Demand for food is increasing worldwide. What is the cause of this? What measures can the international community take to meet this demand?

Over the

last

50 years, global

demand

for

food

has approximately tripled.

This

rapid growth stems from several reasons,

however

it is primarily caused due to an increasing

world

population

from about 3 to more than 6 billion people as well as increased per-capita

demand

due to rising living standards.

Although

currently there is a huge

demand supply

Accept comma addition

demand, supply

gap, it can be met by taking appropriate actions.

This

essay will discuss both the reasons for

this

demand

and the measures needed to fill

this

gap. There are two main factors contributing to

this

greatest pressure of never-ending

demand

. The

first

one is the

world

’s

population

, which has grown exponentially over the

last

150 years. Naturally,

this

additional

population

will have to be fed. The

demand

for

food

has

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has, therefore

therefore

, gone up.

Secondly

, changing

diet

is another dominant driver of

food

requirement. As incomes grow, people move away from a

diet

consisting largely of staple

food

crops (

such

as rice, wheat, corn, vegetable oil, and legumes) into a

diet

that includes more fish, meat, dairy products, and eggs.

This

higher-income

diet

requires the feeding of livestock. Cattle and sheep can be fed grass or grain. Hogs, poultry, and fish must be fed grains and protein meal.

Thus

, it is likely that the

next

40 years will require increasing amounts of grazing land and much higher production of feed grains and oilseeds to meet increasing demands for a higher-protein

diet

.

Hence

, tackling

this

problem before it worsens is crucial. We could do much to ease the pressure on the global

food

system by looking

first

at

food

waste, which alone takes roughly 30-40% of the

world

’s calories, but it rarely receives the attention is deserves. While we can’t fully eliminate

food

waste, surely we can cut it substantially in the coming decades.

Furthermore

, we can curb the situation by transforming diets where they are already very rich, like North America and Europe. It is

also

imperative to focus on the changing diets of newly affluent

people

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people, for

for example

, new middle-class people in the cities of China, India, Indonesia and elsewhere to curb the

demand

, thereby reducing dramatic impacts

on

Suggestion

of

the

food

system. In conclusion, the

world

is facing tremendous challenges to feeding a growing, richer

world

population

. To address these challenges, we will need to deliver more

food

to the

world

through a balanced mix of growing more

food

and using the

food

we already have more effectively