The Role of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Human Nutrition

The world’s population was 6 billion at the turn of the twenty-first century. It is projected to reach 9.4 billion in 2050 and will stabilize at slightly less than 11 billion about 2200. Global rates of population growth peaked at 2.04% per annum in the late 1960s but subsequently declined to 1.33% in the late 1990s and are projected to continue to decline. The cause of the decline has been a reduction in global fertility from about five children per woman in the early 1960s to less than three children per woman. The transition to low fertility in the developing world occurred earliest and has been strongest in Asia and Latin America but is now well under way in Africa, although fertility rates remain high in Sub-Saharan Africa. About 97% of current population growth is occurring in developing parts of the world, and the proportion of the global population living in developing areas has increased from 67.8% in 1950 to 80% in 1998 and is projected to be 87% by 2050.