Table Of ContentAgrimonde – Scenarios and Challenges
for Feeding the World in 2050
Sandrine Paillard • Sébastien Treyer • Bruno Dorin
Editors
Agrimonde – Scenarios
and Challenges for Feeding
the World in 2050
1 3
Editors
Sandrine Paillard Bruno Dorin
ANR CIRAD
Paris Montpellier
France France
Sébastien Treyer
IDDRI
Paris
France
Éditions Quæ, RD 10, 78026 Versailles Cedex, France
ISBN 978-94-017-8744-4 ISBN 978-94-017-8745-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-8745-1
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Preface
Could we feed the whole world today? Strictly speaking yes, from the point of view
of the quantities of food produced by agriculture (3,000 kcal/cap/day in 2003)—but
this of course fails to take into account crises and wars, inequalities, speculation
and unaffordable prices for the rural and urban poor, loss and waste, climate-related
accidents and pest invasions which starve peasants in many parts of the world.
Amartya Sen, in his book “Poverty and Famines” published in 1981, puts it in a
nutshell: “Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food
to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat”; hence the
billion undernourished people in the world in 2009. What about in 2050 when 3 bil-
lion more human beings are expected to be living on this planet? This is the crucial
question considered in this book; a question on which INRA and CIRAD decided to
work together by launching the Agrimonde foresight project in 2006.
Although it may sound straightforward, in practice the question is difficult to
address. The food and agricultural challenge cannot be limited to theoretically sat-
isfying the nutritional needs of the earth’s population in quantitative terms only. It is
also a matter of enabling everyone to have access to sufficient food that is safe from
a sanitary point of view as well as being nutritionally balanced. Nor can the chal-
lenge be reduced to a basic equation of supply and demand of agricultural goods
and food. Agricultural and food systems also have to be grounded in a logic of sus-
tainable development, and to take into account the problem of energy induced by
the gradual depletion of fossil fuel reserves, not to mention the growth of social in-
equalities. As well as producing more, the world’s farmers will also have to produce
more efficiently, using practices and systems that make sparing use of fossil fuels
and natural resources. Additionally, they will have to produce other things: energy
and industrial goods as substitutes for petrochemical products, as well as environ-
mental and territorial services (soil and water preservation, biodiversity protection,
carbon storage, prevention and limitation of fires and floods, provision of open and
diversified landscapes).
In view of the complexity of the question, we decided to adopt a foresight ap-
proach in which we first considered two scenarios describing possible, sharply con-
trasting futures. Both have the same timeline (2050) and the same assumptions of
demographic growth in each large region of the world and of migrations between
v
vi Preface
regions. They differ however in their trajectories in the evolution of food and agri-
cultural systems—trajectories that represent two contrasting visions of tomorrow’s
world. The first scenario represents a continuation of current trends in the produc-
tion and use of various types of food biomass in a “liberalised” world where the
priority is economic growth and the material well-being of current generations. The
second trajectory sets the objective of satisfying global food needs, amounting to
3,000 kcal per capita per day, including 500 of animal and aquatic origin, in all the
regions of the world. This implies less consumption and waste in developed coun-
tries and substantial increases in food consumption in many developing countries.
Here the objective underlying the evolution of the food and agricultural systems of
the world’s regions is sustainability.
This book describes the construction and analysis process of these two scenarios,
along with the conclusions that can be drawn from them. Without going into any
detail here, three challenges are highlighted by this foresight exercise, concerning:
diets and their impacts on major balances; technological and organisational choices
in agricultural production and the feasibility of an agriculture that is both intensive
and ecological; and international trade in agricultural and agri-food products, in-
cluding the possibility of making it secure on a global scale. These three challenges
are considered in the last chapters of the book.
This initial endeavour calls for follow-up in two respects: first, the setting up of a
permanent, quantitative and qualitative platform in France that could serve to rein-
force reflection on the future of food and agriculture; and, second, the identification
of priority research questions put to international agronomic research. A platform
for this purpose will be created by CIRAD and INRA at the end of 2010.
Before leaving you to enjoy this book, we wish to thank everyone who partici-
pated in this initial phase of the “Agrimonde adventure”: the scientists from INRA,
CIRAD and other research and education institutions, as well as all the experts who
were asked to contribute and who offered us not only their advice and criticism but
also their encouragement.
President of INRA Marion Guillou
President of CIRAD Gérard Matheron
Agrimonde: A Work Collective
Under the responsibility of a CIRAD-INRA steering committee, the Agrimonde
scenarios were developed, analysed and discussed by a collective consisting of
a panel and a project team which met through 20 workshops from June 2006 to
December 2008.
Steering Committee
Patrick Caron, CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International De-
velopment)
Catherine Esnouf, INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research)
Hervé Guyomard, INRA
Bernard Hubert, FI4IAR (French Initiative for International Agricultural Research)
Alain Weil, CIRAD
Project Team
Sébastien Treyer (Project Leader), IDDRI (Institute for Sustainable Development
and International Relations)
Maryse Aoudaï, INRA
Jean-Marc Chaumet, INRA
Bruno Dorin, CIRAD
Tristan Le Cotty, CIRAD
Sandrine Paillard, INRA
Tévécia Ronzon, INRA
With the collaboration of Rémi Barré, INRA and CNAM, Isabelle Karcher, INRA
and Laurent Parrot, CIRAD
Expert Panel
Bernard Bachelier, FARM (Foundation for World Agriculture and Rural Life)
Danielle Barret, CIRAD
Pierre-Marie Bosc, CIRAD
Jacques Brossier, FI4IAR
Jean-Pierre Butault, INRA
Jean-Christophe Debar, AGRI US Analyse
Francis Delpeuch, IRD (Research Institute for Development)
vii
viii Agrimonde: A Work Collective
Fabrice Dreyfus, SupAgro Montpellier (International Center for Higher Education
in Agricultural Sciences, Montpellier)
Gérard Ghersi, MSH Montpellier (The Montpellier Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Institute)
Michel Griffon, CIRAD
Christian Hoste, CIRAD
Bernard Hubert, FI4IAR
Denis Lacroix, IFREMER (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea)
Marie de Lattre-Gasquet, CIRAD, ANR (French National Research Agency)
Jacques Loyat, MAP (French Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries)
Michel Petit, IAM (Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Montpellier)
Jean-Louis Rastouin, SupAgro Montpellier (International Center for Higher Educa-
tion in Agricultural Sciences, Montpellier)
Introduction
Bruno Dorin, Sandrine Paillard and Sébastien Treyer
The interactions between agricultural production, food and sustainable develop-
ment are the subject of a growing number of debates and studies, in which different
visions of the world and different positions in the geopolitical arena are revealed
and brought into confrontation. These interactions concern issues of wealth distri-
bution and international regulations on global trade and public goods. They also
relate to conceptions of the science-society nexus, of progress, of our planet’s future
and humans’ role therein.
These debates and analyses have been enhanced over the past few years by the
confluence of research of diverse origins and traditions: econometric modelling
dedicated to the analysis of agricultural or energy policies; global foresight studies
of geopolitical inspiration or concerned by global sustainable development; model-
ling of the impacts of climate change; and, more recently, studies stemming from
international scientific assessment on ecosystems or biological diversity. There are
very few countries, international organisations, major NGOs, or leading firms today
that do not, in one way or another, contribute to the debate on the world’s future
agricultural production and food, their interactions with the objective of sustain-
able development, and its implications for international relations, public policy and
research priorities.
On the whole, this abundance of information, data and approaches fails to pro-
vide a coherent picture. The new awareness of global risks has led to a proliferation
of analyses and of the international arenas in which they are presented, but has not
necessarily clarified the challenges and options available to address them. Nor has
it prompted many questions on the underlying assumptions structuring the debates,
or brought to the fore approaches out of line with international doxa.
By identifying leeway through new reflection opportunities, foresight studies
seek to further the evolution of these debates. The challenge is immense since these
studies and the debates they generate are the crucible where many concepts and
scientific and political arguments are converted into standards. These, in turn, will
weigh on international negotiations on agriculture, international trade and develop-
ment aid, as well as on the action of multilateral organisations.
The CIRAD-INRA Agrimonde initiative stemmed from the desire to promote
reflexivity and interaction. Stimulated by the work of the Millennium Ecosystem
ix
x Introduction
Assessment (MA) (MA, 2005a) and the International Assessment of Agricultur-
al Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) (IAASTD,
2009), this initiative defined three main objectives: (1) to design the modalities of
strategic reflection based on a scenario approach, in order to guide research orienta-
tions in the field of agronomy and food, broadly speaking; (2) to initiate a process
of debates, interactions and appropriation of these topics on a national scale; (3) to
favour the participation of French experts in international debates on the subject.
The Agrimonde foresight study has acted as a platform for the analysis and dis-
cussion of scenarios. It was designed as a mechanism of interaction between “ex-
perts”: researchers, decision-makers and, more generally, stakeholders and actors
within the system under consideration.
The platform was also designed to function according to the basic principles of
a foresight approach, i.e.:
• consideration of the systemic nature of reality by integrating the multiplicity of
relevant variables as far as possible,
• explicit expression of divergences, including the variety of worldviews and of
scientific and institutional positions,
• integration of scientific uncertainties by revealing the assumptions underlying
alternative scenarios, with a view to exploring possibilities and not to making
predictions,
• collective learning that impacts on each actor’s representations by involving ex-
perts and stakeholders in the work itself,
• reflection with a long-term view in order to assess individual and combined ef-
fects of the evolution of variables, as well as the impacts of assumptions on pos-
sible futures,
• transparency of the work progress, reference to the best scientific studies to con-
stitute analytical and databases, and clarification of the simplifications and as-
sumptions made.
This book presents the results of work undertaken by the Agrimonde Expert Panel
during the period from 2006 to 2008. The first two chapters present the foresight
platform designed for scenario-building and, in particular, the quantitative Agribi-
om module which was the main tool used to quantify the scenarios. Chapter 3 is
devoted to a review of the food economy over more than four decades (1961–2003),
on a global scale and in six major regions of the world (Middle East—North Africa,
Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia, the former Soviet Union, and OECD-
1990). Knowledge of past trends has proved indispensable in making assumptions
on the evolution of agricultural resources and uses in the period up to 2050. Chap-
ter 4 explains the choice of the two scenarios: one is essentially a trend-based sce-
nario (Agrimonde GO) while the other shows a distinct break with previous trends
and foresees sustainable food and agriculture in 2050 (Agrimonde 1). Chapters 5, 6,
7, 8, 9 and 10 present the successive stages of the scenario-building process. First
the quantitative assumptions on food uses are described (Chap. 5), followed by
those on agricultural resources (agricultural areas in Chapter 6 and food crop yields
in Chap. 7). The food resource-use balances are then calculated (Chap. 8) to assess
