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New research suggests world's population could reach 12.3 bln by end of the century. Will there be enough food to go round?
In justifying the rapid rise of China's population before its one child policy, former leader Mao Zedong once remarked that "every stomach comes with a pair of hands".
Ahead of World Food Day on Oct. 16, the problem looks rather different: too many stomachs and not enough steady work to go around.
"In many settings the land people have occupied and farmed for centuries is now more valuable than the labour of the people on it," Saskia Sassen, a professor at sociology at Columbia University who studies land politics, told me.
"We are expelling more and more people from what we might think of as our global economic space." The numbers of citizens occupying that space keep growing.
New research from the United Nations suggests the world's population is likely to reach between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion by the end of this century, an upward revision of the past consensus.
"In particular, the population of Africa (now 1 billion) will grow rapidly and is projected to more than triple, increasing to between 3.5 and 5.1 billion by the end of the century," said Adrian Raftery, a professor of statistics at the University of Washington who worked with the U.N. to crunch the latest numbers.
This rapid growth will exacerbate the difficulty of providing enough for everyone to eat, he said, but "the challenge can be met with the right policies".
"World population has doubled since 1970, but global food production has more than doubled in that time and the rate of famines has not increased."
In order to feed 12 billion people, yields will need to grow, particularly in Africa.
Across the continent the average farm produces only about 40 percent of its potential, according to a new report from International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
Some analysts believe larger farms with greater mechanisation are important for increasing production. Eighty percent of African farms are considered small plots, IFAD reported. Presently, the continent is only expected to produce 13 percent of its food needs by 2050.
The problem is that larger farms likely won't be able to absorb all the workers who once cultivated small plots, if consolidation occurs.
"We would expect areas to begin to reduce their agricultural workforce," Chris Grocott, an economic historian at the University of Leicester said.
"It will be sad and dramatic for people who were involved in those smaller scale farming units ... (They will join) people around the world struggling to get jobs – they (will be) marginalised."
Global poverty today is defined more by marginalisation - people who serve no purpose for capital - rather than the industrial exploitation of yesteryear. Farmers forced from their land, either by market pressures or violence, become some of the worst affected.
Sure, some garment factories, brick kilns, certain mining operations and plenty of other industries still provide examples of worker exploitation.
But the people living on the margins – in slums surrounding major cities without any form of stable employment or in rural areas lacking basic infrastructure - are often the most destitute. They will have the hardest time feeding themselves in a world of 12 billion.
If agricultural output continues growing - despite environmental factors like water scarcity and global warming - mechanisation could mean a smaller proportion of the population will be needed as producers. Those left out will have little hope of having money to be consumers.
Even if humanity beats the environmental odds and grows enough to go around, some people will remain priced out of the market.
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