Correlation between food prices, land area and population growth
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Increased food prices are being experienced all over the world. Increased food prices are a global problem related to population growth and less land for food production in some parts of the world.
Agricultural land worldwide
In our global world, we need to look at the agricultural area for the entire globe as a whole. Agricultural goods are exported and imported from different countries and few countries are self-sufficient in everything.
According to Population Educations, the world’s total area for agriculture is almost at the same place as in 1960. In the same period, the world’s population has increased from 3 billion to 8 billion. The world’s population is expected to increase further in the future, particularly in Africa and Asia.
There are fairly large regional differences in development. In Europe and North America, agricultural land has decreased. This is partly due to reduced population growth in these areas, urbanization, industrialization and more efficient agriculture. In Africa, agricultural land is increasing slightly. This is due to an increased population in Africa and more efficient agriculture. In South America, the area has increased slightly as a result of areas that were previously rainforest now being used for agriculture.
A large population increase
The number of people on our planet has almost doubled since 1960. In some areas, population growth is very high. For example, in Asia and Africa. Large parts of Europe have seen little or no growth in the number of inhabitants in recent years.
However, the overall picture is that population growth has been and continues to be significant. This is happening at the same time as the area used for agriculture is not increasing significantly. Yes, efficiency improvements in agriculture have been significant during this period, but they have hardly been sufficient. In the time ahead, the global population will increase further.
Food prices as a consequence
The consequence of an increased population and not an increase in agricultural land is found in food prices. It is a basic economic principle that supply and demand drive prices in markets. This also applies to agricultural products.
In some countries, agriculture is protected by import bans or tariff walls. This is used particularly in areas where local agriculture does not have the same basic natural opportunities. For example, in Scandinavia, where the winter is long and the time for harvesting certain agricultural products is short. Protecting our own agriculture must be seen in the context of emergency preparedness. In a crisis, it will be essential to have an agricultural sector that can supply as many items as possible.
It will be necessary to increase the total amount of food produced in the world. Here, agriculture plays a key role. Farmers must be paid wages that enable them to continue producing food in the future. It is likely that the price of food will continue to rise. The reason for this is that the total agricultural area is not increasing in line with population growth.