Prospects for global food security: a critical appraisal of past projections and predictions

During the last half century, a number of individuals and institutions, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and IFPRI, have engaged in projections of future food demand, supply, and related variables. In this brief, Alex McCalla and Cesar Revoredo compare projections with real-life outcomes. Projections forecast outcomes on the basis of certain underlying factors. If such forecasted outcomes are undesirable, changes may be made in the underlying factors so that the projections may not, in fact, come to pass. Many projections serve this precise goal. Therefore, the success of projections may not be that they match actual outcomes but that they avoid such outcomes by promoting action to change underlying variables. Unlike predictions, which are successful only if they match actual outcomes, projections that differ from actual outcomes may reflect either poor projection models or changes in underlying variables, possibly caused by the projections themselves.

[1]  G. Ranis.  World Development Report 1980. , 1981 .

[2]  Peter H. Gleick,et al.  Water in crisis: a guide to the world's fresh water resources , 1993 .

[3]  S. Aberg,et al.  [The population explosion]. , 1984, Katilolehti.

[4]  L. Brown,et al.  Twenty-two dimensions of the population problem. , 1976, Population reports. Series J, Family planning programs.

[5]  John N. Warfield,et al.  World dynamics , 1973 .

[6]  M. Ahluwalia,et al.  Inequality, poverty and development. , 1976, Journal of development economics.

[7]  E. Boserup.  The conditions of agricultural growth: The economics of agrarian change under population pressure , 1966 .

[8]  N. L. Johnson,et al.  Design for Decision. , 1954 .

[9]  C. Clark.  Starvation or plenty , 1970 .

[10]  H. Theil,et al.  Economic Forecasts and Policy. , 1959 .

[11]  Lester R. Brown,et al.  Who Will Feed China?: Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet , 1995 .

[12]  R. Tyers,et al.  Disarray in World Food Markets: A Quantitative Assessment , 1993 .

[13]  M. Rosegrant,et al.  Global Food Projections to 2020: Implications for Investment , 1995 .

[14]  J. Hoogh,et al.  MOIRA, Model of International Relations in Agriculture , 1981 .

[15]  Thomas W. Hertel,et al.  Linked National Models: A Tool For International Food Policy Analysis , 1988 .

[16]  The Resourceful Earth. A Response to Global 2000. , 1985 .

[17]  B. Reviews.  The World Food Outlook , 1997 .

[18]  M. Lowe,et al.  State of the World 1993: A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress toward a Sustainable Society. , 1993 .

[19]  L. R. Brown.  State of the world 1984. A Worldwatch Institute Report on progress towards a sustainable society. , 1984 .

[20]  V. Ruttan,et al.  A guide to LDC food balance projections , 1983 .

[21]  D. Johnson.  World Food Problems , 1975 .

[22]  Kirit S. Parikh,et al.  Food for All in a Sustainable World: The IIASA Food and Agriculture Program , 1981 .

[23]  L. Brown.  The World Outlook for Conventional Agriculture , 1967, Science.

[24]  Wassily Leontief,et al.  The future of the world economy , 1977 .

[25]  Peter Brecke.  Integrated Global Models That Run On Personal Computers , 1993, Simul..

[26]  N. Islam,et al.  Population and food in the early twenty-first century: meeting future food demands of an increasing population. , 1995 .

[27]  Charles Baier,et al.  Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic : A Critical Review , 2001 .

[28]  D. Meadows,et al.  The limits to growth. A report for the Club of Rome's project on the predicament of mankind. , 1972 .

[29]  Leonardo A. Paulino,et al.  Publications: IFPRI Abstract: Food in the Third World: Past Trends and Projections to 2000 , 1986 .

[30]  H. Singer,et al.  Book Review: Poverty and Famines-An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation , 1982, Journal of Xidian University.

[31]  Mihajlo Mesarovic,et al.  Mankind at the turning point : the second report to the club of Rome / Mihajlo Mesarovic, Edward Pestel , 1974 .

[32]  Graciela Chichilnisky,et al.  Catastrophe or new society? : a Latin American world model , 1976 .

[33]  D. Meadows,et al.  Beyond the limits: confronting global collapse envisioning a sustainable future. , 1992 .

[34]  G. Barney,et al.  The Global 2000 Report to the President: Entering the Twenty-First Century , 1982, Toward a Just World Order.

[35]  L. Brown.  Seeds of Change: The Green Revolution and Development in the 1970's , 1971 .

[36]  Tim Dyson,et al.  Full House: Reassessing the Earth's Population Carrying Capacity , 1995 .

[37]  P. Pini.  A history for the future , 1997, The Lancet.

[38]  W. Nordhaus.  World Dynamics: Measurement Without Data , 1973 .

[39]  J. Bongaarts,et al.  Beyond six billion : forecasting the world's population , 2000 .

[40]  L. Brown,et al.  Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge , 1999 .

[41]  Max F. Millikan.  Alternatives for Balancing World Food Production and Needs. A conference, Ames, Iowa. Iowa State University Press, Ames, 1967. 281 pp., illus. $4.95 , 1967 .

[42]  Earl O. Heady,et al.  World Food Production, Demand, and Trade , 1973 .

[43]  P. Dixit,et al.  USDA's World Wheat Trade Model , 1985 .

[44]  A. Mccalla.  Agriculture and Food Needs to 2025 : Why We Should be Concerned , 1994 .

[45]  P. Zusman.  Spatial and temporal price and allocation models , 1971 .

[46]  International poverty projections , 1991 .

[47]  The World Food Problem: Four Recent Empirical Studies , 1970 .

[48]  T. T. Poleman.  World food: a perspective. , 1975, Science.

[49]  Robert L. Thompson.  A survey of recent U.S. developments in international agricultural trade models , 1981 .

[50]  The World Development Report, 1979. , 1980 .

[51]  Donald N. Duvick,et al.  Feeding the Ten Billion: Plants and Population Growth , 1999 .

[52]  Lester R. Brown.  The Changing World Food Prospect: the Nineties and Beyond , 1988 .

[53]  T. Dyson.  Population and food: global trends and future prospects. , 1996 .

[54]  John Wainio,et al.  International Agricultural Baseline Projections to 2007 , 1997 .

[55]  H. Chenery,et al.  Growth and Poverty in Developing Countries , 1979 .

[56]  P. Uvin.  The International Organization of Hunger , 1993 .

[57]  P. Demeny.  World Population Prospects: Estimates and Projections as Assessed in 1982. , 1985 .

[58]  William H. Meyers,et al.  Baseline Projections, Yield Impacts, and Trade Liberalization Impacts for Soybeans, Wheat, and Feed Grains: A FAPRI Trade Model Analysis , 1986 .

[59]  A. Parant.  [World population prospects]. , 1990, Futuribles.

[60]  P. Crosson,et al.  World agriculture: Toward 2000, an FAO study , 1996 .

[61]  R. Yarwood,et al.  Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population , 2003 .

[62]  F. Lappé,et al.  World hunger: 12 myths. , 1998 .

[63]  Stanley R. Johnson,et al.  FAPRI Modeling System at CARD: A Documentation Summary, The , 1989 .

[64]  L. Brown.  Tough choices : facing the challenge of food scarcity , 1997 .

[65]  Christopher Flavin,et al.  ワールドウォッチ研究所地球白書 = State of the world : a Worldwatch Institute report on progress toward a sustainable society , 1987 .

[66]  A. Schimdt.  By Bread Alone , 1978 .