Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Feeding the world: Can global crop production meet future demands?


     This interactive map was done by Esri (makers of ArcGIS software).  It shows a study done by the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment that focuses on how the world's crop production can double by the year 2050, so as to support the world's ever growing population. 

     3 solutions are offered based on various articles (I believe all of these solutions were discussed in class at one time or another):

     1) Closing Yield Gaps
     2) Increasing water use efficiency
     3) Changing crop use & diet

     Each solution can be quickly compared to Current Crop Yields by moving the vertical slider to the left and right.  It makes for a very visually stimulating look at possible solutions to global crop production going into the future.

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3 comments:

  1. UnknownDecember 6, 2013 at 6:04 PM

    Its interesting that the areas which have high water usage have had significantly increased outsourcing activity from firms which require plentiful, cheap water. Correlation is not causation, but still, rather peculiar.

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  2. Josh WoodDecember 8, 2013 at 11:50 AM

    An interesting map, but I do not know how much of an impact predicted climate change will have on precipitation for this prediction. http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/will-the-wet-get-wetter-and-the-dry-drier
    Long-term models are predicting a serious drought for mid latitudes: Western and southwest US including Florida and extending into most of Europe by this time. South America and Africa could also be greatly affected. I am glad people are putting thought into solutions for crop efficiency for a growing population, but it seems this map is painting an unrealistic picture without taking into account climate factors. The increased moisture prediction in northern South America, and extending into the Pacific is consistent with typical El Nino patterns, and the models after 2020 seem to want this pattern almost permanent, this alone would have global impacts, including suppressed Atlantic hurricane activity. The predicted drought reaching into the small fertile areas of Africa would further suppress tropical storm formation, and these storms are very important sources of moisture and heat transfer to us and northern latitudes. Could be tricky, and water sources for irrigation and drinking will be at center stage.

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  3. UnknownDecember 9, 2013 at 9:27 PM

    For those interested in agricultural policy, I think this is a great map to start. I'm not sure exactly where I heard it (extra credit session, video from a lecture, guest speaker), but I remember someone talking about the importance of increasing yield and how there were different discourses on ways of going about achieving the desirable yield. As much as I think this map is easy to understand and quickly gets to the point, I think that this map overgeneralizes the issue at hand without providing much of ways for support/actions we could take, etc. Also, I think it would've been better if the map provided more indepth area/region-specific info and solutions.

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