Nourishing the Planet Worldwatch Institute Project on Hunger and Poverty Alleviation

1. Nourishing thePlanetWorldwatch Institute Project on Hunger and Poverty Alleviation Danielle Nierenberg Senior Researcher, Worldwatch Institute dnierenberg@worldwatch.org http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/ www.worldwatch.org

2. Nourishing the Planet Part II: Our Challenge in the 21st Century? Finding ways to nourish both people and the planet with environmentally sustainable methods of food production Source: Bernard Pollack

3. Challenge of Reducing Hunger Demographic, economic, and natural forces all conspire to make the challenge of reducing hunger more difficult, including: • Soaring petroleum and food prices • Population growth and urbanization • Climate change • Gender inequity • Changing diets • Unfair trade practices • Subsidies

4. Challenges: Population Growth

5. 79 million more people each year By 2050, population will exceed 9 billion Source: World Bank Challenges: Population Growth

6. Challenges: Urbanization • More people now living in cities than in rural areas • Urban consumers pay more for their food than people in rural areas • Urban and peri-urban agriculture are growing, but can also create food safety problems Source: Bernard Pollack

7. Women comprise up to 80 percent of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa Many lack access to land tenure, credit, extension services Studies show that gender inequity can negatively affect natural resources, including by causing deforestation Source: World Bank Challenges: Gender Inequity

8. Challenge: Changing Diets

9. Challenge: Changing Diets • Growing middle-class populations are able to include more animal products in their diets • Livestock are responsible for 18% of GHG emissions • Spread of zoonotic diseases and foodborne illness Source: EcoAgriculture Partners,Sajal Sthapit

10. Challenges: Biofuels

11. The increased biofuel demand between 2000 and 2007 is estimated to have accounted for 30 percent of the increase in weighted average grain prices(IFPRI 2008) Worldwide, the amount of coarse grains converted to energy jumped 15 percent to 255 million tons in 2007 Challenges: Biofuels Source: World Bank

12. Source: World Bank Challenges: Climate Change • The impacts of rising temperatures and more-extreme weather events will likely hurt the poor, especially rural farmers, the most • According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), agricultural yields in Africa could decline by more than 30 percent by 2050

13. Opportunities and Growing Interest in Agriculture The same high food prices that handicap food-aid organizations and threaten hundreds of millions of people with hunger are also pushing governments to commit to long-term, agricultural investment They are also responsible for establishing food security as a global priority

14. The Single Best Way to Alleviate Poverty A recent United Nations analysis of Asia and the Pacific found that 218 million people could be lifted out of poverty by raising agricultural productivity Growth originating from agriculture is known to be twice as effective in reducing poverty as GDP growth originating from outside of agriculture (World Bank, WDR 2008)

15. www.worldwatch.org