AGRIBUSINESS: Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits is achievable.

AGRIBUSINESS: Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits is achievable. A study published in the journal Nature, is the first to quantify how food production and consumption affects the planetary boundaries that describe a safe operating space for humanity beyond which Earth's vital systems could become unstable. 

 A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050 Adopting these options reduces the risk of crossing global environmental limits related to climate change, the use of agricultural land, the extraction of freshwater resources, and the pollution of ecosystems through overapplication of fertilizers, according to the researchers. "No single solution is enough to avoid crossing planetary boundaries. 

But when the solutions are implemented together, our research indicates that it may be possible to feed the growing population sustainably," says Dr Marco Springmann of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, who led the study. "Without concerted action, we found that the environmental impacts of the food system could increase by 50-90% by 2050 as a result of population growth and the rise of diets high in fats, sugars and meat. In that case, all planetary boundaries related to food production would be surpassed, some of them by more than twofold."