From population to production: 50 years of scientific literature on how to feed the world

Abstract

How to feed the world is a vigorously debated question, but the extent to which possible solutions receive attention in the scientific literature has not been studied. Using textual analysis, we analyse 12,640 research articles to quantify how this discourse evolved over the last 50 years, distinguishing between a focus on three potential levers: total food production, per capita food demand, and population. We find a strong and increasing focus on feeding the world through increasing food production via technology, while the focus on reducing food demand through less intensive dietary patterns has remained constant and low. Population has declined from being the dominant lever discussed in 1969 to the least researched in 2018. Our results suggest that very few studies address all three levers in an integrated way, which may be constraining the solution space for feeding the world and meeting other Sustainable Development Goals.

Keywords

Food security; Textual analysis; Food supply; Food demand; Population; Diet; Productivity

Published in

Global Food Security
2020, Volume: 24, article number: 100346
Publisher: ELSEVIER

SLU Authors

• Tamburino, Lucia

  • Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Food Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2019.100346

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/106456