Abstract for:Exploring the Potential for Feeding a Changing World

Undernutrition still causes reduced cognitive development, stunted growth, increased morbidity, and increased mortality. The supply of especially vegetal food types will be affected by climate change, while autonomous national improvements in agricultural yield may not be sufficient to bridge the gap with the maximum possible yields per food type. Food demand is influenced by both population and income growth, where the latter can cause strong meat demand growth. We developed a System Dynamics model to simulate how food supply and demand may develop until 2031 given climate change, yield gap, and population and income growth. We parametrised this model for 167 countries and analysed the results with the Scenario Discovery approach. The analysis showed that for 62 countries the lowest precipitation scenario and for 57 countries the highest precipitation scenario appears to be most problematic for agricultural supply. When soil degradation takes long to restore – a yield gap issue – changing precipitation effects are increased. High economic growth is most problematic for meat supply in countries which have a GDP per capita ratio at the beginning of the middle-class effect, while high population growth combined with low economic growth negatively affects especially highest development level countries.