Ag Issues: The Growing Global Demand

For this week’s Ag Issues topic, I decided to write about the effect of the quickly growing population of the world on agriculture. My first thought was: How is the Midwest, more specifically Southwest Missouri, affected by something globally? How is this going to affect farmers in this area, how is this going to impact my family? As a result, I decided to further research the issue. As I have stated before in my periodicals, I enjoy writing about topics I know nothing about. It gives me a reason to research and better educate myself on issues. Some issues I find are irrelevant to myself, which I quickly put on the back burner; however, something as big as possibly reaching a point where mankind will not have enough resources for everyone seems to be an issue we need to address right now. 

According to National Geographic, by 2050 it is projected that the population of the world can increase more than 35%. How are farmers and producers supposed to keep up with rapidly growing populations, when the cost of materials and land for them are also increasing? Are we expecting producers to take on the cost personally, while still handling the challenges of feeding the whole world? My outlook on this seems to be that producers are getting the short end of the stick. National Geographic estimated that crop production needs to double, to feed the growing population.

I believe that we, as consumers throughout the world, need to figure out what our expectations for the producers around the world are. What kind of food will we be eating in 2050? Will we expect to still be eating the food we have today? 

What is the human population going to do so we can improve the way of lives for farmers and producers? What resources are we going to provide, in order for producers to continue feeding the growing world population?