and global environmental change drivers (i.e. changes in "states")
and feedbacks from alterations to food system activities. Source: Based on Ericksen (2008a); Ingram (20lla).
As demand grows though demographic, economic, cultural, and

geographic/urbanization shifts, it is clear that food systems need to
deliver food security for a larger, wealthier, more urban population while
minimizing further environmental degradation. They need to do this
against a background of natural resource depletion and many stagnating
rural economies and changing climate and social and sociocultural
changes—many future aspects of which are far from certain. Food

security challenges are therefore closely linked to the SDGs and apply to
all countries. Management interventions, development strategies, and
policies need to be developed by identifying the range of issues that
stakeholders involved in food security discussions need to address
(Thompson et al., 2007). Such discussions must recognize the need for
viable business models to enable solutions to be sustainable and scalable.
These are best developed based on a food systems conceptual framework
that identifies which actors and influencers need to be involved,

determines the metrics of success, and bridges disciplines, showing
where each contributes to the debate. Food systems are both complex
adaptive systems (with both drivers and feedbacks) and integrated
socioecological systems (with a range of actors and impacts). Such a
framework must therefore incorporate multiple goals including the
delivery of the calories and other macro- and micronutrients essential for
food and nutrition security. Food systems also give rise to many other
social economic outcomes (e.g., employment, social capital) and are an
important part of the global economy; the total value of global food and
agricultural industry is estimated at US$8 trillion (Plunkett Research,
2017).
While there is a clear need to develop more productive food-
producing systems that are more environmentally benign, a major
advance also needs to be made on demand side of the equation. Much
demand change stems from urbanization, with consumers gaining access
to a wider range of more processed foods, many with “empty” calories
(Tilman and Clark, 2014). The change in consumers’ preferences and
consumption patterns drives food system changes. Malnutrition is related
to consumption patterns of calories and nutrients, rather than food
production.
Figure 16.2 identifies factors that determine diets and hence into
which of the three malnutrition classes an individual falls. Major
determinants of consumption include food preferences (for example,
taste and appearance), allocation (such as who eats first in a household),
cultural norms (such as exclusion of certain foods for religious reasons),
cooking skill, and convenience. The most important, arguably, is
affordability, which is dictated both by the price that results from the
chain of enterprises involved in producing, processing, packaging,
trading, shipping, storing, advertising, and selling food, and by people’s
ability to pay (Ingram, 2017).
Fig. 16.2. Determinants of malnutrition. Source: Adapted from Acharya et al. (2014);
Ingram and Porter (2015).
16.3 What Should Food Systems Look Like in 2030, and

How Can We Shape Them?
Food systems need to meet a range of food-related societal goals. These

goals depend on worldviews, which can differ among different people,
communities, cultures, and religions. While few would disagree with the
FAO definition of food security, it leaves out many other food system
outcomes that are also of societal interest. Some of these were identified
by the ESF-COST report European Food Systems in a Changing World
(ESF-COST, 2009) and can be “mapped” to societal goals (Figure 16.3).
Societal goals relating to food systems

food security, environmental quality, livelihoods, …
Food system OUTCOMES contributing to:

Other Interests Trade-offs Food Security Food system
DRIVERS
• Income
• Rural development
• Employment
FOOD
UTILISATION
FOOD
ACCESS
State of &
changes in:
• Health
• Environment
• Landscape • Demography
FOOD
• Ecosystem services AVAILABILITY • Economic
context
• Animal welfare
• Socio-political
• … context
• Cultural context
Food system ACTIVITIES
• Science &
• Producing food: natural resources, inputs, management, … Technology
• Processing food: food quality, regulations, safety, … • Environment
• Packaging & distributing food: appearance, shelf life, transport, …
• Retailing & consuming food: marketing, trade, preparing, customs, …
Fig. 16.3. The ESF-COST food system framework showing the links to societal goals as
influenced by trade-offs between food security and other food system outcomes. Source:
ESF-COST (2009).
Given the inherent food system trade-offs between food security and
a range of other societal interests derived from food system activities
(e.g., employment, environment, animal welfare, access to healthy food
choices; Figure 16.3), a “good” food system will involve compromise.

This compromise must be based on rigorous debate about the potential
trade-offs implicit in proposed changes and on agreement by all
concerned on outcomes that meet or surpass given societal goals. Metrics
are needed to assess progress and are now appearing (e.g., Gustafson
et al., 2016).
To identify both intended and unintended outcomes, development of

policies and interventions should be based on a conceptual framework
agreed to by key stakeholders. A good example can be found in the
European Community–funded SUSFANS project (www.susfans.eu),
which has built an approach for enabling an informed debate across
different EU stakeholder groups underpinned by the latest scientific
evidence. This project is built on the insights that various disciplines as
well as stakeholder expertise can bring to the table. The options for
change need to be grounded in the realities of the actors who will serve
as partners in implementing new solutions. SUSFANS identified several
steps in delivering an integrated approach to assessing the sustainable
food and nutrition security of the EU food system and evaluating
innovation options for the system:
1. Develop a conceptual framework mapping the driving forces, actors,

activities, outcomes, and goals for the EU food system (Zurek et al.,
2016);
2. Devise a set of performance metrics for assessing the food system’s
status and innovation options across four key policy goals formulated
by food system actors (Zurek et al., 2017);
3. Use modeling to quantify the sustainability status of food and
nutrition security in the EU and to assess the potential impacts of
innovation options across policy goals (Kuiper et al., 2017); and
4. Use visualization to allow food system actors to assess the outcomes
and associated trade-offs of possible innovation options in an
integrated manner across policy goals (the SUSFANS SFNS impact
visualizer) (Zurek et al., 2018).
Accordingly, the SUSFANS project team first developed a conceptual

framework mapping the EU food system, with its policy goals, the key
actors, their activities, drivers, and overall food system outcomes. The
framework was then discussed and refined in two stakeholder meetings
to include various perspectives on what the system looks like and what
shapes it (for the final version see Figure 16.4). The conceptual
framework was then the basis for deciding on performance metrics that
would allow decision makers to assess where the EU food system
currently stands with respect to achieving four key policy goals set out
by stakeholders: balanced and sufficient diets for EU citizens, reduced
environmental impacts, a competitive food sector, and equitable
conditions and outcomes of the EU food system (see Figure 16.4). A
hierarchical approach was developed that allowed for the derivation of a
small number of performance metrics for each policy goal from a large
number of variables. The SUSFANS modeling team developed a strategy

across five models covering diets and health outcomes, agricultural
production, and environmental and macroeconomic variables to estimate
these metrics to the extent possible for the current status of the EU food
system, as well as for potential innovation options. The performance
metrics are presented visually in form of a spider diagram that shows all
metrics at the same time. This approach gives users an integrated view of
all sustainability dimensions and policy goals, allowing them to assess
changes to the food system’s performance when introducing innovations.
The overall aim of the approach is to allow for visualization of synergies,
trade-offs, and unintended consequences across policy goals for the
selected innovations to enable an informed debate about which
innovations to pursue
558
• Diets and consump.lon patterns

• Productivity, profit, and co~iliveness
• Environmental condlions
• Fair and just social conditions for food system
actors
Food 'iystem outcomes
• Attitudes and subjective norms

• Oeroographics
• Information
• Food neo-phobia
Food Chain, e.g.
• Food prices
Regulatory envi'onment
Producers, e.g.
Regulalory envronment
• Input and farm gate prices
• Contrad opportunlies
Natural resource ·1 i
Available I
Fig. 16.4. SUSFANS conceptual framework for assessing EU sustainable food and nutrition security. Source: Zurek e/ a/. (20 16). Part of the
research leading to the ideas expressed in this paper received funding from the European Union under grant no. 633692 (SUSFANS).
16.4 Using a Food Systems Approach to Help Food Security

and Research Planning
The SUSFANS example shows how the food systems concept can be
applied to include various stakeholder perspectives on different
components of the food system. A food systems approach can also map
how interventions might trickle through the system. This capacity can
enable a wider debate about the direction of food system change and its
various outcomes; food systems thinking can help food security research
planning by offering the framing and boundary conditions for the
analyses. Other research could help identify and address root causes of
malnutrition in all its forms; identify points of intervention across the
whole food system for helping alleviate malnutrition; and identify and
analyze the synergies and trade-offs of interventions between food and
nutrition security, environment, business and other societal goals. In

addition, thinking across different aspects of food systems can help
identify connections with other systems (e.g., energy, infrastructure,
information) that might either enable or constrain options for food
system change. Mapping food systems clarifies the key aspects that need
to be monitored in order to establish whether system change is taking
place and in which direction it is moving.
A food systems approach can also help identify bottlenecks in
developing innovations in food systems. The following example based
on enhancing diets by extracting protein from plant material
demonstrates the need to adopt a clear systems approach.
Protein, as a critical nutrient for human health, offers a strong
opportunity to understand and shape food system change. Despite
progress in reducing chronic hunger, many people in developing
countries (particularly poor or vulnerable populations) still lack sufficient
protein for a healthy diet. At the same time, many people in richer
societies overconsume protein, especially from animal sources, with
detrimental environmental effects, especially greenhouse gas emissions.
Global environmental, social, and economic trends are putting increasing
pressure on our ability to ensure a reliable, sustainable, and varied future
supply of protein for a growing population. A leveling off of meat and
dairy consumption in developed countries could reduce global cereal
demand by 15%, and a 50% reduction in meat and dairy consumption in

these countries could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40%
(Westhoek et al., 2016).
There are various barriers and opportunities for making the
consumption of protein worldwide more balanced and healthy. For plant
proteins to become more mainstream, several enabling conditions need to
be in place (Forum for the Future, 2015; Ingram and Porter, 2015),
including the following:
 sustainable cultivation of a wide variety of a protein-rich crops
suitable for novel food processing and value addition;
 sustainable processing technologies that deliver nutritious, safe,
convenient, attractive, and affordable ingredients or final foods from
a variety of crop sources and that reduce resource use and food or
protein waste;
 value chains based on shared value creation and risk, with viable
business models based on sustainably grown, minimally processed,
safe, and nutritious foods that are affordable and attractive to
consumers and that offer consistently attractive profit margins for
growers;
 consumer acceptance in light of essential anthropological and other
social customs; and
 regulation and policy that support and enable all of the above.
More collaboration among the wide range of actors in the food

system (e.g., business, farmers, policymakers, consumer groups, and
researchers) is critical for developing and scaling up viable solutions.
Thinking about the whole chain within a food systems approach helps
identify and understand the motives, opportunities, and constraints for
each community. This improves communications between different parts
of the chain and builds common ground and support for long-term
solutions.
While initial discussions between plant breeders and the nutrition
community can identify possible needs, bottlenecks may occur mid-chain
and be invisible to either community. Goal setting and alignment across
the involved actors could be done using the SUSFANS approach or
similar methods that visually display the impacts of innovation options

on desired outcomes of food system change. Once the direction of
change has become clear, a set of conversations is needed between the
nearest neighbors in the chains to identify—and overcome—bottlenecks.
With regard to the goal of increasing plant protein in diets through high-
protein biscuits, Figure 16.5 identifies a potential bottleneck: it shows the
need for raw material processors and agriculturalists (rather than only
plant breeders and nutrition communities) to discuss constraints (e.g.,
processing challenges to using a certain type of crop) and opportunities
for upscaling (e.g., market potential). Several key questions must be
addressed: Are the novel plant products suitable for primary processing?
Are sustainable primary processing technologies available for novel plant
products? So far, though, this type of coordinated discussion along the
food system seems to happen too rarely; outcomes across current food
systems show the disconnected nature of decision making and the

misalignment of incentives across the system.
Fig. 16.5. A food systems perspective identifies the need for dialogue across multiple
interfaces but highlights the particular need for dialogue at the interface between
agriculturalists and processors.
16.5 Conclusions
Food systems need to deliver food and nutrition security for a growing,
wealthier, more urban population. They need to do this while minimizing
further environmental degradation and providing enterprise and
livelihood opportunities for the food industry in developed and
developing countries alike.

An increasing number of approaches to assessing food systems are
being developed, many aiming to provide tools to address food insecurity
or climate change (e.g., Ericksen 2008a; Ingram et al., 2010; Drimie
et al., 2011; Hospes and Brons, 2016; Westhoek et al., 2016). What is
common to most of these approaches is an emphasis on the need for a
more holistic and systematic interrogation of food systems. As such, a
clear shift has been made from a focus solely on food production to one
that also incorporates food consumption (and related health outcomes),

retail, and policy (Acharya et al., 2014, Allen et al., 2014, Maggio et al.,
2015; Le Vallée and Grant, 2016). A food systems approach is “being
seen as the most effective strategy to enhance nutrition security in a more
sustainable manner” (Gustafson et al., 2016, p. 2) for a number of
reasons. Besides providing a framework to structure the debate of a
highly complex issue, it allows for an integrated assessment that can
focus on impacts and leverage points in the different domains of the food
system (Ingram, 2011a). Any intervention, however, must be viable from
a business standpoint. It must also identify which actor or actors should
take the first step, whether an NGO, a forerunner business, or a
government reform (Figure 16.6).
Food systems thinking thus provides a new paradigm for achieving
food and nutrition security in both developed- and developing-country
settings. It also helps to incorporate and balance the achievement of other
environmental and societal goals in the decision-making framework of
food system actors. Thus the approach can enable a more transparent
debate about how to find synergies and minimize often overlooked trade-
offs in the ways that societies decide to feed themselves.
Operationalizing this approach and finding the right tools and measures
to enable the analysis, together with facilitating food system change in
specific locations and circumstances, is one of the most important

emerging tasks for the global research community.
Fig. 16.6. Upward movement through the co-evolution of different pathways (Westhoek
et al., 2016).
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Chapter 17
Global Trade Futures

Kym Anderson
17.1 Introduction
As demand expands in the wake of global growth in population and per

capita income, there are justifiable concerns about the capacity of
agriculture to feed the world.1 Those concerns include the slowdown
since late last century in R&D investments to boost farm productivity
growth in high-income countries (Pardey et al., 2016) and the expected
impact of climate change in dampening production (Nelson et al., 2014;
IPCC, 2014). Thus the world’s 700 million extremely poor and 815
million hungry people remain at risk (FAO, 2017; FAO et al., 2017). As
many as two-thirds of the extremely poor (with less than US$1.90 a day
at 2011 purchasing power parity) are developing-country farmers (World
Bank, 2016a). Certainly increased investment in agricultural R&D could
eventually lead to expanded production and lower food prices, but the
slowdown in growth in public investments in such R&D in recent
decades has been only partly offset by private food and agricultural
R&D, nearly half of which is spent on food processing rather than farm
productivity (Alston and Pardey, 2017). In many countries farm-focused
R&D by the private sector has been held back by regulatory restrictions
or bans on modern biotechnology (Qaim, 2016).
One way to reduce the plight of those millions of poor and hungry
people, promptly and at little cost, is to increase the openness of markets
1Thanks are due to anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments.
569
for farm products to international trade. Long-distance agricultural trade

has contributed to global economic growth and poverty reduction for
millennia, but only in the past two centuries through international trade
in major foods. Its predominant contribution in earlier periods was
through trade in crop seeds or cuttings, breeding animals, and farm
production technologies. Since the 1820s, the ever-lowering cost of
international commerce gradually allowed more trade in farm outputs in

raw or processed form. That increased in trade led to a convergence of
prices of farm and other products within and across countries, and indeed
across continents (Findlay and O’Rourke, 2004; Jacks, 2005).
Nonetheless, during much of the 20th century, trade restrictions at
national borders slowed the growth in international trade between
relatively lightly populated economies well endowed with agricultural
land and those that are densely populated. Price convergence across
space and the efficiency of global resource use in agriculture were

thereby compromised. When policy reforms led to an opening up of
many food (and other) markets starting in the mid-1980s, globalization
accelerated (Baldwin, 2016). That rosy scenario was interrupted by the
financial crisis of 2008 and by the emergence of new trade-reducing
assistance to farmers in some large emerging economies.
One symptom of the earlier restrictions on food trade is much slower
postwar growth in agricultural and food exports than in exports of all
other goods (WTO, 2015), despite the implementation of the 1994
Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture. The December 2015 World
Trade Organization (WTO) agreement to eliminate farm export subsidies
is also reducing those distortions, and the recently ratified Trade
Facilitation Agreement (plus the revolution in information and
communication technologies) is further lowering the costs of trading,
particularly with and among developing countries. Even so, there
remains considerable scope for reforming trade-related farm policies that
are still distorting prices of food, feed, and fiber and limiting the role
international trade can play in strengthening global food security—a role
that will become ever more important as climate change increases the
volatility of national crop yields.
This chapter documents the current extent of trade in farm products
and of barriers to that trade, lays out the case for further opening up
Global Trade Futures 571
markets, summarizes projections of trade under various assumptions to

2030 and 2050, and suggests ways to increase the openness of emerging
economies or at least to avoid going down the agricultural protection
track taken in the past by Japan, Korea and other high-income countries.
Signs of the latter, however, are already emerging. Should that farm
assistance trend continue in Asia, it will adversely affect households that
are net sellers of food in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere. The
chapter thus concludes with a review of prospects for stronger WTO
disciplines not only on farm import tariffs and nontariff trade measures
but also on domestic support policies; for freeing up farm trade with
bilateral and regional preferential free trade agreements; and especially
for unilateral market liberalization as more efficient instruments to assist
the most food-insecure households, such as conditional targeted income
supplements, become administratively feasible even in low-income
countries.
17.2 Patterns of Trade in Farm Products and Market-

Distorting Policies
Both the commodity and country shares of global exports of farm

products are highly concentrated. Fewer than 10 items made up half of
the value of trade in agricultural products, and two-thirds of the world’s
exports of farm products were accounted for by just a dozen agricultural
trading economies (treating the European Union [EU28] as a single
economy; see Appendix Table 17.1). These large food-trading economies
range from being heavily food import- or export-dependent to being
close to self-sufficient, but most of the top 20 food-trading nations
engage in substantial two-way farm trade as people look to diversify
their diets and consume more exotic foods as part of their quest for
greater variety and (if they so choose) better nutrition.
Over the past half-century, the share of farm products in national
exports has been declining for each of the low-, middle-, and high-
income groups of countries, and so for the world as a whole (Appendix
Table 17.2). A country is defined as having a “revealed” comparative
advantage in agriculture if the share of farm products in its exports
exceeds that share for the world. A persistent decline in that index of
comparative advantage in agriculture is evident only for Japan and for
upper-middle-income countries. For the high-income group as a whole,
and especially for Western Europe, the index of revealed comparative
advantage in farm products has risen and is greater than one. By contrast,
that index for low-income countries has hovered around two for the past
half-century (Appendix Table 17.3).

One reason for this lack of decline in agriculture’s revealed
comparative advantage for Western Europe concerns that region’s
distorted agricultural incentives. From the 1950s to the mid-1980s,
agricultural protection and subsidies encouraged growth in Europe’s food
production while dampening its consumption. Meanwhile, governments
of many newly independent developing countries taxed farm exports
directly and also harmed farmers indirectly with an industrialization
strategy that restricted imports of manufactured goods and relied on an

overvalued currency. The pervasive anti-trade bias in the policies of both
groups of countries depressed the share of global agricultural production
traded internationally. As recently as 2007, that share was just one-sixth
for grains, less than one-twelfth for livestock products, and especially
low for rice and dairy products. Even though it is higher for sugar and
oilseeds, in 2014 it averaged just 12% for all farm products and
processed food, compared with 28% for other manufactures and 41% for
minerals and energy products (unpublished update of Narayanan et al.,
2012). The bulkiness of some farm products relative to other goods
partly explains the low share of farm production traded internationally,
but government trade barriers have exacerbated the situation.
Had there been a less pronounced anti-trade bias in policies affecting
farmer incentives in many countries, it is likely that a larger number of
countries would have emerged as significant exporters and importers of
major food products. With more of this two-way trade, all countries
would be enjoying a more diversified (and potentially more nutritious)
diet. In addition, international food prices would have been less volatile.
Since the mid-1980s many developing-country governments have
reduced the anti-agriculture bias in their agricultural, trade, and exchange
rate policies. Some high-income countries, most notably in the European
Union, have also reduced their farm price supports. Associated with
those policy reforms are reductions in the distortions to consumer prices

of food products. Historically speaking, the reforms since the mid-1980s
are as dramatic as the policy changes in the preceding three decades.
To measure these changes, a World Bank study calculated nominal
rates of assistance (NRAs) for more than 80 countries that together
account for more than 90% of world agricultural and food markets
(Anderson, 2009a). The NRA is the percentage by which government

policies have raised producer returns above what they would be without
the government’s intervention (or the percentage by which government
policies have lowered returns, if the NRA is less than zero). Since
farmers are affected by the prices of not just their own outputs but also
those of nonagricultural producers who compete with them in the
common national markets for mobile labor and capital, the World Bank
study also estimated relative rates of assistance (RRAs). The RRA is the
percentage by which government policies have raised prices of tradable

farm products relative to prices received by producers of nonfarm
tradable products (most of which are manufactures; see Anderson et al.,
2008). Figure 17.1 shows the extent to which assistance to agriculture,
especially the RRA, grew in high-income countries through the mid-1980s while
remaining negative in developing countries. It also shows the subsequent
convergence of those RRAs: both the anti-agricultural policy bias in
developing countries and the pro-agricultural bias in high-income
countries have diminished greatly during the past three decades.
The extent and speed of the movement of RRAs toward zero vary
across regions: among developing countries the extent and speed of this
movement have been least for Africa and greatest for Asia,2 and among
2China and India showed little sign of moving away from being slight net exporters of
farm products through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, even though their nonfarm sectors
were growing strongly. Only since the turn of the century has China become a significant
net importer of food. A key reason for the long delay in that shift is China’s gradual move
away from heavily taxing farmers relative to manufacturers in the 1970s and 1980s to
assisting them more than manufacturers since the late 1990s (Anderson 2009b, 2018).
high-income countries they have been greatest for the European Union
and have not occurred at all for other Western European countries, apart
from a dip in 2007–2012 when international food prices rose steeply.3
(a) Developing countries

80
NRA ag tradables
NRA non-ag tradables
30
-20 1965-69 1970-74 1975-79 1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04 2005-11
-70
(b) High-income countries
80
NRA ag tradables
70 NRA non-ag tradables
60 RRA
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fig. 17.1. Developing and high-income countries’ NRAs to agricultural and non-
agricultural tradable sectors, and RRAs, 1955 to 2011 (%). Source: Anderson (2009a, Ch.
1), updated from estimates in Anderson and Nelgen (2013).
Note: Five-year averages. Calculations use farm production-weighted averages across

countries. RRA is defined as 100*[(100+NRAagt)/(100+NRAnonagt)−1], where NRAagt
and NRAnonagt, respectively, are the NRAs for the tradable segments of the agricultural
and non-agricultural sectors.
3Australia and New Zealand are exceptional in that they had an anti-agricultural policy
bias for most of the 20th century: their manufacturing tariff protection exceeded
agricultural supports. In the final third of the 20th century, however, both sectors’
distortions were reduced in both countries and are now close to zero, similar to the
average for developing countries (Anderson et al., 2007; Lloyd and MacLaren, 2015).
Those averages also hide the fact that there is still much variation
across developing countries in both the level and rate of change in
distortion indicators. Even within the agricultural sector of each country,
whether developed or developing, there is a wide range of product
NRAs. Some are positive and high in almost all countries (sugar, rice,
and milk), others are positive and high in developed economies but
highly negative in developing countries (most noticeably cotton), and yet

others are relatively low in all countries (feedgrains, soybean, pork, and
poultry).
An important aspect of that dispersion of NRAs is that the
agricultural policy regime of each country still tends to have an anti-trade
bias. This bias has declined over time for the developing-country group,
mainly because of cuts in agricultural export taxation and in spite of
growth in agricultural import protection. That growth in assistance to the
import-competing subsector of developing-country agriculture is a

concern to be examined below.
Trade policy instruments (export and import taxes, subsidies or
quantitative restrictions plus dual exchange rates) have accounted in
recent years for no less than three-fifths of agricultural NRAs globally.
That means they account for an even larger share of the global welfare
cost of agricultural price distortions, since trade measures also distort
consumer prices, and welfare costs are proportional to the square of a
trade tax (see Anderson et al., 2006). Phasing out such measures would
boost farm trade, “thicken” international food markets, and lower the
volatility of prices in those markets. It would also ensure that the world’s
productive resources in the farm sector would be put to their best use and
so make agricultural production more sustainable.
Because food price volatility can cause political unrest in both rich
and poor countries, governments in many countries insulate domestic
food markets from gyrations in international prices. Insulation is invoked
especially in upswings, but also when international prices slump. It may
reduce the volatility of domestic prices in countries that insulate heavily,
but when many countries engage in such interventions, the collective
impact is to increase the volatility of international food prices, and
thereby of domestic prices in more-open countries.
The NRA indicator used to measure the gap between domestic and
international food prices is substantially lower in many countries in the
two upward price spike periods around 1974 and 2008 (and higher for a
downward price spike period around 1986) than in adjacent nonspike
periods. Alterations in both export and import restrictions contributed to
that finding. However, if a similar proportion of the world’s food-
exporting countries insulate to the same degree as a group of food

importers, each country group will fully offset the other’s attempt to
prevent their domestic price from moving as much as the international
price. That is, these policy actions are as futile as everyone in a football
stadium standing in an attempt to get a better view of the field (Martin
and Anderson, 2012), yet they add substantially to the volatility of
international food prices (Jensen and Anderson, 2017). Moreover,
developing countries as a group would probably see fewer of their people
fall into poverty when international food prices spike if they and all other
countries agreed to abstain from altering trade restrictions in the hope of
insulating their domestic markets from such spikes (Anderson et al.,
2014).
Since the same basic logic applies when international prices slump, it
throws into doubt any virtue in the proposal in the WTO’s Doha Round,
from a large group of developing countries, for a Special Safeguard
Mechanism to be established. The proposed SSM would allow
developing countries to raise their applied tariffs on specified farm
products when either their import price falls or the volume of imports
surges beyond threshold levels. The purported price-insulating benefit
for farmers in food-importing countries is likely to be illusory because
the behavioral responses to a price slump by governments of agricultural-
importing countries typically are offset by similar policy reactions by
agricultural-exporting countries (Thennakoon and Anderson, 2015).
One other area of food trade policy concern concerns products
containing genetically modified (GM) organisms. Some groups fear that
such products may be unsafe as food or animal feed or that their
production may have adverse effects on the natural environment. As a
consequence, numerous countries have procrastinated on approving GM
crop production or use. Those policies have persisted for two decades in
spite of the fact that there is no evidence that GM crops have greater
adverse impacts than non-GM crops on health or (with simple safeguards

in place) the environment. On the contrary, GM crop varieties are
reducing the need for agrochemicals that harm the environment and
farmer health, and they have the potential to greatly enhance the
micronutrient content of food staples (Qaim, 2016). Nonetheless, import
barriers to food markets in Western Europe have led many African and
Asian governments to ban GM crop production, for fear that their

country’s agricultural exports even of non-GM products may otherwise
be rejected by concerned governments abroad. Such bans generate little
if any net benefit to the developing countries imposing them, as the
domestic consumer loss, net of that protectionism boost to African and
Asian farmers, is far more than the small gain in terms of greater market
access to the EU (Anderson 2010, 2016, Ch. 7). Removing those
moratoria would speed poverty alleviation and boost food security
directly, substantially, and relatively rapidly in those developing

countries willing to do so. Moreover, prospective gains from this new
technology will increase as climate change proceeds and requires farmers
to adapt to warming and to increased weather volatility and higher costs
of water for irrigation.
17.3 The Case for More Farm Trade Openness
Since food is the most basic of human needs, it is not surprising that food
security is a sensitive policy concern, particularly in countries that are
somewhat dependent on food imports and have experienced past
interruptions to import supplies. Numerous developing countries place
long-run food self-sufficiency high on the list of their policy priorities. If
that goal leads governments to reduce their underinvestment in public
agricultural R&D so as to raise farm productivity and competitiveness,
national and global food security will be enhanced. But if it leads
governments to raise barriers to food imports, it is more likely to
undermine than to boost global food security. Opening up to trade would
directly benefit national food security for countries that are restricting
food imports and where the majority of the poor and undernourished are
net buyers of food. Such opening up would lower food prices in those
domestic markets, but it would also raise international food prices, which
would in turn boost food security in those countries where the majority
of the poor and undernourished are net sellers of food and their
governments transmit that price rise to the domestic market. In both sets
of countries, reducing import restrictions will tend to raise the real
income, food security, nutrition, and health of those countries’ poorest
households.
As for countries that restrict the export of food, removing such
restrictions would boost their national food security if the majority of the
poor are net sellers of food, but such an opening would boost food
exports, depress the international price of food, and so harm net sellers of
food in foreign countries.
Notwithstanding these distributional effects of trade policy changes,
if they are trade liberalizing then they would still raise average national
incomes of reforming countries. This rise in income would increase

countries’ scope for assisting any poor households harmed by the reform
with domestic policy measures that are more efficient than trade policy
instruments (such measures are discussed in the final section of this
chapter).
The more widespread are such reforms, the larger the global gains
from production specialization and market exchange following trade
opening, including gains from reducing the extent of global food
insecurity and malnutrition. The increased competition that comes from
trade opening also has been shown to boost not only overall economic
growth but also farm productivity growth (Yu and Nin-Pratt, 2011).
Furthermore, it expands the scope for raising diet diversity and food
safety and quality, the demands for which tend to rise with per capita
income (Clements and Si, 2018).4
4Insofar as investment openness speeds the development of supermarkets in developing

countries, that increases the range and safety of food products available for those who
find it more convenient to shop there, even if it reduces the number of small shops
available in nearby neighbourhoods (Reardon et al., 2010). Some observers worry about
the advertising strength of multinational processing or retail companies selling low-priced
processed foods, some of which may be considered less nutritious than the more
expensive traditional foods they replace (e.g., Hawkes et al., 2015). In such
circumstances, there are more efficient policy responses than preventing such trade or
foreign direct investment (which, by limiting competition, may simply lead to higher-cost
Improving food security requires improving the interrelated elements

of food availability, access, and utilization, as well as reducing market
instability. How much access households have to available food supplies
depends heavily on their income, assets, remittances, or other
entitlements. How well household heads utilize the foods that are
accessible to them depends on their knowledge and willingness to ensure
a healthy and nutritious diet for all members of their household. That in
turn depends on the level of education in the household, particularly of
adult females, which again is closely related to household income and
wealth or other entitlements. Thus food insecurity is a consumption issue
that is closely related to household poverty (though consumption for
subsistence farmers is closely tied to their production choices).
Any initiative whose net effect is to raise real incomes, especially of
the poorest households, may enhance food security, nutrition, and health.
Since opening more to trade raises national income (and increases food
diversity, quality, and safety for the reasons mentioned), it should be
considered among the food policy options open to national governments.
If all countries were open to international trade and investment, the use
of resources devoted to producing, marketing, distributing, and retailing
the world’s food would be optimized, and fluctuations in trade volumes
and international food prices would be minimized. Openness thus
contributes to all four key components of food security: availability,
access, utilization, and market stability.5
domestic firms providing a smaller range of similar but more expensive foods). A more
appropriate response is to ensure that adequate nutritional information is available (e.g.,
on product labels); education campaigns could guide consumers to healthy food choices,
regardless of whether the firms processing or retailing the available foods are locally or
foreign owned. Taxing the use of ingredients considered unhealthy (sugar, salt, oils) is
another approach some countries have begun adopting (Alston et al., 2016), although
care is needed to ensure that this does not lead to their substitution by untaxed alternative
ingredients that are similarly unhealthy.
5Some have questioned whether in the latest wave of globalization, which is
characterized by global value chain developments (Baldwin, 2016), private standards of

supermarkets in high-income countries are adding a new barrier to export sales by agents
of developing-country smallholder farmers. Although that may be the case in some
settings, empirical evidence suggests many such farmers are able to respond to and
indeed benefit from this development—for example, by getting more access to credit and
information on new crop varieties and technologies and a secure market through a long-
17.4 Projections of Global Farm Trade to 2030 and 2050
National comparative advantages in farm products, in the absence of

subsidies and barriers to trade, would be, among other things, positively
related to agricultural land per capita and negatively related to both
mineral reserves per capita and industrial plus human capital per worker
(and hence, as a proxy, to income per capita). In 2000, the world had
1.00 hectare per capita of cropland, grassland, and woodland, a quarter of
which was cultivated. By 2050, both those numbers will be about one-
third less, according to Fischer et al. (2010) and IFPRI (2017). The
world’s farmland, and especially its cultivated cropland, must become
more productive if we are to feed the world at least as well as today.
The two regions where poverty and hunger are worst now, and will be
also in 2050, are Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. They also happen
to be the regions that are most vulnerable to adverse impacts of climate

change on farm productivity (Nelson et al., 2014; IFPRI, 2017). In 2000
Sub-Saharan Africa had one-third more arable land per capita than the
world as a whole, but it is a net importer of food because of the low
productivity of its cropland and grazing land. By 2050 it is projected to
have one-quarter less arable land per capita than the world as a whole. It
will thus become even more dependent on food imports by 2050 unless it
can raise farm productivity much faster than the rest of the world—
which van Ittersum et al. (2016) consider improbable. South Asia will
also become more food-import dependent unless its farm productivity is
exceptionally fast: in 2000 it had 40% less arable land per capita than the
world as a whole, and it is projected to have 47% less by 2050 (Fischer et
al., 2010; IFPRI, 2017).
In an interconnected world of nations, what happens elsewhere in the
world also will influence the comparative advantages of these two
poorest regions. Rapid economic growth in economies poor in natural
resources in East Asia is shifting the global economic and industrial
term contract (Swinnen et al., 2015). The more developing-country governments can
improve markets for credit, seeds, and market information and can lower rural transport
and communication costs, the more evenly the benefits from global value chain
developments will be spread. For more on trade’s contribution to food security, see for
example Díaz-Bonilla (2015) and Josling (2018).
center of gravity away from the north Atlantic and increasing the demand
for exports from natural resource–rich economies. This is a continuation
of a process begun in Japan in the 1950s and followed by Hong Kong,
Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan from the late 1960s, then by other
Southeast Asian countries, but more recently by China. The earlier
Northeast Asian group represents just 3% of the world’s population, so
the rest of the world accommodated its rapid industrial growth without
much difficulty, including in markets for primary products. China, by
contrast, accounts for one-sixth of humanity. Its rapid and persistent
industrialization therefore has far greater significance for food and other
primary product markets globally.
To give a sense of how food markets in various parts of the world
might develop over the coming decades, the following sections present
the results of projections to 2030 from global economywide modeling,
without and then with potential changes in trade-related policies, and

ignoring climate change. Attention then turns to projections to 2050 that
focus in more detail on various food markets, without and then with
climate change. Both exercises incorporate the standard drivers of
change in these markets, such as growth in populations, per capita
incomes (which are associated dietary changes), and sectoral
productivity.
17.4.1 Economywide projections to 2030, assuming no policy

changes
Many analysts in recent years have attempted to capture the effects of a

continuation of global economic growth and structural changes, albeit at
slower rates than during recent decades.6 One study’s representative
results, using the GTAP global economywide model, are reported here
(Anderson and Strutt, 2016). Its baseline projections of production and
trade to 2030 are summarized in Tables 17.1 to 17.4. China is expected
to continue to have an ever-bigger share of world production over the
next decade or so, raising the developing countries’ share of GDP from
6See, e.g., OECD-FAO (2017), Rosegrant et al. (2017), Grafton et al. (2016), and the
Special Issue of the journal Agricultural Economics in January 2014 and that of the
Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics in October 2014.
27% in 2007 to 40% by 2030. The projected rise in developing countries’

share of world agricultural GDP is also substantial over that period, from
half to two-thirds (Table 17.1). Yet that group’s share of global farm
exports is projected to remain unchanged at 35%, while the share of their
farm imports nearly doubles, from 32% to 56%, and figures are similar
for other primary products. Asia is the main contributor to those changes
in the shares of world agricultural imports. Both Latin America and Sub-
Saharan Africa, by contrast, are projected to see their shares of global
exports of both farming and mining products rise, and by more than the
small rise in their share of global imports of primary products (Table
17.2).
The structural changes associated with global growth the period
2007–2030 alter the sectoral shares of national exports and imports in
disparate ways. Farm products become a smaller part of exports from
China, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa7 but a larger part of exports
from Latin America and Southeast Asia. Manufactures continue to
dominate Asia’s exports but less so for India, where exports of services
become even more important (Table 17.3). Meanwhile, the share of food
in national imports triples for China and nearly doubles for South Asia
while remaining much the same in other developing-country regions in
the baseline scenario (Table 17.4). Even so, national agricultural self-
sufficiency percentages (including animal feeds and processed foods) do
not change greatly between 2007 and the conservative growth projection
scenario for 2030: they rise for Brazil and South Africa plus Europe and
North America, and fall for China and India (compare columns 1 and 2
of Table 17.5).
7The drift of labor out of agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is already well under way.
See Diao et al. (2017).
Table 17.1. Regional shares of global value added (GDP) by sector, 2007 and 2030 (%).
(a) 2007
Agriculture Other
Country/region and food primary Manufactures Services Total
China 14.4 9.4 11.7 4.3 6.4
Rest of East Asia 10.4 7.4 14.6 13.7 13.4

South Asia 8.5 2.6 2.1 2.4 2.7
All high-income 50.2 34.4 68.7 78.2 73.1
countries
All developing 49.8 65.6 31.3 21.8 26.9
countries
Latin America 8.4 7.7 4.2 4.8 5.1
Sub-Saharan 5.0 6.1 0.5 0.6 1.1
Africa
World 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
(b) 2030
Agriculture Other
China 25.2 17.5 20.8 7.6 11.7
Rest of East Asia 9.0 8.6 15.0 13.1 12.7
South Asia 14.1 4.5 3.4 4.3 5.0
All high-income 33.5 26.5 52.4 68.0 59.9
countries
All developing 66.5 73.5 47.6 32.0 40.1
countries
Latin America 7.6 8.6 4.6 6.4 6.3
Sub-Saharan 6.6 11.6 0.9 1.4 2.5
Africa
World 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source: Anderson and Strutt (2016).
Table 17.2. Regional shares of global exports and imports in primary sectors, 2007 and
2030 (%).
(a) 2007
Share of global exports Share of global imports

Agriculture Other Agriculture Other
Country/region and food primary and food primary

Asia 14.5 6.5 20.3 40.3
All high-income
65.2 31.3 68.0 65.3
countries
All developing
34.8 68.7 32.0 34.7
countries
Latin America 12.9 7.9 4.1 2.5
Sub-Saharan Africa 2.3 10.1 2.6 0.3
World 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
(b) 2030
Share of global exports Share of global imports

Agriculture Other Agriculture Other
Country/region and food primary and food primary
Asia 11.1 8.4 40.1 54.6
All high-income
64.6 34.9 44.0 44.4
countries
All developing
35.4 65.1 56.0 55.6
countries
Latin America 14.4 11.9 4.1 2.1
Sub-Saharan Africa 3.3 16.8 4.7 1.0
World 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
In this conservative-growth baseline scenario, prices of food relative

to other goods in international markets in 2030 are just 11% higher than
those in 2007 (just before the recent food price spike). And the share of
food production that is internationally traded is only slightly higher in
2030 than in 2007.
Of course these projections alter when the baseline simulation
assumptions are changed. The farm trade outcomes are particularly
sensitive to the assumed rates of overall national economic growth and of
farm productivity growth, and to the agricultural protection policies by
2030 (which are assumed unchanged from those of 2007 in the baseline
projection), particularly of populous China and India. To get a sense of
how those assumptions affect national self-sufficiency in agricultural and
food products, the model was rerun with a change to each of them in
turn. Their impacts on the degrees of agricultural self-sufficiency of
various countries and regions are shown in Table 17.5.
Table 17.3. Sectoral shares of national exports, 2007 and 2030 (%).
(a) 2007
Agriculture Other
China 2.9 0.6 89.8 6.7 100.0
Rest of East Asia 3.0 3.1 78.3 15.6 100.0
South Asia 7.9 4.2 60.0 27.8 100.0

All high-income 6.3 4.8 68.1 20.8 100.0
countries
All developing 5.9 18.5 61.9 13.7 100.0
countries
Latin America 20.6 20.3 44.3 14.8 100.0
Sub-Saharan 9.4 65.4 15.3 9.9 100.0
Africa
World 6.1 9.8 65.8 18.2 100.0
(b) 2030
Agriculture Other
China 0.2 0.9 89.6 9.3 100.0
Rest of East Asia 3.9 4.3 77.3 14.5 100.0
South Asia 2.3 4.5 59.7 33.4 100.0
All high-income 10.1 9.5 59.3 21.1 100.0
countries
All developing 5.0 16.1 65.3 13.6 100.0
countries
Latin America 24.2 34.8 31.7 9.4 100.0
Sub-Saharan 7.7 69.3 14.3 8.6 100.0
Africa
World 7.4 12.9 62.4 17.2 100.0
Table 17.4. Sectoral shares of national imports, 2007 and 2030 (%).
(a) 2007
Agriculture Other
China 4.3 15.6 69.9 10.2 100.0
Rest of East Asia 6.0 17.0 60.4 16.6 100.0

South Asia 5.6 25.8 52.3 16.3 100.0
All high-income
6.3 9.7 65.6 18.4 100.0
countries
All developing
6.5 11.4 66.4 15.7 100.0
countries
Latin 7.6 7.3 68.6 16.4 100.0
America
Sub-Saharan 12.0 2.5 62.2 23.2 100.0
Africa
World 6.4 10.2 65.9 17.6 100.0
(b) 2030 (projection with conservative Asian growth)
Agriculture Other
China 13.0 28.3 52.0 6.6 100.0
Rest of East 6.3 16.2 61.8 15.7 100.0
Asia
South Asia 12.0 31.8 44.6 11.6 100.0
All high-
income 6.0 10.6 64.5 18.8 100.0
countries
All developing
9.7 16.8 60.1 13.5 100.0
countries
Latin 7.4 6.5 67.9 18.2 100.0
America
Sub- 13.0 5.0 61.7 20.3 100.0
Saharan
Africa
World 7.7 13.4 62.5 16.4 100.0
Table 17.5. Agricultural self-sufficiency ratio, 2007, 2030 baseline, and 2030 alternative
scenarios (%).
2030, with
2030, 2030, with increased
2030, with with faster LA & agric.
conservative faster SSA protection in
Asian Asian agricultural China and

Country/region 2007 growth growth productivity India
Argentina 170 169 177 181 168
Brazil 119 135 141 151 133
Chile 117 113 115 128 112
Peru 100 94 97 102 93
Rest of Latin 104 101 105 112 101
America
Middle East + 84 86 88 83 86
North Africa
South Africa 101 124 119 117 123
Rest of Africa 100 100 103 110 99
Europe 97 105 105 102 103
NAFTA 105 116 120 113 111
Australia + 131 132 138 129 130
New Zealand
China 97 88 87 87 94
Rest of East 93 95 100 93 94
Asia
South Asia 100 94 95 93 94
All high-
income 100 109 111 106 106
countries
All developing
100 96 96 97 97
countries
World 100 100 100 100 100
Note: Agricultural self-sufficiency ratio excludes “Other (processed) food, beverages and
tobacco products.”
What if GDP, skilled labor, and capital in China and India were to
grow one-third faster than in the baseline, which is still less than their
actual rates of growth during the past decade? In this alternative scenario,
we also assume that annual multi-factor productivity growth in primary

sectors globally is 1 percentage point faster, in response to faster growth
in demand for those sectors’ output by China and India. These
amendments to Asian GDP growth and to global primary sector
productivity growth lead real global export prices for farm products in
2030 to be only 3% instead of 11% greater than those in 2007. Not
surprisingly, the faster Asian growth scenario leads to a substantial

increase in the importance of resource-rich economies’ exports to Asia:
the share of exports going to Asia in 2030 increases from 30 to 38% for
Latin America and from 50 to 57% for Sub-Saharan Africa. Although
overall developing-country agricultural self-sufficiency stays constant in
this faster growth scenario, the agricultural self-sufficiency rates increase
for those two regions by 3–5 percentage points (compare columns 2 and
3 of Table 17.5). The share of developing Asia in world imports of food
and agricultural products increases from 34 to 40%.

Self-sufficiency is a poor indicator of food security, however. A more
meaningful indicator is real per capita private consumption of
agricultural and processed food products by households. Between 2007
and 2030, real per capita food consumption is projected in the baseline
scenario to rise by 51% for developing countries, and by even more for
China and South Asia (first column of Table 17.6). Even in relatively
well-fed Latin America, the increase over the projection period is more
than one-third, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, the rise is two-thirds. These
are major improvements in food consumption per capita, associated with
changes away from staple crop products to higher-valued livestock
products rich in protein and to fruits and vegetables rich in nutrients. The
rise in grain consumption is especially great in China because of that
country’s expanding demand for livestock products, most of which
would continue to be produced domestically. So even though China’s
share of the world’s direct grain consumption by households grows little,
its share of grain consumed indirectly grows significantly, involving
ongoing growth in the international market for feedgrain and soybeans.
And if the economies of China and India were to grow faster, stimulating
faster primary sector productivity growth globally, the world would be
even more food secure (compare columns 2 and 3 of Table 17.6). That is,
faster income growth in food-importing countries need not mean higher
international food prices: that growth in demand may (as in this

simulation) stimulate sufficient growth in supply through its boost to
farm productivity growth to leave all regions better fed.
Table 17.6. Changes in real household consumption per capita of agricultural and food
products from 2007 base, core, and alternative growth scenarios in 2030 (%).
2030 2030, with increased

conservative 2030 faster agric. protection in
Country/region Asian growth Asian growth China and India
Argentina 48 55 48
Brazil 43 50 43
Chile 33 42 33
Peru 45 56 45
Rest of Latin 30 36 30
America
Middle East + North 31 41 32
Africa
South Africa 38 43 38
Rest of Sub-Saharan 67 80 67
Africa
Europe 28 36 28
NAFTA countries 24 33 25
Australia + New 17 27 18
Zealand
China 76 150 75
Rest of East Asia 25 34 25
South Asia 60 110 60
High-income 24 33 25
countries
Developing countries 51 79 51
World 28 45 28
Note: NAFTA = North American Free Trade Agreement.
17.4.2 Economywide projections to 2030, including trade-

related policy responses
The above scenarios to 2030 assume that trade and subsidy policies do
not change over the projection period. However, the previous section
revealed that in the course of each nation’s economic development, its
policies have gradually moved from discouraging farm production

relative to nonfarm production (e.g., they no longer tax agricultural
exports) and in some cases have begun to explicitly encourage farming.
Policies that subsidize farmers or protect them from import competition
can, however, be equally damaging to national economic welfare. Such
policies also harm countries that export farm products. The latter brought
discipline to such policies during the GATT’s Uruguay Round of
multilateral trade negotiations and secured policy reform commitments
from high-income countries that reduced their price- and trade-distorting

effects (Figure 17.1(b)). At the December 2015 WTO Trade Ministerial
meeting, WTO members committed to eliminating export subsidies on
farm products. But most developing countries’ WTO bindings on their
agricultural import tariffs are far greater than their currently applied
rates, and the de minimis level of domestic support is also well above
current support levels, leaving open the possibility that they will be
raised in the future. Given that considerable distortions remain in the
agricultural markets of high-income countries and that bilateral, regional,
and other preferential trade agreements have done little to discipline farm
policies (Bureau and Jean, 2013; Fulponi, 2015; Bureau et al., 2016;
Grant, 2017), another round of multilateral trade negotiations could bring
large benefits and greater food security to the world.
The WTO’s Doha Development Agenda (DDA) was launched in
2001 with further agricultural trade liberalization high on its agenda.
Despite ample modeling evidence suggesting that the economic welfare
gains from such reform could be substantial (Anderson and Martin,
2006),8 no agreement is in sight. Those gains would be even greater if, in
8Recent revisions of those earlier modeling results reveal that the estimated gains are
even larger than in previous studies when the most-disaggregated tariff data are used to
estimate price distortions for the product groups used in global economywide models
(Anderson et al., 2013; Laborde et al., 2017).
the absence of a DDA agreement, agricultural protectionism grows in

developing countries as it did in earlier decades in more-advanced
economies (Anderson et al., 2016).
The larger the food markets in the economies that indulge in
protectionism, the greater the risk of rising costs from protection growth.
Table 17.5 suggests that both China and India—the two biggest national
food markets among developing countries—will face declining self-

sufficiency in farm products between 2007 and 2030: for China the rate
will fall from 97% to 87–88%, and for South Asia from 100% to 94–95%
in the baseline and faster-growth scenarios (Table 17.5). This
development may prompt China and India to follow the earlier-
industrializing Northeast Asian countries in imposing greater restrictions
on out-of-quota imports of key foodgrains. In addition, in the interest of
boosting farm incomes to reduce the yawning urban-rural income gap,
they may also impose import restrictions on meat and milk products (but
not on coarse grains and oilseed products required for animal feedstuffs).
Indeed, there are signs already of such a rise in agricultural assistance for
farmers in China and Indonesia (Figure 17.2).
Fig. 17.2. Agricultural nominal rates of assistance in China, Indonesia, and EU28, 1985–
2015 (%). Source: Compiled from estimates in Anderson and Nelgen (2013), updated
from OECD (2017).
Note: The nominal rate of assistance is the percentage by which gross returns to farmers
have been raised by national farm policies (predominantly import restrictions).
If such restrictions were in the form of tariff equivalents severe

enough to eliminate imports of those selected products in 2030, then,
according to the same modelers as reported above (Anderson and Strutt
2016), such a trade policy response by China and India would
substantially raise the share of their imports of agricultural products that
are not protected (Tables 17.7 and 17.8). As their domestic resources
move toward rice, wheat, and livestock production, self-sufficiency would

fall further for crops that provide inputs into livestock feedstuffs, as well
as for other crops. The tariff equivalents of such selective restrictions
would range from 115% for wheat to 255% for red meats for China, and
between 136% and 326% for those products in India. These are well
above bound out-of-quota tariffs in numerous cases (compare the last two
columns for China and for India in Tables 17.7 and 17.8) and so would be
inconsistent with WTO commitments under international law.
Moreover, such a policy response would impose a burden on Chinese

and Indian households that are net buyers of those grain, meat, and milk
products, because domestic consumer prices for those products would
increase along with the producer price hikes. This may substantially
undermine national food security in China and India by reducing real
household income and food prices; in addition, it would reduce sales
opportunities for food-exporting developing countries and thus
undermine their economic access to food as well (Table 17.6). There are
some signs that China recognizes the inefficiency and inequity of this
approach to meeting its food security and income distributional
objectives, as it explores more direct income support measures in place
of market price-supporting measures.
17.4.3 Food market projections to 2050
It is appropriate to consider estimates for 2030 of the impacts of trade

policy responses to a multilateral agreement under the DDA, since if
such an agreement were to be signed by 2020 it would be fully
implemented by 2030 (just as the Uruguay Round Agreement on
Agriculture had a 10-year phase-in period). However, to capture the
possible effects of gradual climate change on food markets and trade, a
longer projection period is preferable.
Table 17.7. Shares of agricultural imports and agricultural tariff rates before and after
increased agricultural protection, China, 2030 (%).
Share of Share of ag.

agric. imports, 2030 2030 tariff China’s out-
imports, with selected 2030 rates, with of-quota
core sim., food import tariff selected bound tariffs
Commodity 2030 bans rates import bans at WTO

*Rice 1 0 2 196 65
*Wheat 0 0 2 115 65
Coarse grains 0 1 2 2 65
Fruit & veg 8 16 7 8 11
Oilseeds 11 15 2 2 3
Vegetable oils 18 30 2 2 3
Sugar 1 2 0 0 50
Cotton 3 4 4 4 40
Other crops 1 2 8 8 na
*Beef &
sheepmeat 1 0 11 255 12
*Other meats 26 0 8 164 12
*Dairy products 4 0 8 159 11
Other+processed
food 25 30
TOTAL 100 100
Proportion of
total imports 13 10
* Indicates sectors subject to the self-sufficiency policy.
Table 17.8. Shares of agricultural imports and agricultural tariff rates before and after
increased agricultural protection, India, 2030 (%).
2030
tariff India’s
Share of Share of ag. rates, out-of-
agric. imports, with quota
imports, 2030, with 2030 selected bound

core sim., selected food tariff import tariffs at
Commodity 2030 import bans rates bans WTO
*Rice 0 0 43 256 80
*Wheat 7 0 100 326 80
Coarse grains 0 0 24 25 60–80
Fruit & veg 23 26 35 35 25–50
Oilseeds 1 1 41 41 75
Vegetable oils 28 30 82 81 75
Sugar 1 1 96 96 na
Cotton 7 8 10 10 na
Other crops 17 21 48 48 na
*Beef & 0 0 17 136 na
sheepmeat
*Other meats 3 0 17 156 na
*Dairy products 1 0 31 153 60
Other+processed 13 13
food
TOTAL 100 100
Proportion of 9 8
total imports
* Indicates sectors subject to the self-sufficiency policy.
Among the institutions to project out to 2050 is IFPRI. It has a suite

of appropriate global models that are now integrated and able to capture
many of the dimensions of interest. Specifically, its new economywide
GLOBE CGE model, which captures intersectoral effects at a fairly
aggregated level, is linked to its much more disaggregated IMPACT
model of the world’s national agricultural sectors involving 159
countries, 154 water basins, and 60 farm commodities. That IMPACT
model has also been designed to take information from crop production
models that in turn are able to input results from four different general
circulation models of climate change (Robinson et al., 2015).
The IMPACT model suggests that between 2010 and 2050, net
import quantities of cereals, meats, and fruits and vegetables would
change quite differently with climate change than they would change
without it.9 That is so even though trade changes within each developing
country region have been netted out. Assuming no policy changes over
that period, those results are summarized in Figure 17.3.
According to these IFPRI projections, net imports of cereals will be
70–90 million metric tons (MMT) greater in 2050 than in 2010 for Sub-
Saharan Africa, 50–60 MMT greater for South Asia, and about 80 MMT
greater for the Middle East and North Africa (IFPRI, 2017, Table 7).
IFPRI’s projections for East Asia are for 30 MMT extra net imports of
cereals by 2050 in the absence of climate change, but 110 MMT fewer
net imports of cereals (net exports of 65 MMT instead of 75 MMT of net

imports) in the presence of climate change because climate change is
projected to boost East Asia’s farm output.
For meats, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are projected to increase
their net imports, much of it supplied by an increase in net exports from
Latin America. For fruits and vegetables, South Asia is projected to
import much more, while East Asia is projected to join Latin America as
a net exporter (Figure 17.3).
IFPRI projects that people in developing countries would consume
one-sixth more kilocalories per capita per day in 2050 than in 2010 if no
climate change was occurring,10 but just one-eighth more under their
selected climate change scenario. That translates to a 52% reduction in
the number of people in the world at risk of being hungry without
climate change, but only a 43% reduction in the presence of climate
change (IFPRI, 2017, Table 7).
9Climate change impacts are simulated by IFPRI using the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change’s Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 and the HadGEM general
circulation model (IFPRI, 2017).
10This looks like a small increase compared with the 51% increase in per capita real
consumption of agricultural and food products between 2007 and 2030 reported in Table
17.6. But recall that calories become less important as diets change with income growth
and as consumer expenditure moves from staple crops to higher-protein and more
nutritious foods that are more expensive.
Fig. 17.3. Net exports of cereals, meats, and fruits and vegetables, developing-country
regions, 2010 and projected 2050 without and with climate change (million metric tons).
Source: IFPRI (2017, Table 7).
Note: Climate change impacts are simulated by the International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI) using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s)
representative concentration pathway 8.5 and the HadGEM general circulation model.
17.4.4 Caveats
These projections do not attempt to take into account possible disruptive

new technologies, since their impacts are too difficult to predict.11 Nor do
they allow for an acceleration of technological progress in renewable
energy production (possibly stimulated by widespread adoption of taxes
on carbon emissions), which may reduce or increase the assumed growth

in demand for farm products as an input into biofuels. They also ignore
changes to immigration policies affecting farm workers, such as might
happen under the British exit from the European Union or under the
Trump presidency in the United States (effects of which could be
nontrivial; see Zahniser et al., 2012). The projections are also subject to
changes to any of the parameters that are included explicitly with the
help of data on the recent past, such as income and productivity growth.
Differences in these standard parameters are among the reason behind

differences in projected prices and quantities between models running
the same simulations (see von Lampe et al., 2014).
17.5 Policy Implications
It is generally acknowledged by informed actors in the policy community

that openness of each national economy to international trade and
investment in goods, services, capital, and technologies will optimize the
use of resources devoted to producing the world’s food and will
maximize real incomes globally. Also true, if not as widely
acknowledged, is that openness minimizes fluctuations in international
prices and quantities of products traded across borders. Trade opening
should therefore be one of the food policy options considered by national
governments seeking to reduce income inequality, poverty, malnutrition,
and hunger; to boost diet diversity and food safety; and to raise food
quality.
If land and water property rights and markets for those key farm
resources are better established in each country, and any negative
11Examplesinclude novel meat look-alikes, vertical farming of vegetables that use no soil
and minimal water, and breeding in captivity of edible insects.
production externalities are appropriately taxed, those national and

global gains from trade and its positive impact on food security and
nutrition would be even greater, as they would if more open immigration
policies were to be adopted.
Of course, farm productivity may grow faster than currently expected
as private agricultural R&D investments expand, even if public R&D
growth shrinks further. If so, real food prices may continue the long-run
decline they exhibited in the 20th century.
If climate change becomes more damaging to food production via
larger and more frequent extreme weather events, then that is all the
more reason for all nations to be open to international food markets and
allow trade to buffer seasonal fluctuations in each country’s domestic
production. The more countries that do so, the less volatile international
food prices will be.
In fact, national trade restrictions add non-trivially to international

food price volatility in at least two ways: by “thinning” international
food markets, and by insulating domestic food markets from
international price fluctuations. Both policy attributes magnify the effect
on international prices of any shock to global food supply or demand, not
just climate change.
The solution to the first (“thinning”) problem is simply for countries
to further open their markets to food trade. The political difficulty and
the adjustment costs associated with doing that are minimized if
countries can agree to liberalize their food and agricultural markets
multilaterally, and to do so at the same time as non-agricultural markets
are liberalized. That was what happened in the Uruguay Round, and it is
what members of the WTO have aspired to via their Doha Development
Agenda. Meanwhile, various plurilateral negotiations on options for
regional integration and free-trade areas have concluded successfully and
others are under discussion. However, the benefits from them are always
far smaller than those from a multilateral agreement—and, in those
agreements too, agriculture often is the sector liberalized least. Even the
largest new or prospective mega-agreements offer developing countries
at best only a small fraction of the welfare benefits that the proposals
made under the Doha round could.12 Moreover, the United States under
President Trump has vetoed U.S. involvement in regional trade
agreements, which reduces the benefit to developing countries even
further.
The optimal solution to the second (“insulating”) problem also
involves the WTO. In a many-country world, it is clear from recent
analyses that the trade policy actions of individual countries can be offset
by those of other countries to the point that the interventions become
ineffective in achieving their stated aim of reducing domestic food price
volatility. This is a classic international public good problem that could
be reduced by a multilateral agreement to restrain the variability of trade
restrictions (e.g., by converting specific tariffs into ad valorem ones).
In the current Doha Round of WTO negotiations, the phasing out of
agricultural export subsidies has been agreed to, and there are proposals
to reduce domestic subsidies and import tariff bindings. That would

contribute to more stable international food prices. However, proposals
to broaden the Doha agenda to introduce disciplines on export restraints
have struggled to gain traction, and there have even been proposals to
weaken current disciplines, such as to allow developing countries to
exceed their bindings when markets gyrate (Martin, 2017).
Regardless of whether WTO member countries would be willing to
liberalize their food trade and bind their trade taxes on exports as well as
imports at low or zero levels, there would still be occasions when
international food prices spike. This raises the question of what
alternative instruments governments could use at such times to avert
short-term losses for significant groups in their societies. A standard
answer from economists is that food security for consumers, most
notably food affordability for the poor, is best dealt with using generic
social safety nets—or, better still, “trampolines” (see Trebilcock, 2014).
Such measures can be targeted to the most vulnerable households to
12A regional agreement potentially of more importance to Asian trade is the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between the 10 ASEAN members and the
6 countries with which ASEAN has existing free trade agreements (FTAs): Australia,
China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. It would be the world’s largest FTA,
covering a population of 3.5 billion, or more than half the world total, and two-fifths of
world trade.
offset the adverse impacts of a wide range of different shocks on poor

people—net sellers as well as net buyers of food—without imposing the
costly by-product distortions that necessarily accompany the use of nth-
best trade policy instruments for social protection. The measures might
take the form of conditional targeted income supplements to only the
most vulnerable households, and only while the price spike lasts.
This standard answer has far greater power now than just a few years
ago, thanks to the revolution in digital information and communication
technology (ICT). In the past, critics often have claimed that such
payments are unaffordable in poor countries because of the fiscal outlay
involved and the high cost of administering such handouts. However, the
ICT revolution is making it possible for conditional cash transfers to be
provided electronically as direct assistance to even remote households,
and they can even bypass intermediaries such as village chiefs.
What if countries are still unsatisfied with the contribution of their

farmers to national food security, as reflected in food self-sufficiency
ratios, or think their farmers are missing out on the benefits of rapid
economic growth and industrialization? Again, agricultural import
protection measures are far from first-best ways of dealing with these
sociopolitical concerns. Alternative measures include subsidizing
investments in agricultural R&D, in rural education and health, and in
roads and other rural infrastructure improvements. If the social rates of
return from those investments are currently high and above private rates
of return on investments, as is typically the case in developing countries,
expanding such investments will boost economic growth. They will also
almost certainly reduce poverty and boost food security, including
through raising net farm incomes while lowering the consumer price of
food in towns and cities.
The political challenge of encouraging countries to switch from trade
to domestic policy instruments for addressing nontrade domestic
concerns is evidently nontrivial. Yet the evidence summarized here
shows that some reform has been possible during the past three decades.
With luck, the emergence of new, lower-cost social protection
mechanisms involving conditional cash e-transfers might nudge
governments one more step away from the use of beggar-thy-neighbor
trade measures. This applies regardless of how fast global agricultural
productivity growth is in the decades ahead: greater openness to trade in

food (and other products) will increase the probability that the world will
have many fewer poor and hungry people by 2050.
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Appendix Table 17.1. Shares of largest agricultural traders in global agricultural GDP
and trade, and in the world’s total GDP and population, 2014 (%, net of intra-EU trade).
Agricultural:
(X–M)/ Total
Country/region GDP Exports Imports (X+M) GDP Population
China 22.0 5.8 12.3 -0.36 13.3 18.8
European Union 20.0 14.0 13.3 0.03 23.7 7.0

United States 18.1 14.3 11.4 0.11 22.3 4.4
Japan 5.9 0.8 6.0 -0.76 5.9 1.7
Russia 3.3 2.4 6.0 -0.43 2.3 2.0
India 3.0 3.5 2.0 0.27 2.6 17.8
Brazil 2.7 6.9 1.0 0.75 3.0 2.8
Korea, Rep. 2.6 0.9 2.6 -0.49 1.8 0.7
Mexico 2.2 2.1 2.2 -0.02 1.7 1.7

Saudi Arabia 2.1 0.0 1.8 -1.00 1.0 0.4
Canada 2.0 5.4 2.8 0.32 2.3 0.5
Australia 1.9 3.1 1.2 0.44 1.9 0.3
Indonesia 1.8 3.3 1.6 0.35 2.6 3.5
Turkey 1.1 1.3 1.5 -0.07 1.0 1.0
Argentina 0.8 2.9 0.2 -.87 0.7 0.6
Thailand 0.7 3.2 1.2 0.45 0.5 0.9
Malaysia 0.7 2.4 1.5 0.23 0.4 0.4
New Zealand 0.4 2.2 0.4 0.69 0.2 0.1
Vietnam 0.4 2.1 1.3 0.24 0.2 1.3
Hong Kong 0.0 0.0 1.5 -1.00 0.4 0.1
Above top 20 91.7 76.6 70.8 0.04 87.8 66.0
Sources: World Bank (2016b) and WTO (2015).

Appendix Table 17.2. Share of agricultural products in total merchandise exports, major
country groups and world, 1960–2014 (%).
2000–
Country group 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2004 2014
Western Europe 17 14 13 12 9 11
Japan 8 3 2 1 1 1
United States and
28 25 20 14 11 13
Canada
Australia and New
84 54 45 36 32 25
Zealand
Average of above 22 16 13 12 9 11
China 51 41 20 12 5 3
India 42 36 24 14 8 13
All developing countries:

Upper-middle-income n.a. 41 24 15 10 10
Lower-middle-income n.a. n.a. 28 18 12 19
Low-income 60 39 29 22 19 n.a.
World 27 21 16 12 9 11
Source: Anderson (2016, Table 4), based on UN COMTRADE data.

Note: n.a. = not available.
Appendix Table 17.3. Indexes of “revealed” comparative advantage in agricultural and

manufactured products, 1960–2014.
2000–
Country/region 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2004 2014
Agricultural goods
Western Europe 0.6 0.7 0.8 1.0 1.1 1.0

Japan 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
United States and Canada 1.0 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2
Australia and New Zealand 3.0 2.6 2.9 3.1 3.5 2.3
Average of above 0.8 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.0 1.0
China 2.1 2.0 1.3 1.0 0.6 0.3
India 1.6 1.8 1.7 1.6 1.4 1.2

Upper-middle-income n.a. 2.0 1.6 1.3 1.2 0.9
Lower-middle-income n.a. n.a. 1.8 1.5 1.4 1.7
Low-income 2.2 1.9 1.8 1.9 2.1 n.a.
Manufactures
High-income countries 1.2 1.2 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0
Upper-middle-income n.a. 0.4 0.5 0.8 0.8 1.0
Lower-middle-income n.a. n.a. 0.6 0.8 0.8 0.7
Low-income 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.6 n.a.
Source: Compiled by the author from World Bank (2016b).
Note: Revealed comparative advantage index, following Balassa (1965), is the share of
agriculture and food in national exports as a ratio of that sector’s share of global exports,
hence 1 for the world. 1960s is 1961–1969, except for China, which is 1965–1969.
Chapter 18
Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition

Policy: Looking Ahead to 2050
Prabhu Pingali and Anaka Aiyar

18.1 Introduction
Between the 1960s and 2010s, a global agricultural revolution helped

pull hundreds of million people out of abject poverty and chronic hunger.
During this time, extreme poverty rates fell by about 30 percentage
points and hunger decreased by 25 percentage points across the world
(World Bank, 2018; FAO, 2017). By increasing agricultural productivity
and thus food supply, agricultural growth provided an impetus to
increase rural incomes and stimulated demand for nonfarm goods and
services, thus creating the enabling conditions for structural
transformation (Johnston and Mellor, 1961; Johnston, 1970; Timmer,
1988). In developing countries, policies designed to address concerns
about staple food availability, such as those that promoted the Asian
Green Revolution, also enabled an agricultural transformation (Pingali,
2012). This transformation was facilitated by productivity enhancements
resulting from investments in staple grain technology, the creation of
infrastructure and government programs to disseminate these new
technologies, and policies supporting the development of factor and
product markets for agriculture. Food policies at this time focused on
stabilizing supplies and prices of staple crops, and international food
policy focused on opening up international and regional markets in order
to smooth production shortfalls (Timmer, 2012; Gulati and Narayanan,
609
2003; Minten and Barrett, 2008; Barrett, 1996; Pingali, 2010b; Popkin,
2006; Anderson, 2009). The increase in the supply and affordability of
staple grains contributed to the gradual reduction in hunger across the
globe. In combination with productivity-enhancing Green Revolution
policies, the phasing out of government disincentives for farmers helped
boost rural incomes and economic growth in many developing countries.
Even though food and agriculture policies have successfully solved

the major problems of poor food availability, hunger, and to some degree
poor access to food, huge disparities in incomes, agricultural
productivity, and health outcomes remain, both across and within
developing economies (Barrett et al., 2001a, 2001c; Gulati, 1989;
Reardon et al., 2003; Rosegrant and Svendsen, 1993). Many current
successes associated with agricultural and food policies mask unintended
consequences on inequality, health, and the environment. At the macro
level, many countries now known as the emerging economies have

benefited from being first movers in the Green Revolution. Even though
agriculture now plays a smaller role in their growth, agricultural
transformation in these economies indubitably catalyzed their structural
transformation processes. Countries in Southeast Asia have transformed
their economies from subsistence agriculture to modernizing or highly
commercialized economies. In countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that
missed the agricultural revolution or tried to leapfrog it, economic
growth has been difficult to achieve and poverty and malnutrition remain
high (Pingali, 2012; De Vries et al., 2015; Diao et al., 2008). Increasing
regional disparities have also come to characterize the growth process
within many countries such as India (Bhattacharya and Sakthivel, 2004;
Aghion et al., 2008; Kumar and Subramanian, 2012; Pingali and Aiyar,
2017).
While hunger, measured in terms of calorie adequacy, has decreased
steadily over the past five decades, it remains a major policy concern.
Estimates place the global number of chronically hungry people in 2014–
2015 at more than 800 million people, which is 11% of the population of
developing countries (FAO, 2017). Hungry populations tend to be
disproportionately concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,
which have historically been poorer than other regions, with mixed
experiences in terms of the success of the Green Revolution. Broader
Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition Policy: Looking Ahead to 2050 611
malnutrition indicators, such as micronutrient deficiencies (hidden

hunger) and child stunting, are also stubbornly high in these regions
(IFPRI, 2016). Countries such as India that have seen rapid economic
growth in the past two decades have made only slow progress toward
reducing stunting rates of children under five. In many countries in Sub-
Saharan Africa, rates of undernutrition have remained extremely sticky
owing to poor economic growth. Regardless of income growth, many

countries have found overcoming micronutrient deficiencies to be a
difficult nutritional challenge. Yet even as policy makers work to tackle
these challenges, there has been a simultaneous and unprecedented
increase in obesity rates. Obesity, assumed to be just a developed-
country problem, is fast becoming a major public health challenge in
poorer countries as well (Swinburn et al. 2011).
Furthermore, while research and development (R&D) in agriculture
led to increased yields across the world, the associated technologies have
had some adverse environmental consequences. Policies designed to
encourage the adoption of Green Revolution technologies, such as price
supports and input subsidies, have led to overuse of water and chemical
fertilizers, biodiversity loss, waste of electricity, and soil degradation in
many parts of the world (Pingali, 2007b, 2012; Singh, 2000).
As policy makers draw on lessons from the past in an effort to tackle
current food system challenges, the path ahead to 2050 presents
additional demand and supply challenges that change the scope of
current threats. On the demand side, according to linear projections, the
world population is estimated to increase to 9.8 billion by 2050 (FAO
2009). More than three-fourths of this population will be born in current
developing countries, and two-thirds is projected to live in urban areas
(Figure 18.1). With increased life expectancy and reduced infant
mortality and total fertility rates, many more individuals around the
world are expected to enter the labor force and older people will make up
a larger share of the population (Cohen 2003). Based on current trends in
food systems in developed countries, people living in this urbanized
world will increase their per capita demand for food and diversify their
diets. Per capita consumption increases will be driven both by
urbanization and by poverty reduction (Figure 18.2). Dietary
diversification will be driven by access to new information on the links
Fig. 18.1. Distribution of rural and urban population in 2050. Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from FAOSTAT.
Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050 612

between health outcomes and nutrition as well as by increases in

purchasing power in both rural and urban areas (Pingali, 2007b; Popkin,
1999; Ziska et al., 2003).
84 78 74 74 77
65
55 50
30 26
16 11
East Asia & Pacific Latin America & South Asia Sub-Saharan Africa
Caribbean
1990 2002 2013

Fig. 18.2. Regional differences in poverty rates (poverty headcount ratio at $3.10 a day,
2011 PPP, % of population). Source: Authors’ calculations and World Bank (2018).
On the supply side, the greatest threat to food systems will come from
climate change. Increases in temperature from human-induced climate
change will increase the number of heat days and the length of droughts
and change the number of planting season days. The incidence of
extreme events such as floods, cyclones, and hurricanes will increase
(IPCC, 2014). Without adequate biodiversity to protect the soil or
resources to recharge groundwater, climate change is creating a
nontrivial risk of reductions in food production (Misra, 2014; Taylor
et al., 2013; Qadir et al., 2008; Lobell and Burke, 2010). Climate
scientists have more or less agreed that technology for drought- or heat-
resistant varieties of crops may be effective only if other adaptation
mechanisms are put into place. However, successful adaptation to
climate change is a function of wealth, and this reality creates the
potential to further entrench regional inequalities (Wise et al., 2014;
Challinor et al., 2014; Smit and Wandel, 2006; Lobell et al., 2008).
Climate change may affect not only food production, but also the
productivity of land, labor, and capital and even the nutritional value of
crops (Watanabe et al., 1994; Vedwan and Rhoades, 2001; Kattelmann,
2003; Shrestha et al., 2012; Paerl and Paul, 2012; Dell et al., 2012).
This chapter argues for an integrated food systems approach to

development in which stakeholders seek to ensure that all individuals in
the future have access to an affordable, healthy, and balanced food
system. The chapter is organized as follows. In sections 18.2 and 18.3,
we highlight the types of countries by their level of structural
transformation and then discuss the major drivers of food policy for these
different types of countries. In section 18.4, we discuss the short-term

goals that can be integrated into current food, agricultural, and nutrition
policies in order to meet the challenges ahead. For 2050, we then set a
new vision for the global food system in section 18.5. In the long run,
food, agricultural, and nutrition policies should address priorities for
increased food production while helping diversify demand, increase
access to nutrition, and thereby reduce malnutrition in ways that enhance
biodiversity and climate. To discuss what these strategies might look
like, we put forth guiding principles for the future in section 18.6. We
summarize our discussions in section 18.7.
18.2 Where We Are Today
Countries around the world are at various stages of structural

transformation (Figure 18.3).1 Based on their levels of GDP per capita
and the productivity of their agricultural sectors, they can be categorized
as low-productivity agricultural (LPA) systems, modernizing agricultural
(MA) systems, or commercialized agricultural (CA) systems (Pingali et
al., 2015). Countries with low per capita incomes and a relatively large
share of agricultural contributions to GDP are referred to as LPA
systems. Many of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are classified as
such, and in these regions hunger and poverty remain high. In addition,
1Structuraltransformation is the reallocation of economic activities across the agriculture,

industry, and services sectors within an economy (Herrendorf et al., 2013). It is
characterized by declining shares of agriculture and agricultural employment in an
economy and a rising share for the value added of agricultural GDP (Pingali, 2007a). In
economies undergoing structural transformation, economic growth is also associated with
an increased urbanization, increased incomes, greater dietary diversity, and reduced
poverty (Chenery, 1960; Du et al., 2004; Johnston, 1970, Pingali et al., 2015; Timmer,
1988; Timmer and Akkus, 2008; Webb and Block, 2012).
615 Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition Policy: Looking Ahead to 2050

many countries with LPA systems have high rates of undernutrition and
micronutrient deficiencies. Women and children remain the most
vulnerable groups to malnutrition in these regions. Agricultural lands in
these economies are prone to high levels of environmental degradation as
farm productivity growth rates struggle to match population growth rates.
While yields in staple cereals doubled in Sub-Saharan Africa during the
four decades starting from the 1970s, they quadrupled in South Asia,
Latin America, and Southeast Asia. This difference in productivity stems
primarily from the fact that agricultural production in LPA systems is
carried out in marginal environments with constraining agroclimatic,
biophysical, and socioeconomic conditions, where input-intensive Green
Revolution technologies could not be adopted (Pingali et al., 2014). This
situation—coupled with poor access to and low provision of essential
public goods such as R&D; factors such as seeds and fertilizers; and
essential infrastructure such as irrigation, storage, and roads—affects

production incentives at the farm level. Other challenges include
problematic governance, lack of institutional support (like extension
services and markets), low investments in human capital development,
and the effects of conflicts, which plague several parts of Africa
(Evenson and Gollin, 2003). Low and inelastic demand for agricultural
products have also affected development (Pingali, 2010).
The emerging economies of Latin America, Southeast Asia, and
South Asia are witnessing increasingly market-oriented and MA systems.
These regions successfully implemented Green Revolution technologies
and gained from the resulting agricultural productivity increases, and
they have substantially reduced poverty and hunger. Emerging
economies face myriad challenges that have implications for food system
transformation and sustainability. First, rapid growth in incomes and
urbanization and the rise of the middle class have led to the rapid
diversification of diets. This change has boosted demand for higher-value
crops and livestock products (Pingali, 2007b; Pingali and Khwaja, 2004;
Reardon et al., 2009; Reardon and Minten, 2011). However, meeting the
rising demand for dietary diversity, especially for urban populations, has
been a challenge owing to low supply responsiveness, especially among
smallholder farmers. Some of this sluggishness has been due to a strong
staple grain policy bias that keeps small farmers dependent on price
supports, thus preventing them from diversifying in response to the

changing demand (Pingali, 2015a). Second, these economies are facing
the dual challenge of persistent micronutrient malnutrition, popularly
known as “hidden hunger,” while also facing a rapid rise in obesity and
noncommunicable diseases, particularly among the urban middle class.
Third, despite significant gains in food supply and food access, large
interregional inequalities in income and nutritional status persist,

especially in the more marginal agroclimatic zones that were bypassed
by the Green Revolution (Pingali, 2012). These zones face declining
competitiveness with respect to staple grain production relative to the
more agroclimatically favorable zones in the country but have limited
ability to diversify out of low-productivity staple grain agriculture.
Fourth, these economies also face the negative consequences of food
policy trade-offs made during the Green Revolution that promoted
productivity growth over environmental sustainability. Reversing the

negative consequences of these trade-offs is a major challenge for
emerging economies as they try to transition to a more sustainable food
system.
Advanced countries in North America, Europe, and Asia have high
per capita incomes, a low share of agriculture in GDP, and high market
integration of the agricultural sector. These economies are characterized
as having CA systems. While agricultural productivity has been high,
managing income disparities between urban and rural populations has
become a major challenge. Despite sustained policy support for the
agricultural sector, the urban-rural income gap has persisted. These
economies also continue to face malnutrition, primarily in the form of
high levels of obesity and noncommunicable diseases. While high-end
consumer demand for food diversity, especially for horticulture and
livestock products, is being met through a gradual rise in their share of
overall food production, the relative price differences put them out of
reach of low-income consumers, whose access to nutritious food is a
major food policy challenge. Enhancing the nutritive value of foods,
including convenience foods, through fortification and supplementation
will continue to be a cost-effective strategy for meeting the needs of the
poor. Rising values of environmental services have induced policy
reforms that have reduced some of the negative environmental trade-offs
in many of these countries. For example, tree cover has been restored to
some low-productivity lands that have been released from agricultural
production.
18.3 Looking Ahead: Major Challenges for Future Food

Systems by Level of Structural Transformation
The world’s population is projected to increase by 2.2 billion, and 80%

of this growth will come from developing countries in Africa and Asia.
In the MA systems, the middle-aged population in urban areas will come
to represent a large share of the distribution of population in the future.
In LPA systems, a younger but larger rural population will become
economically active. In CA systems, low birth rates and highlife
expectancy will create an older-than-average work force. Employing the

new labor force in nonfarm activities in developing countries and
simultaneously investing in labor-saving technologies that cater to an
aging population will be key to stimulating greater structural
transformation and increasing economic welfare. As in the CA countries,
economic development in the MA and LPA systems will increase
women’s participation in the workforce, creating new opportunities for
engagement of the private sector with food systems (Kennedy and
Reardon, 1994; Pingali, 2007c; Popkin 1999). Based on historical
experience in the CA countries, we know that on average, individuals
will get richer and more urbanized.2 In all of these systems, increasing
per capita incomes, greater global connectedness, and information on
nutrition and diseases will increase demand for diverse diets. In LPA and
MA countries, population growth will increase the number of people
vulnerable to forms of malnutrition such as undernutrition, hidden
hunger, and overnutrition (Hoddinott et al., 2012; Jha et al., 2009;
Maluccio et al., 2009; Meenakshi et al., 2010; Pingali, Spielman, and
2Poverty indicators show there has been progress in reducing poverty headcount ratios
over time. However, it is important to note that the number of extreme poor (those who
live on less than $1.90 a day) grew by more than 100 million between 1990 and 2013.
Poverty remains largely a problem of rural areas and is a major policy challenge across
the world. This problem is further reflected in stubborn undernutrition indicators and
increasing obesity rates for the poor across the world.
Zaidi, 2016). Lessons learned in the current developed countries show

that there is a threat that overnutrition will become a problem resulting
from poverty and low access to nutritious foods.
Population growth will thus put pressure on agriculture in two ways.
On the one hand, increased competition from nonfarm uses of land will
raise the opportunity cost of growing food. On the other hand, higher
demand for diversified diets will increase net returns for farmers who can
diversify production. To balance these competing interests, innovations
will be needed in the use of use of land, labor, and technology in
agriculture in order to increase rural incomes, boost crop yields, and
cater to the demand for diverse foods.
Climate scientists have predicted that climate change will negatively
affect countries in the global South, where many developing countries
are situated, more than other regions in the world (Myers et al., 2017;
Lobell and Burke, 2010; Lobell et al., 2008). Scientists project that while
the average global temperature will increase by 2°C by 2100, it will rise
by up to 4°C in LPA and MA regions (IPCC, 2014), exponentially
increasing the risk of extreme events, drought cycles, flooding, heat days,
and coastal flooding (NASA, 2015). Food systems in these regions are
expected to see large decreases in production and thus per capita
availability of foods as population increases. In CA systems, climate
change may initially benefit countries in northern latitudes by increasing
the length of the growing season. In combination with better water
management practices, this change could increase food production in
these areas. Scientists have not been able to conclude, however, that
these changes are beneficial in the long run, even in CA systems. A
number of factors will moderate the ability to access food and nutrition
and adapt to climate change. Poverty, gender, urban-rural differences,
geography, and human capital will be important determinants of
vulnerabilities of different groups. In all countries, the resilience of
vulnerable groups will be linked to access to jobs, education,
information, technology, markets, and infrastructure (Myers et al., 2017;
Campbell et al., 2016; Misra, 2014; Lobell et al., 2008; Baldos and
Hertel, 2015).
18.4 Short-Term Course Correction Strategies for 2030
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which call for improving

agriculture, reducing poverty, improving nutrition, and mitigating
climate-related impacts by 2030, provide a useful goal-setting exercise
for countries in the short term. By linking measures of progress to the
SDGs, countries can address short-term challenges to their food systems.

Table 18.1 highlights some of the main policy goals that each country
should focus on, based on its current level of structural transformation.
In the short term, the main goals for LPA countries should be to
increase rural prosperity, raise agricultural productivity, stimulate urban
production centers, and reduce undernutrition and hidden hunger. A
short-term food, agriculture, and nutrition strategy would include
increasing the output and productivity of food crops and livestock
products on the supply side and implementing strategies for nonfarm

development to increase incomes and affordability of nutritious food on
the demand side. This approach would include investing in R&D to boost
smallholder farmers’ productivity and their capacity to grow and trade
more diverse crops. The experiences of other developing countries show
that urban and rural food supply chains must be developed
simultaneously to ensure price stability within the economy. Integrating
farmers into global markets will require introducing reliable market
mechanisms, such as access to institutional credit, reliable transport and
storage infrastructure, and food-quality standards designed to improve
both producer and consumer well-being.
In LPA and MA systems, the main goals will be to provide affordable
access to nutritious foods in rural and urban areas by supporting the
development of the private sector in urban food supply chains. MA
countries must also focus on reducing undernutrition and hidden hunger
more quickly, as well as designing strategies to tackle the indirect
impacts on health from obesity. This strategy will need to include
increasing innovation in services such as storage and transport,
developing supermarkets as a means to source fresh foods, investing in
developing healthy processed foods and biofortified food options, and
promoting market development of locally sourced organic fresh foods. In
CA countries, poverty is linked to poor food quality, reducing the food
security of the poor. For these countries, policy goals should include
focusing on interventions to reduce obesity rates, increasing incentives to
grow and consume more locally sourced organic foods, and encouraging
the development of better-quality processed foods.
Table 18.1. Short-term strategies for food, agriculture, and nutrition policies.
Priority level for:

Low-productivity Modernizing Commercialized
Policy area Strategies for:
agriculture (LPA) agriculture (MA) agriculture (CA)
systems systems systems
Undernutrition
Micronutrient
deficiency
Malnutrition
Obesity
Noncommunicable
diseases
Urban development
Diet diversity
Enhancing nonfarm
Demand side
sector incomes
Reducing urban-rural
gap
Tackling climate risks
Environmental
preservation
Water conservation
Enhancing rural
infrastructure
Supply side
Innovations for small
farmers
Reducing food waste
Reducing food loss
Removing trade
regulations
Gender-sensitive
innovations in labor
markets
Economy- Investments in health
wide infrastructure
Climate-oriented
businesses and
management practices
Source: Authors.
Note: Gray cell indicates high priority. White cell indicates low priority.
A major thrust of food, agriculture, and nutrition policy should be to

dethrone the idea that agricultural growth can only come from a heavy
investment in staple grain production. First-mover advantages from
staple grain policies in the Green Revolution have entrenched
comparative disadvantages in agricultural production for slow movers
such as those in Africa and in lagging regions. Allowing countries to
grow crops that are economically beneficial for farmers while catering to
the global demand for diet diversification will help them move their
agricultural sectors forward. From a global food security perspective,
countries should open up their agricultural sectors to facilitate the flow of
goods, services, and technologies. Within countries, local policies that
address unique, locally relevant challenges are needed to ensure equity in
regional development. National policies should ensure investments in
public goods that local policy makers may have no incentive to develop,
such as the development of biofortified crops and fortified and nutritious

processed foods, transport infrastructure to reduce transaction costs, and
globally acceptable food-quality standards to facilitate free and fair trade.
The global research agenda should also include developing new
mitigation and adaptation strategies to protect countries from climate
change as an input in intergenerational well-being.
18.5 Reenvisioning the Drivers of Global Food, Agriculture,

and Nutrition Policy for 2050
To move toward a food system that addresses the challenges described,

one must envision an alternative paradigm in which policy makers’ main
goal is to ensure the health and well-being of all stakeholders, including
individuals, firms, governments, and planetary biodiversity. One of the
inputs into such a system will be a focus on productivity-enhancing
research and calorie security. Oriented toward better health,
environment-friendly agriculture, and more equitable economic growth,
this system will emphasize the development of a nutrition-secure food
system. At the producer end, on-farm diversification, rural development,
poverty reduction, and increased smallholder productivity will guide
development of farm products. Food-secure households will have not
only sufficient calories but also access to a diverse food plate. Reducing
intrahousehold disparities in access to nutrition and increasing the
welfare of household members should also guide the development of
food, agriculture, and nutrition policy. All opportunities for increasing
rural prosperity will include women in the process of development. At
the consumer end, access to affordable, healthy, nutritious diets will be
important. With more affordable healthy foods, consumers will be able to

take action to reduce the threat of overnutrition, thus improving overall
health. Efficient supply chains will be key to smoothing domestic and
international production shocks and will enhance nutrition access by
reducing food loss and waste. In such a system, policy makers will also
be able to reduce undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies by
increasing access to and affordability of biofortified crops. Human
capital development and investments in climate-sensitive industries will
be needed to increase employment in the nonfarm sector. In this new

system, climate-sensitive agricultural systems will increase production
through sustainable intensification of natural resource systems. By
reducing the impact of human consumption on the planet, this system
will also be able to ensure global nutrition security for future generations.
To move toward such a system, it is important to update two
approaches that currently influence policy design and implementation
and research outcomes. First, most current policies focus on addressing
sector-specific goals. These strategies have been designed in silos with
no regard for their social costs and benefits, globally or locally (Pingali,
2012). This practice has led to lopsided economic growth in some
countries, massive resource degradation in others, and the creation of
perverse incentives that have led to the simultaneous existence of
undernutrition and overnutrition within the same economy. In the future,
food, agriculture, and nutrition policies must consider their spillover
impacts on all of these sectors and integrate their sector priorities toward
achieving more climate-sensitive food systems. Second, the focus of
these policies has largely remained on increasing access to calories from
staples (Pingali, 2015a). This has led to the development of food systems
in which staple calories are abundantly available and abundantly
consumed. While the former speaks to our ability to ensure food security
with regard to calorie sufficiency, the latter has manifested itself in an
unhealthy processed-food market that innovates based on the staples

available and is linked to higher risk of obesity from greater consumption
of sugar. Over time, the prices of cereals relative to the food price index
have remained quite stable, whereas the prices of nonstaples have been
more volatile (see Figure 18.4) reflecting producers’ lack of ability to
meet rising demand for these products. Input price subsidies to increase
adoption of staple crops have led to overuse of inputs and degradation of

the environment. Minimum support prices for procurement, combined
with inefficient food distribution networks, have led to food waste and
loss. Changing the focus of the scientific community from designing
strategies to increase calorie production to designing strategies to
improve access to nutrition will be an important step in this direction.
For example, broadening scope for R&D to include innovations for
increasing the yields and managing supply chains of all food groups will
be an important input into creating markets for healthy and nutritious

foods.
Fig. 18.4. Price volatility of cereals versus noncereals. Source: Authors’ calculations and
FAOSTAT.
18.6 Strategies for Facilitating the Creation of Climate-

Sensitive and Nutrition-Oriented Global Food Systems
18.6.1 Promoting sustainable agricultural production and

environmental preservation for food security
The agricultural productivity–led growth strategy of the past has resulted

in negative externalities on land and water use, biodiversity loss, and
chemical runoff from fertilizer and pesticide use. The policy environment
promoted the overuse of inputs and expansion of cultivation into areas
that often cannot sustain high levels of intensification (Pingali, 2018).
Input subsides for fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigated water have lowered
farmers’ incentives to adopt sustainable practices for input use. There is
now a common understanding that creating environmentally balanced

food systems by sustainably intensifying agricultural land is the way
forward (Hobbs, 2007; Herrero et al., 2018; Pretty et al., 2011; Passel,
2013; Pingali, 2007a, 2012).3 Without increasing negative externalities
from agricultural production, sustainable intensification practices prevent
biodiversity loss, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce land and
water degradation. A policy agenda for sustainable food systems will
also strive for simultaneous improvements in the economic, social, and
environmental welfare of rural ecosystems (Pingali, 2018).
Several types of investments can help in this regard. First, building on
current investments in the creation of drought-resistant crops, new
practices for managing scarce natural resources are needed to enhance
productivity of crops. In the face of climate change, incentives to
develop climate-sensitive technology, such drought-resistant, flood-
resistant, and pest-resistant crops, will be needed. Removing distortions
that encourage R&D in drought- and heat-resistant staple grains over
development of other foods will be a step in this direction. A lack of
R&D on the impacts of climate change on nonstaple crops has increased
the threat of losing locally grown crops and has discouraged food system
3Prettyet al. (2011, 7) define sustainable intensification as “producing more output from
the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts and at the same
time increasing contributions to natural capital and the flow of environmental services.”
diversity (Pingali, 2012; Sharma and Pingali, 2016). Creating extension

programs to disseminate new technologies and encouraging the
development of locally grown nutritious and climate-sensitive crops will
be important, and collaborations between researchers and farmers
can help achieve these advances. Second, integrating biodiversity
management practices with technology innovations will help increase
yields from livestock, forestry, fisheries, and crops. The literature has
found that decentralized governance practices in which the community
has control over common property rights can play a significant role in
environmental preservation, soil conservation, and natural resource
management (Sinha and Swaminathan, 1992; Gross-Camp et al., 2015;
Myers et al., 2017; Steiner et al., 2018; Banerjee, 2015). These strategies
can also promote the food security of those who depend on the natural
environment for their livelihoods, such as forest dwellers, fisherfolk, and
farmers. Third, across countries, sustainable agricultural intensification

investments and biodiversity conservation will increase carbon
sequestration and enhance climate change mitigation strategies (Jindal
et al., 2008; Lal, 2004; Montagnini and Nair, 2004). Integrating farmers,
foresters, fisher folk, and supply chain vendors with carbon markets can
help accelerate adoption of new climate-sensitive technologies.
18.6.2 Conserving water for agricultural production and

improved health outcomes
Water conservation is an important investment strategy for the future. In

LPA countries, most agriculture depends on rainwater. Irrigated land is a
much smaller portion of agricultural land, and underuse of irrigation has
reduced productivity. In MA countries, farmers depend on groundwater
and surface resources for irrigation, in addition to rainwater. Subsidies
for water use and electricity designed to support the Green Revolution
have led to overuse of groundwater resources (Pingali et al., 2016;
Taylor et al., 2013; Pingali, 2012). Also, excessive use of fertilizers and
pesticides continues to contaminate water supplies in these areas.
Climate change has threatened to exacerbate the water crisis by
increasing extreme events such as droughts and flooding. In the absence
of appropriate groundwater management practices or clear definition of
property rights for this essential input, water for farming or household
consumption threatens to become scarce in LPA and MA countries. In
CA countries, this threat has driven the development of drought-resistant
crop varieties and led to the creation of water markets and monitoring
systems to reduce water waste. Removing price distortions that increase
overuse of water and incentivizing groundwater storage and management
will be important for sustainable agriculture and businesses in the future

(Easter et al., 1999; Thobanl, 1997; Jenkins et al., 2004; Howitt, 1998).
Designing cities that conserve water and recycle wastewater into
drinking water will help improve urban water security (Hanjra and
Qureshi, 2010; Kenway et al., 2011; Grant et al., 2012).
18.6.3 Diversifying farm production for rural prosperity,

economic growth, and diet diversification
While access to cheap staple grains may ensure calorie security for future
generations, there is evidence to suggest that greater dietary diversity has
larger benefits for health and well-being (Arimond and Ruel, 2004; Guo
et al., 2004; Kant, 2004). Given that diets are expected to diversify in the
future, increasing access to fresh foods and reducing price differentials
between staples and nonstaples will be key to meeting new demand and
maintaining the health and well-being of future populations (Gómez and
Ricketts, 2013). The rising demand for food, in terms of both quantity
and diversity, provides a new growth opportunity for the agricultural
sector in developing countries. In LPA systems the transition from low-
yield to high-yield agricultural production is constrained by poor market
infrastructure and inadequate institutions. Poor irrigation expansion and
continued reliance on rainfall has not only limited the yield potential of
staple crops, but also actively discouraged intensification and
diversification of production systems. Other factors such as improper
contract enforcement of land tenure systems, excessive reliance on food
aid, and corruption have reduced incentives to adopt new technologies
and continue to hold down agricultural productivity in these areas
(Timmer, 1988; Barrett, 1996; Pingali, 2007a; Pingali and Rosegrant,
1995; Barrett et al., 2001b).
Increasing demand for high-value agricultural products such as fruits,

vegetables, meat, eggs, and milk has created opportunities for small
farms to diversify production and realize better income by participating
in value chains. It has been noted that small farms participating in fresh
food value chains can achieve both direct and indirect gains (Swinnen
and Maertens, 2007). The direct gains accrue through productivity
increases, quality improvement, higher household-level incomes, and

improved nutrition (Ramaswami et al., 2009; Birthal et al., 2009; Dries
et al., 2009). The indirect gains include reduced production risks,
increased access to credit and technology, improved market participation,
and productivity spillovers to other crops (Bellemare, 2012; Swinnen and
Maertens, 2007). Therefore, effective linkages to product markets play
an important role in incentivizing production, diversification, and
intensification in all production systems.
Because most farming is still done by small farmers in low-income

and MA systems, improving small-farm productivity and market
participation becomes synonymous with increasing rural prosperity
(Barrett, 1996). However, smallholders’ ability to participate in
agricultural markets is determined by transaction costs—that is, the cost
of accessing goods and services and making exchanges (Key et al.,
2000). These costs limit these farmers’ ability to effectively participate in
markets, hindering commercialization. Identifying the characteristics of
transaction costs is important to determine their influence on smallholder
production in different production systems and to design interventions to
address them (Abraham and Pingali, 2017). In addition, the transaction
cost of accessing product markets is high, limiting smallholders’ ability
to participate in specialized value chains and disincentivizing
diversification of production, thus affecting incomes and growth.
Transaction costs due to bureaucratic inefficiencies and high
management costs cause small farms to be overlooked in favor of larger
farms in formal credit markets. This situation often limits smallholders’
market participation, thus reducing farm profitability (Dolan and
Humphrey, 2000; Hazell et al., 2010; Reardon and Berdegué, 2002;
Reardon et al., 2003; Swinnen and Maertens, 2007). Along with
investments in developing labor-saving technology to increase
productivity, removing price subsidies that distort incentives for farm
diversification will be important to ensure on-farm diversification that

reflects the growing demand for diverse dietary options domestically and
abroad (Anderson, this volume).
Developing a market for healthy foods requires both investing in
nutrition education for consumers and revamping current subsidies for
staple grains. Disseminating nutrition education that links food to health
outcomes will be an important step toward creating demand for healthier

foods and thereby facilitating the growth of markets for these foods. In
many developed countries, nutrition consciousness has encouraged the
growth of local organic farms that are financially and environmentally
sustainable. For example, between 2005 and 2014, the U.S. organic
foods market grew from $15 billion to $35 billion (USDA, 2017).
Free trade can play a major role in linking economic growth,
agriculture, and nutrition. Allowing farmers from LPA regions to
develop expertise in growing nonstaple crops based on their comparative

advantages in access to natural resources, land, labor, and technology
will allow for diversification of local food systems. This will help in two
ways. First, as more developed regions continue to focus on staple grain
production owing to their first-mover advantages, growth in urban
demand for diverse diets around the world will drive food demand for
nonstaples. Integrating LPA farmers with international urban food
markets can become a channel to increase rural prosperity. Second, as
local food systems diversify and local urban demand increases, these
changes will provide avenues to ensure nutrition security while also
catering to demand for dietary diversity. To protect farmers’ incomes
from production shocks resulting from climate change that can also
affect net returns from international trade, global crop insurance
companies may have to play an important role going forward. Reducing
tariffs on crops, sharing food production technologies, and creating
globally enforceable food safety standards will help farmers participate
in global markets while also ensuring that nutritious foods produced
internationally are available to meet local demand for dietary diversity
and health.
18.6.4 Tackling the triple burden of malnutrition by focusing

on nutrition interventions rather than calories
Currently, nutrition-related interventions focus on demand-side

interventions designed to reduce undernutrition, including strategies to
improve access to food both within and across households. Many
interventions have a strong focus on reducing the undernutrition of

children under the age of five. Interventions include providing children
with access to free food in the early years of life, access to free vaccines,
and provision of health infrastructure such as water and sanitation to
improve the health environment in which these children live. These
strategies have helped reduce undernutrition but often leave in their wake
scars from regional heterogeneities in these programs. Interventions
focused on reducing hidden hunger distribute micronutrient-fortified pills
to women and children, but the literature reports little progress on

reducing micronutrient deficiencies, leaving room for future innovations
in food policy in this area.
Increased consumer awareness of micronutrient deficiencies has
raised demand for fortified processed foods. Going forward, R&D
investments in climate-sensitive fortified staple and nonstaple crops
should be increased (Meenakshi et al., 2010). Food-quality standards for
fresh foods such as vegetables, fruits, and livestock products will need to
be introduced to ensure greater bioavailability of micronutrients, not just
at the farm level but also in supermarkets. (Schmidhuber and Tubiello
2007; Gregory et al., 2005; Brown and Funk 2008; Lobell et al., n.d.;
Rosenzweig and Perry 1994; Fischer et al., 2002; Pingali 2015b;
Pinstrup-Andersen 2002; Gerber et al., 2005). It will also be important to
reduce nutrition waste resulting from improper food storage practices
(Pinstrup-Andersen, 2009).
Globally, climate change presents a large threat to the bioavailability
of proteins and micronutrients (Myers et al., 2014; Dietterich et al.,
2014). In many countries the poor have relied on nonstaples such as
millet for their dietary diversity. Losing these crops because of climate
change will threaten food and nutrition security in these households.
Climate change also creates risks for protein availability by endangering
the health of livestock. For many countries in the advanced stages of
structural transformation, livestock products are an important source of

dietary diversity (Herrero et al., 2018; Devendra 2007; Gerber et al.,
2005; Pingali and Rosegrant, 1995; Pinstrup-Andersen, 2012). As we
create managed livestock production systems, it will be essential to
ensure that there is enough healthy diverse feed for these systems
(Gerber and Menzi, 2006; Herrero et al., 2018).
In many countries, the triple burden of malnutrition has manifested

itself in part as obesity, especially for the poor. In LPA and MA
countries, which have not even completed the nutrition transition, obesity
rates have increased. Tackling this challenge requires interventions both
at the farm gate and at the consumer level. At the farm level, subsidies
that lead to overproduction of any one type of crop should be removed to
prevent downstream innovations that use overproduced crops and create
markets for unhealthy processed foods (Hawkes 2007; Weiss et al.,
2004; Pollan 2003; Alston et al., 2008). On the consumer side,

investments in education programs to inform consumers about the
benefits of eating healthy foods, dissemination of health information
related to food, and the use of taxes to disincentivize the consumption of
unhealthy foods will be important steps toward creating new markets for
healthy foods. Encouraging greater integration of urban food supply
chains with rural farm production will also spill over as increased rural
prosperity.
18.6.5 Linking urban food systems to rural income growth

and reducing rural-urban disparities
Linking urban demand for diet diversification with smallholder

production will be key to increasing rural prosperity and ensuring greater
urban food security. Achieving this goal will require a well-functioning
food supply chain with several characteristics. First, by reducing the
number of intermediaries between the farm gate and the consumer, the
supply chain would reduce transaction costs and increase incomes for
farmers. Second, a supply chain that helps smooth production shocks and
hence reduce price uncertainty would ensure year-round availability of
nutritious foods—an important feature since climate change threatens to
reduce food availability in the future. Third, cold-chain innovations are
important for reducing food loss and improving nutrition quality and
availability for consumers4—crucial to enhance the health and well-being
of urban consumers who depend on these efficiencies for their nutrition
access.
The main focus of supply-chain efforts would be to increase
efficiencies in procurement, storage, transport, and information and
communication infrastructure, thus reducing transaction costs that affect

farm profitability (Abraham and Pingali, 2017). In addition, improved
supply-chain technology and practices are needed for preserving and
enhancing food quality and reducing food losses and waste (Chege et al.,
2015; Chiputwa and Qaim, 2016). Standardizing food quality and safety
measures and developing business practices for effectively managing
resources on the farm will reduce transaction costs and increase the
profitability of diversification for farmers (Coley et al., 2009; Timmer
2009; Popkin 2006; Reardon et al., 2003; Reardon et al., 2012; Timmer
2009). Encouraging the growth of businesses that procure from farmers
and sell to urban consumers may be an important step in this direction
(Wu et al., 2014; Gómez and Ricketts 2013). Also, appropriate
procurement models between farms and the private sector can improve
rural prosperity by reducing transaction costs and increasing farm-gate
incomes (Schipmann and Qaim, 2010). In the international value chain,
globally acceptable safety and quality standards and transactional
efficiencies can increase the flow of goods from international production
areas to urban markets. Increasing the global reach of the multinational
agri-food companies could lead to new opportunities for the transfer of
technology and best practices in supply-chain management in the short
run. However, to encourage greater participation by private actors
in supply chains, clearly defined property rights, proper contract
enforcement, monitoring mechanisms, and food safety standards need to
be adopted (Schipmann and Qaim, 2010).
In many advanced countries in the past two decades, urban consumers
have increasingly sought to obtain foods directly from farms and
4Experts estimate that per capita food losses are somewhere between 120 kg per capita (in
Sub-Saharan Africa, LPA systems) and 300 kg a year (in the United States, a CA
system). In developing countries, much of this loss occurs in the production to retail
stages, whereas in developed countries consumer waste is significant (FAO, 2011).
purchase foods from local farmers’ markets in order to support local

farming practices. Currently, consumers are willing to pay a premium for
access to these products, and many local movements to source and cook
with locally produced foods have gained followers (Gilg and Battershill,
1998; Conner et al., 2010; Padel and Foster, 2005). This transition results
partly from the increased awareness of consumers, who now attach value
to food quality as an important attribute for purchase. To cater to this

demand, urban retailers have begun to source products directly from
local farmers. Integrating farmers into the value chain and enabling
consumers to directly purchase from farmers can not only increase access
to fresh foods and reduce the climate impact of supply chains, but also
ensure a direct trickle down of urban incomes into farmers’ hands. This
would be an important way to reduce the rural-urban divide in welfare.
18.6.6 Moving from household food security toward

intrahousehold access
Studies have shown that addressing a child’s early nutrition outcomes

has a direct bearing on that child’s adult health, labor, and education
outcomes (Alderman et al., 2006; Chen and Zhou, 2007). Women face
greater discrimination in access to health care, education, and production
technology both within and outside households, and research has shown
that increasing women’s access to human capital goods has direct
benefits for the overall nutrition status and welfare of members of their
households (Desai and Alva, 1998; Alaimo et al., 2001). In the short
term, human capital development directly improves women’s well-being.
This has positive intergenerational spillovers since women are known to
reallocate gains from these investments toward the health and welfare of
their children (Victora et al., 2008; Ruel et al., 1999; Desai and Alva
1998; Gruber 2000). Thus, when designing food, agriculture, and
nutrition policy, policy makers can amplify productivity effects by
making concomitant investments in labor-saving technology for rural
women to use for home production of food; increasing women’s access
to affordable, safe, healthy foods at supermarkets; reducing social
barriers that prevent women from accessing food systems; and increasing
economic opportunities for women by investing in women-friendly jobs

and technology (Pingali and Ricketts, 2014; Udry, 1996).
Investments in skill development opportunities will also be needed.
This includes investments in the quality of education and health services.
Based on the current trend toward greater mechanization in
manufacturing and the growing use of labor-saving technologies in
production (such as robotics and artificial intelligence), creating a labor

force that can capitalize on productivity gains from these new types of
technology will be important. In rural areas, a more technology-savvy
and productive labor force will drive up agricultural productivity through
both innovation and the use of environment-friendly food technology.
This productivity increase will release labor from rural areas to move
into more productive opportunities in the nonfarm sector. Moving
forward, it will be useful to reduce labor-market friction by improving
transport and urban infrastructure and providing access to vocational

training programs.
18.6.7 Encouraging climate-sensitive businesses to stimulate

nonfarm economic activity and employment
In the past, the private sector’s role in development has been seen as
secondary to government policy in facilitating development since the
private sector’s only major goal is economic profitability. Business
experts, however, have argued that businesses that pursue sustainable
development strategies and develop environmentally and socially
responsible products will be essential to achieving long-term profitability
growth (Hart, 1995, 1997), and the growth of such businesses should be
encouraged. In many CA countries, firms have become conscious of their
sustainability brand as consumers have demanded more transparency in
procurement processes and greater accountability in labor practices.
Growing demand for environment-friendly products in CA countries has
affected bottom-line profitability and spurred innovation in this area
(Hoffman, 1999).
Involving the private sector in the growth and development process
can have advantages for the future. The private sector plays an important
role in increasing efficiency and employment and is often known to
facilitate innovation. This is important when the government has

competing interests for its financial investments. To help spur
entrepreneurship and employment, it will be useful to enforce property
rights and contracts, reduce barriers to exit, reduce inefficient regulatory
processes, and create appropriate financial tools for investing in
businesses. At the farm level, increasing private sector participation in
R&D and in the input sector will create new efficiencies. However, to
successfully integrate sustainability goals with profitability, it will be
important to adopt proper fiscal tools to incorporate externalities in
production and to invest in technology in order to reduce transaction and
monitoring costs.
Finally, increasing incomes during structural transformation will
increase the opportunity cost of home cooking activity. As in the CA
countries, this will create an opportunity for more private players to
invest in processed-food markets. In anticipation of these changes, policy

makers must set up standards to increase incentives to produce
biofortified foods and regulate food quality standards for preprocessed
and ready-to-eat foods through labeling (Kennedy and Reardon 1994;
Pingali 2007b; Popkin 1999). These strategies can help address hidden
hunger and improve access to fresh foods while also facilitating greater
integration of local and global food markets.
18.6.8 Raising funds for R&D through carbon markets and

other sectoral climate change mitigation strategies
Integrating various stakeholders within a country into global carbon

markets can create momentum for mitigation in two ways. First, at the
national level, it can be a useful way to raise funds for research and
innovation geared toward mitigation. Second, it can provide new streams
of revenue for individuals by incentivizing environment-friendly
behaviors. Carbon trading, a process where governments use quantity
caps or auctions to determine how much carbon will be produced in a
given market, is currently executed in two ways. In the case of quantity
caps, governments issue environment certificates (or carbon credits) to
different firms within an industry. Firms can trade carbon credits to meet
their compliance expectations based on their levels of production. This
system is currently being implemented in MA countries. In the

alternative system, used in CA countries, the government auctions
carbon credits across industries and reinvests the money raised from
those auctions into R&D on climate-friendly technologies. Developed by
the California state government, this model is considered to have
successfully encouraged economic growth while reducing greenhouse
gas emissions. A major advantage of this model is that it forces

industries and firms that participate to assess their carbon footprints and
internalize the costs of greenhouse gas emissions into their business
activities. This approach has led companies to innovate on sustainable
product development, procurement, and management practices (Kossoy
and Guigon, 2012; EDF, 2018).
Integrating individuals into carbon markets is thought be to an
important way forward in carbon mitigation strategies. One idea under
discussion has been to provide individuals with carbon credits that can be
sold to firms or governments on carbon exchanges. Individuals can also
buy carbon credits based on certain environmentally sustainable actions
they take. For example, individuals could gain carbon credits by
purchasing fuel-efficient vehicles or products from companies that meet
environmental regulations. Farmers could earn carbon credits by
engaging in environmentally sound agricultural practices, such as
investing in climate-friendly seed technology, reducing fertilizer and
pesticide use, and investing in water conservation technologies. Such
actions could become an alternative source of income for such farmers
(Lal et al., 2007; Lehmann, 2007; Lohmann et al., 2006; Montagnini and
Nair, 2004; Jindal et al., 2008). Using information and communication
technology to monitor these initiatives and reduce the transaction costs
associated with individuals’ participation in these markets will be the
backbone of proper enforcement. It will be important to coordinate the
timing of these actions with payments and systems for monitoring and
enforcing noncompliance fees (Fawcett, 2010; Lohmann et al., 2006).
18.6.9 Supporting climate-friendly urban growth to enable

smooth structural transformation
Urbanization, or the growth of towns to accommodate increasing

population and migration from the agricultural sector, will pose a major
challenge in the future. Historically, urbanization has been an important
outcome of structural transformation (Pingali, 2007b, 2010; Pingali and

Rosegrant, 1995; Popkin, 1999). As countries develop, surplus labor is
released into nonfarm sectors in rural and urban areas (Johnston, 1970;
Timmer and Akkus, 2008). Some of these individuals find their way to
cities for work. Urban development policies can turn this influx of labor
into a catalyst for urban economic growth. To create new opportunities
for income growth in urban areas, investments in skill building and
human capital development will be required. In the short term, value-
added industries that depend on low- and semi-skilled labor will be

needed to stimulate growth in the urban nonfarm sector (Tiffen, 2003;
Pingali, 2010). Cities should develop comparative advantages in
manufacturing or value-added sectors to enable greater economic
growth. The growth of high-skill industries in urban areas has increased
the urban-rural welfare gap. To prevent this from becoming a global
challenge, concurrent investments should be made to reduce the urban-
rural wage gap and increase rural labor productivity.
In addition to focusing on economic growth, urban development
policies should focus on the issues of sustainability. Today’s high-
income-growth metropolises have developed along coastlines, and rising
seawaters due to climate change will affect these urban centers in several
ways. First, by affecting housing and water and sanitation infrastructure,
climate change threatens to increase displacement of individuals from
their homes (Stone, Hess, and Frumkin, 2010; Hamin and Gurran, 2009;
Hunt and Watkiss, 2011). For smaller communities that depend on
coastal resources for their livelihoods, food security will become a major
concern (Wigand et al., 2017). Adaptation strategies to relocate
communities or develop climate-sensitive water and sanitation systems
will be required. Many countries encourage investments in environment-
smart buildings and utilities that reduce energy consumption as part of
their mitigation strategy. Incentivizing and rewarding individuals who
incorporate climate-friendly practices while building or refurbishing

homes can help integrate national mitigation policies with community-
led participation in mitigation. These changes require conceptualizing the
growth of environment-friendly cities that can accept new migrants
(Hunt and Watkiss, 2011; Laukkonen et al., 2009; Muller, 2007). In such
cities, priorities for water conservation, waste recycling, and energy
preservation must be integrated into infrastructure growth policies.
18.6.10 Bolstering health interventions to combat

noncommunicable disease risks
Obesity is a major risk factor for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). In

the last decade, there has been an unprecedented increase in obesity rates
across the world. Even as policy makers from LPA and MA systems
work hard towards reducing undernutrition, these countries are seeing
large increases in the rates of obesity in both children and adults. Thus
food systems of the future will be tasked with tackling the NCDs
challenge in two important ways. One, interventions would have to focus
on reducing obesity. This would involve both research and development
on drugs and procedures for treatment but will also require investments
in strategies for prevention. Two, there would need to be new
interventions to address NCDs that result from obesity. It is imperative
for health systems around the world to take stock of the risk and
encourage innovations to reduce the burden of NCDs (Bollyky et al.,
2017; Sturm et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2011).
The United States has been at the forefront of innovation in health-
related research owing to its well-defined intellectual property rights
system that enourages drug and medical diagnostic companies to
innovate. Its health system, largely financed by health insurance, has
reduced out-of-pocket spending and mortality rates and improved health
outcomes for adults and children, especially those with chronic health
conditions (Finkelstein et al., 2012; Acemoglu and Finkelstein, 2008;
Finkelstein and McKnight, 2008; Currie and Gruber, 1996; Dick et al.,
2004; Davidoff et al., 2005). However, compared with countries in
similar stages of structural transformation, the United States still has, for
example, higher infant mortality rates (MacDorman et al., 2014;
Mathews et al., 2015). The administrative costs of health care

continually rise and have placed a large burden on the country’s fiscal
health (Woolhandler and Himmelstein, 1991; Woolhandler et al., 2003).
On the other hand, countries like Canada and the United Kingdom have
managed to keep costs low while also improving health outcomes. These
countries have options for both private and public sector participation in
health service delivery but also rely on multiple health financing

strategies in which the government plays an important role in controlling
costs and out-of-pocket spending on health (Tangcharoensathien et al.,
2011).
To prevent the incidence of NCDs from growing to pandemic
proportions, innovations are required in current health systems. First,
investments in health infrastructure are needed to improve people’s
access to health care inputs. Second, in addition to more hospitals,
laboratories, health facilities, and transport infrastructure, a competent

health labor force will be a key element of improving the quality of
health care services provided. Investing in the development of a
competitive labor force in the health sector will not only ensure that
higher-quality care is provided, but also create new avenues for
employment (Bollyky et al., 2017; Nugent et al., 2018; Victora et al.,
2008). Third, engaging greater private sector participation in health care
service delivery could be beneficial if this engagement brings
innovations in technology and services and does so in ways that increase
efficiency in health service delivery. However, successful engagement
with the private sector will require also monitoring and oversight, given
the information asymmetries that can affect health care costs. These costs
must be managed to prevent health systems from becoming unaffordable
or inequitable. Finally, countries must enforce intellectual property rights
for new research and set up legal frameworks to encourage greater
innovation in both preventing and treating NCDs. Investments in health
education can both help promote health strategies for reducing and
preventing obesity and ensure early detection of NCDs.
18.7 Conclusion
Looking back and assessing the world’s achievements, we see that

innovation in food-related technology and efforts to increase food and
nutrition access have been extremely successful in facilitating economic
growth and development in many countries. These changes have helped
reduce poverty, chronic hunger, and malnutrition. This progress,

however, has come side by side with increasing environmental
degradation, growing regional inequality, and increases in hidden hunger
and obesity. In many countries that missed the Green Revolution,
structural transformation has been stunted. While staple grain polices
have successfully increased the production of staples, they have hindered
farm diversification. Excessive input subsidies and lack of proper
procurement policies have increased inefficiencies in production
processes and increased food waste. Thus, despite their many successes,
past food, agriculture, and nutrition policies have fallen short of ensuring
nutrition security.
Looking ahead to 2050, we see that the future holds new challenges.
The pressures of population growth, urbanization, diet diversification,
and climate change have brought concerns about food security back to
the table. Any policy decisions implemented now must take into account
both the drawbacks of past polices and the challenges of the future. We
must identify new policies that account for the threats and opportunities
that lie ahead and that will create more sustainable food systems for the
planet.
In this chapter, we have discussed strategies required to move global
food, agriculture, and nutrition policies toward the development of
equitable and nutritionally balanced food systems. Countries at different
stages of their structural transformation process have different abilities to
achieve these goals. To move countries along the path of structural
transformation as well as toward climate-sensitive and nutritionally
balanced food systems, we discussed strategies for integrating increased
food production with improved nutrition outcomes in the face of climate
change. In the short run, any evaluation of food, agriculture, and
nutrition strategies should assess how well countries are meeting targets
for the 2030 SDGs. In the long run, strategies must account for all of the
costs, benefits, and spillovers of food, agriculture, and nutrition policies.
This integrated approach to food policy will help diversify current
agricultural food systems and ensure nutrition security as incomes rise
and diets diversify. Agricultural expansion must be done, however, in a
way that is environmentally sustainable and addresses the challenges
posed by climate change. Creating business, agriculture, and supply-

chain practices that are climate-friendly can reinvigorate structural
transformation. Investing in human development initiatives and health
infrastructure such as hospitals, water, and sanitation can help reduce
inequalities in access to nutrition. In addition, future economic growth
will depend on climate-friendly urban development, water conservation
practices, and integration of individuals and firms into carbon markets.
The main goals of future food systems should be to reduce the triple
burden of malnutrition—undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and

obesity—and reduce chronic hunger around the world. In such a food
system, well-being means good health and access to nutritionally
balanced foods. For those who have so far been left behind, this policy
approach will set the necessary conditions for a Green Revolution 2.0.
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b2530_FM.indd 6 01-Sep-16 11:03:06 AM

Index
access to food, 3, 8, 52, 71, 216, anemia, 17, 19, 219, 223, 226, 235
226, 439, 548, 551, 592, 610, 630 animal biotechnology, 271, 531
adaptation pathways, 52, 62 animal breeding, 247, 262, 271,
aerial spray drift, 292 277, 278, 530
aerial variable-rate application, animal protein, 52, 53, 204, 365,
287, 293 368, 371
agribusiness, 140, 144, 193, 305, annual cash crops, 370
354, 355, 356, 357, 359, 362, anti-agriculture bias, 572
363, 364, 365, 368, 374, 375, anti-trade bias, 572, 575
376, 391, 393, 395, 396, 397 aquaculture, 14, 61, 164, 176, 195,
agribusiness sector, 352, 362, 529 204, 205, 276, 277, 323, 328,
agricultural intensification, 21, 427, 343, 400, 508
437, 438, 439, 463, 466, 626 artificial intelligence, 24, 25, 68,
agricultural research, vi, 7, 8, 18, 146, 285, 289, 305, 307, 634
26, 138, 153, 155, 156, 157, 216, assisted reproductive technology,
224, 387, 458, 462, 503, 504, 274
526, 533, 536 automation, 68, 285, 286, 304, 307,
agricultural residues, 4, 16, 494 319
agricultural statistics, 299, 300, auto-steering, 289, 290
302, 303, 304, 305, 392
agricultural technologies, 147, 181, big data, 22, 24, 29, 285, 286, 288,
215, 303, 463, 464, 466 289, 305, 306, 307, 326, 346, 403
agricultural trade, 14, 162, 182, bio-based materials, 16, 514, 519,
570, 590 524, 525
agricultural value chains, 13, 137, biodiversity, 5, 8, 23, 26, 51, 55,
152, 363, 374 56, 206, 224, 226, 400, 437, 442,
agri-food chain, 53, 63, 495, 496, 452, 459, 461, 462, 508, 512,
499 548, 611, 613, 614, 622, 625, 626
agroecological intensification, 417 bioeconomy, 16, 29, 55, 57, 325,
agroecological systems, 3, 420 503, 504, 505, 506, 508, 518,
agroecology, 439, 442, 446, 447, 519, 520, 521, 522, 524, 525,
448, 458
655
526, 527, 530, 531, 532, 533, citizen engagement, 535

534, 535, 536 climate change, 13, 53, 66, 115,
bioenergy, 15, 16, 17, 200, 475, 146, 162
484, 486, 490, 494, 495, 500, climate change mitigation, 26, 453,
510, 512, 514, 515, 516, 519, 511, 626, 635
521, 523, 524, 525, 526 climate migrants, 10
bioenergy crops, 16, 491, 500, 523 climate-sensitive technology, 625

biofortified crops, 622, 623 climate-smart agriculture, 156, 178
biofuels, 4, 16, 20, 29, 178, 484, commercial banks, 357, 360
494, 500, 510, 511, 512, 513, commercial farming, 154
521, 522, 524, 526 commercial farms, 149, 150, 151,
biogeochemical flows, 23, 206, 207 154, 156, 157
biological nitrogen fixation, 450, conservation technology, 324, 329,
451 343
biotechnological innovations, 509, consumer behavior, 16, 29, 384,
513, 523, 525, 529, 533, 535 401, 509, 517, 518, 519
biotechnology, 24, 245, 247, 250, consumerism, 6, 67, 72
269, 270, 271, 276, 277, 278, creating shared value (CSV), 375,
329, 503, 504, 505, 513, 514, 378
526, 531, 569 crop-livestock integration, 455,
blended finance, 398, 399 456, 462
breeder’s equation, 251, 260, 277,
278 deep learning, 289, 307
breeding cycle, 251, 260, 262, 263, degraded soils, 449, 452, 453, 454,
278 455, 462, 463
breeding strategy, 255 demographic changes, 3, 63
demographic transition, 9, 88, 93,
carbon emissions, 15, 474, 475, 95, 106
477, 479, 482, 487, 597 development finance institutions,
carbon markets, 626, 635, 636, 641 353
carbon-neutral, 532 dicamba, 297
CGIAR, v, 6, 7, 30, 165, 403, 459, diet quality, 8, 18, 19, 223
508, 509, 533, 534, 535, 536 dietary diversification, 611
child stunting, 215, 220, 226, 611 dietary diversity, 17, 26, 224, 616,
chromosome engineering, 252 627, 629, 630
chronic energy deficiency, 221 dietary quality, 18, 236
circular economy, 504, 515, 516, diets, 52, 137, 140, 193, 204, 215,
532, 534 224, 400, 554
Index 657
direct climate impacts, 165, 168, food production, 48, 137, 619
176 food safety, 19, 48, 220, 233, 344,
diversified commercial farms, 149 400, 578, 632
Doha Development Agenda food security, 323, 509
(DDA), 590 food staples, 155, 577
drought-resistant crops, 625 food systems approach, 20, 48,
drylands, 22 547, 551, 559, 560, 614

food systems thinking, 19, 28, 559,
ecological intensification, 55, 439, 562
442, 447, 449, 455, 460 forecasting framework, 16, 506
energy, 328 foreign direct investment, 353, 392
Environment and natural resources foresight, 6, 48, 49, 50, 164
(Land, Water & Ecosystems), 33 fossil fuel, 16, 450, 475, 481, 517
environmental degradation, 66, 70, free trade, 12, 333, 335, 571, 629
548, 616, 640 freshwater, 196, 203, 206, 323, 513
export subsidies, 570, 590 functional food, 322

extreme weather, 13, 115, 162, 215,
598 gender, 66, 91, 96, 107, 619
genetic diversity, 253, 439
falling costs, 68, 477 genetic gain, 250, 260, 531
farm diversification, 225, 629 genetically modified (GM) crops,
farm management system, 268 269
farm productivity, 569, 577, 578, genetically modified (GM)
589, 598, 616 organisms, 576
farm size, 89, 143, 144, 290, 363 genetics, 68, 254, 271, 319, 328
farm typologies, 148 genome editing, 252, 254, 273, 527
farming system transformation, 418 genomic selection, 247, 262, 271,
female migration, 108 274, 531
fertilizer, 140, 203, 400, 496 geographic information system
fertilizer subsidy programs, 464 (GIS), 285
fertilizer use, 4, 20, 207, 268, 466 global exports, 582
food demand, 52, 193, 194, 218, global governance, 210, 337, 535
429 global navigation satellite systems
food design, 24, 322, 327 (GNSSs), 287
food drying, 496, 500 global nutrition targets, 17
food policies, 56, 609 global positioning system (GPS),
food price volatility, 575, 598, 599 285
food prices, 92, 137, 330, 577 global trade integration, 12, 27
global warming, 162, 473, 496 information and communication

glyphosate, 296 technologies (ICTs), 24, 88, 300
glyphosate-resistant (GR) crops, information technology, 289, 318,
296 527, 619
governance, 71, 215, 360, 495, 500 infrastructure, 65, 303, 363, 559,
Green Revolution, 147, 215, 245, 609
609 infrastructure development

greenhouse gas emissions, 15, 60, corridors, 374
66, 163, 171, 488, 559, 625 inland flooding, 170
ground-based application, 290 innovation platform, 535
growth corridors, 389 integrated transport, 325, 329, 343
internal migration, 15, 88, 92, 99
harvest residues, 494 international agricultural research
health education, 639 centers (IARCs), 156
health infrastructure, 223, 630, 639 international migration, 90, 99
health systems, 162, 548, 639 international trade, 12, 137, 141,
health-related research, 638 570, 579
heritability, 251, 258 Internet of Things (IoT), 288
high-value agricultural products, investment ladder, 354, 359
628 irrigation, 170, 177, 227, 234, 496
high-value crops, 155
horticultural products, 9, 19, 137, knowledge-based bioeconomy, 505
140
human capital, 30, 580, 619, 623, labeling, 383
637 land degradation, 22, 202
hunger, 5, 17, 54, 195, 523, 547, land use change, 15, 161, 200, 207,
597, 610 512
hybrid breeding, 265, 269 landscape-level intensification, 458
hyperconnectivity, 6, 68, 70 LIDAR (light detection and
ranging), 289
impact investors, 353, 358, 371, liquid biofuels, 477, 486, 520
394, 396 livelihood strategies, 138, 148
incomes, 7, 11, 18, 137, 152, 218, livestock, 140, 155
302, 372, 420
industrialization strategy, 572 malnutrition, 162, 215, 216, 548,
inequality, 6, 25, 63, 66, 333, 597 554, 559
infant mortality, 611, 638 manufacturing, 144, 286, 634
marine resources, 51, 196, 204
Index 659
market liberalization, 12, 141, 571 perennial cash crops, 370

maternal underweight, 215 pesticide use, 230, 419, 625
meat production, 194, 245, 371 pests, 170, 235, 252, 289
mega-farms, 369, 381 phenotyping, 257, 259
Megatrends, 47, 65 phosphorus, 196, 203, 245
microfinance institutions, 354, 360 photosynthesis, 264
micronutrient deficiencies, 54, 218, plant breeding, 247, 513

611, 630 political instability, 195
migration, 67, 87 population growth, 53, 145, 619
missing middle, 359, 394, 395 postharvest losses, 387
mitigation strategies, 178, 362, 523 poverty, 141, 223, 619
mobile phones, 301, 401 precipitation, 166
modern value chains, 140, 154 precision agriculture, 285, 294, 419
mutation breeding, 252 precision guidance, 290
pre-commercial small farms, 149

natural resource management price spikes, 162, 195
(NRM) practices, 153 private equity investment, 361
natural resources, 193, 326 processing residues, 494
nexus thinking, 195, 515 program-related investments
nominal rates of assistance, 573 (PRIs), 398
noncommunicable diseases protein transition, 24, 322
(NCDs), 17, 222, 638
nonfarm income, 143 qualitative approaches, 59
nonfarm sector, 89, 154, 623, 634 quantitative modeling, 59
nontariff trade measures, 571 quiet revolution, 140
nutrition, 3, 17, 215, 216, 224, 275,
609, 625 raw materials, 321
nutrition transition, 223, 631 recombination, 254
nutrition-sensitive landscape, 438, refrigeration, 496
459 relative rates of assistance, 573
remote sensing, 286, 287
obesity, 215, 547, 611, 638 remote-sensing technologies, 285
overweight, 215, 547 renewable electricity, 477
renewable energy, 15, 473
Paris agreement, 479, 511 resource availability, 53, 444
participatory techniques, 51, 60 resource scarcity, 67, 379
patents, 320, 523 restoring degraded lands, 492
peak oil, 510 reverse transition, 144
risk, 346, 362 Sustainable Development Goals,

robotics, 287, 315, 634 195, 417
rural infrastructure, 152, 600 sustainable growth, 380
rural job creation, 372 sustainable intensification, 443,
rural population, 144, 617 491, 534, 625
rural transformation, 91 synthetic biology, 24, 321, 514
rural-urban migration, 87, 100

tariffs, 365, 571
SAR (synthetic-aperture radar), 289 technological change, 68, 161, 421
satellite data, 286 technology, 53, 68
satellite imagery, 285 technology transfer, 269
sea-level rise, 117, 170 trade policy instruments, 575
seasonal migration, 118 trade restrictions, 570, 598
self-sufficiency, 588, 592 transformation of national food
sensor and imaging technologies, systems, 140
289 transformation pathways, 418

Signals for Change, 326 transgenic animals, 272, 530
small and medium-sized enterprises triple burden of malnutrition, 221,
(SMEs), 140, 353 548, 630
small farms, 11, 138
small UAVs (sUAVs), 288 undernutrition, 215
small-farm productivity, 628 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs),
smallholder agriculture, 305, 372, 285
463 urban expansion, 11
smart farming, 318 urban population, 139, 553, 616
solar, 477, 509 urban-based farmers, 140
solid biomass, 477 urbanization, 9, 69, 139, 140
spatial development initiatives Uruguay Round, 590
(SDIs), 389
specialized commercial farms, 149 value chains, 137, 181, 356, 377,
structural transformation, 89, 425, 532
609 value web, 532
stunting rates, 611 value-chain clusters, 374
subsistence farmers, 150, 154, 226, variable-rate application, 286
579 venture capital, 361
subsistence farming, 144, 193 vertical agriculture, 323
sustainability, 443 vitamin and mineral deficiencies,
sustainability labels, 531 215
Index 661
waste and losses in the food chain, workforce in agriculture, 137

16, 492 world food crisis, 141
water conservation, 626, 636, 641 World Trade Organization (WTO),
water quality, 228 570
water scarcity, 198, 227
water stress, 198 yield gaps, 235, 463
water-food-energy nexus, 4 youth migration, 101, 117, 126

wind, 477, 509 youth population, 95, 104
women’s labor, 230
wood, 477 Zero Hunger, 195, 515
workforce, 138, 361, 618 zoonotic diseases, 232, 531

Agriculture and Food Systems To 2050

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Vol. 2 Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050: Global Trends,

Vol. 1 Global Challenges for Future Food and Agricultural Policies

Sylvia - 11212 - Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050.indd 1 15-10-18 9:30:31 AM

Agriculture & Food

11212_9789813278349_tp.indd 2 11/10/18 3:50 PM

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Classification: LCC S494.5.S86 A378 2018 | DDC 333.76/16--dc23

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Copyright © 2019 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

For any available supplementary material, please visit

Desk Editor: Sylvia Koh

Sylvia - 11212 - Agriculture & Food Systems to 2050.indd 2 29-10-18 5:00:25 PM

The adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 193 countries

Nations, the University of Naples, the University of Oxford, the

Maggie Gill (Chair) and Leslie Lipper (Executive Director)

Rachid Serraj joined the ISPC Secretariat in December 2012, coming

with a broad production systems background, having worked for more

Prabhu Pingali is a Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied

Economics Division at FAO (2002–2008). In addition, he worked with the

development practitioner and senior manager. Pingali has written 10 books

Kym Anderson, George Gollin Professor of Economics, University of

Martin Andersson, Associate Professor, Department of Economic

Anaka Aiyar, Post-Doctoral Associate, Tata-Cornell Institute for

Molly E. Brown, Associate Research Professor, Department of

Tine van Criekinge, International Cooperation Officer, European

Jonathan Crouch, Chief Executive Officer, Innovative Solutions for

Eva-Maria Egger, Applied Economist, Research and Impact

Silke den Hartog, Foresight Expert, Netherlands Study Centre for

Peter B. R. Hazell, Independent Researcher, Santa Barbara, California,

John Ingram, Leader, Environmental Change Institute (ECI) Food

Programme; Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow,

Lakshmi Krishnan, Agricultural Research Officer, CGIAR Independent

Peter Langridge, Emeritus Professor, School of Agriculture, Food and

Rodrigo Leme, Bioenergy Team, International Renewable Energy

Albino Maggio, Professor of Agronomy and Crop Science, University of

J. V. Meenakshi, Professor of Economics, Delhi School of Economics,

Prabhu Pingali, Professor, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied

Carl Pray, Distinguished Professor, Agricultural, Food and Resource

Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist, NASA Goddard

Alex C. Ruane, Research Physical Scientist, National Aeronautics and

Fabiana Scapolo, Deputy Head of Unit for Foresight, Behavioural

Marie-Hélène Schwoob, Research Fellow, Agriculture and Food

Policies, Institute for Sustainable Development and International

Rachid Serraj, Senior Agricultural Research Officer, CGIAR

Pablo Tittonell, National Coordinator, Natural Resources and

Sébastien Treyer, Director of Programmes, Institute for Sustainable

Patrick Webb, Professor of Nutrition, Friedman School of Nutrition

Alex Williams, Strategy and Foresight Consultant, The Global Foresight

Paul Winters, Associate Vice-President, a.i., Strategy and Knowledge

Monika Zurek, Senior Researcher, Environmental Change Institute

About the Editors vii

Part I – Agriculture and Food Systems: Looking towards 2030/2050 1

Chapter 1 – Agriculture and Food Systems to 2050: A Synthesis 3

Rachid Serraj, Lakshmi Krishnan, and Prabhu Pingali

Chapter 2 – Global Drivers and Megatrends in Agri-Food Systems 47

Part II – Food System Threats and Challenges 85

Chapter 3 – Migration, Demography, and Agri-Food Systems 87

Chapter 4 – Urbanization, Agriculture, and Smallholder Farming 137

Chapter 5 – Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture 161

Chapter 6 – Environment and Natural Resources 193

Chapter 7 – Food Systems, Diets, and Nutrition 215

Part III – Technological Innovation and Disruptive Futures 243