by Silvia Marchetti

    ROME, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- In order to meet the world's rising food demand, agriculture has "no choice" but to increase its production by 70 percent in 2050, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-general Jacques Diouf has said at a two-day High-Level Expert Forum on How to Feed the World in 2050, which concluded here on Tuesday.

    Diouf urged concrete and rapid measures from governments and institutions since food emergency was an issue that could not be any further delayed.

    The Rome-based agency hosted on Oct. 12-13 an international panel gathering more than 300 academic, nongovernmental and private sector representatives from both developing and developed countries. Talks focused on finding solutions to world famine and food emergency in 2050.

    According to papers presented to the forum, the world's population is expected to soar by 34 percent and reach 9.1 billion by 2050. The population growth would take place entirely in developing countries.

    There will thus be 2.3 billion more mouths to feed and a consequent higher risk of leaving 370 million people in hunger unless adequate investments are made both in agriculture and in other sectors vital to economic growth, the FAO experts concluded.

    "The combined effect of population growth, strong income growth and urbanization is expected to result in almost the doubling of demand for food, feed and fiber," said Diouf.

    The key to assuring global food security, however, lies in agriculture which is the core-sector of economic growth, especially in developing and emerging countries, Diouf added.

    The FAO chief told delegates that in order to achieve a 70-percent increase in food production by 2050, "agriculture will have no choice but to be more productive" and a greater role is expected both from individual farmers and states.

    The small rural workforce will have to produce more and better from fewer resources to meet demand, while at the same time governments must boost research and investments in the rural sector.

    Improvements in yield and cropping, rather than an increase in arable land, are essential in order to meet rising food demands and eradicate hunger.

    However, organic agriculture was not an answer to the problem. While it contributes to hunger and poverty reduction and should be promoted, it cannot by itself feed the rapidly growing population.

    In the short run governments must develop technologies that can lead to higher food supplies.

    Greater allocations from national budgets, foreign direct investments and private sector resources should be made available to fund access to irrigation systems, machinery, storage, more roads and better rural infrastructures, as well as on training farmers.

    The FAO used the two-day conference to call on governments across the world to increase aid to agriculture from the 7.9 billion dollars a year currently being invested to a total of 44 billion dollars a year which the forum estimates will be needed to meet such challenges.

    There are many other challenges in tackling famine and food scarcity. One is the impact of climate change on production. FAO experts warned that global warming would make the target of food security tougher, with output dropping by up to 30 percent in Africa and 21 percent in Asia by 2050.

    Diouf said that "global agriculture will have to cope with the effects of climate change, notably higher temperatures, greater rainfall variability and more frequent extreme weather events such as floods and droughts."

    Climate change will also reduce water availability and lead to an increase in pests and diseases but solutions can be found within the agricultural sector, which "can actively contribute to adaptation and mitigation strategies aimed at tackling climate change," said Diouf.

    Another challenge to food security comes from bio-fuels. The FAO director-general warned that the bio-fuels market had "the potential to change the fundamentals of agricultural market systems" with production set to increase by nearly 90 percent over the next 10 years to reach 192 billion liters by 2018, reducing crop land availability.

    Forum participants discussed as well the problem of soaring food prices, which are likely to stay high and volatile in the medium term. According to the FAO, food products' prices have risen by 19 percent just in the last two years.

    The experts warned that a repeat of the 2007-2008 price spikes is a realistic possibility. The increase in food prices has caused a sharp rise in the number of hungry people around the world to more than 1 billion this year.

    The issue of food emergency will come into further focus next month when heads of state from the FAO's 192 member nations meet for the World Summit on Food Security, scheduled in Rome on Nov. 16-18.

    Diouf said he looked forward to the summit's outcomes and urged governments and institutions to change attitude toward food emergency-related topics.

    "Feeding the world's population is a reachable target but the 'business as usual' logic must be at once dropped and concrete decisions immediately taken," he concluded.

    The FAO said it hoped next month's summit will agree on "the complete and rapid eradication of hunger so that every human being on earth can enjoy the most fundamental of all human rights: the right to food and thus to decent life."