The Global Population and its Effect on Agricultural Production

In the contemporary period, one of the primary issues of immense concern across the globe is that of the increasing population in all corners of the world. The population of the world has been growing immensely, which in turn has led to the increase in the consumption of necessary products required for sustenance of life of human beings as well as other living creatures in the world (Knox, Marston & Imort, 2016). Of these products, the commodities of utmost importance are that of food as well as agricultural products as the survival of the increasing population of the world depends on the extent of production of the same. Over the years, with the rising population and increase in the demand for food and related products, the supply of the same has also changed considerably and variously across different countries of the globe (Khoury et al., 2014). Keeping this into consideration, the concerned paper emphasizes on studying the trends of growth of these substances and the variances of the same across different parts of the globe.

The global population, as discussed in the above section, is expected to increase from 7.3 billion in the current period to as high as 9.7 billion by the year 2050. With this huge increase in the population, the demand for food and agricultural products have also been increasing as the demand for the same is inelastic (Bloom, Canning & Lubet, 2015). This in turn, has made it challenging for the agricultural sector in all parts of the world, to develop and produce more effectively and efficiently in order to fulfill the demands of an increasing population across the globe (Seto, Güneralp & Hutyra, 2012). In this context, however, the climatic changes and phenomena like that of global warming, pollution explosion have been making it more difficult for the agricultural and food production sector of different parts of the countries. In this context, it becomes crucial to analyze the trends in the changes of the production and supply of food and agricultural products, especially food and feed over different parts of the globe (Herrero & Thornton, 2013). While the category of food refers to the amount of human food available for consumption, the category of feed refers to the food items which are available for the livestock and poultry. The concerned research tries to analyze these trends between the years 1961 and 2013.   

For the purpose of analysis of the trends and patterns of changes in the consumption and production of agricultural products (food, feed and different items like meat), the software named IBM Watson has been used and a descriptive analysis has been done instead of a predictive analysis where with the help of the data collected and observed the assertions about the trends and patterns in the changes in production and consumption of food, feed and meat products across different countries of the world. The software has been used to develop the dashboards representation of the patterns (High, 2012).

For the purpose of formation of the concerned analytical report, different authentic and reputed academic journals, sources as well as articles have been taken into consideration. For the purpose of analysis, the data regarding the volume of production and consumption of food products, feed and meat, across different parts of the world, over the time period of 1961 to 2013, has been collected from the following statistical database:

Analyzing Trends in Production and Supply of Food and Agricultural Products

https://data.world/mchadhar/worldfood-dataset

Area Abbreviation	Abbreviation of Countries
Area	Name of the Country
Item code	Numerical code of different types of food and feed
Item	Name of feed, food and drinks
Element	Categorization of food and feed
Unit	1000 tons
Latitude	Latitude of the country
Longitude	Longitude of the country
Y2016 to Y2013	The production and consumption of food or feed in year 1961 and year 2013.

The concerned research targets governments, different non-profit organizations as well as academic institutions with the intention of spreading the information and knowledge about the ongoing problem of growing crisis of food supply and demand-supply mismatch, thereby making the global population aware through them and also involving them in designing and implementation of the production increasing and optimizing techniques in the areas of problems (Argote, 2012).

The descriptive analytical approach has been taken for the purpose of conduction of the concerned research with the help of which the production and consumption patterns of feed, food and meet have been compared between the years 1961 and 2013 and the changes in the same with time as well as the average trends in the production and consumption patterns. The IBM Watson analytics has been used for the purpose of visualization of the same. With the help of the database, the patterns, limitations are discussed and the recommendations have been provided (Hoyt et al., 2016).

For the purpose of analysis and interpretation as well as visualization of large number of evidences. The Dashboard form has been increasingly becoming a popular and efficient method and the same has been used in this case, as can be seen in the following section.

               

As is clear from the above presentation, the total consumption of food and feed was higher in countries like United States of America, China and India in 1961. The total consumption of food and feed, both can still be seen to be higher in these three countries and especially in China in the recent period (2013) too. The change of production and consumption of food and feed from 1961 to 2016 is very significant in China. The average production and consumption of food and feed in these 53 years is significant in China followed by India and USA, which in turn indicates towards both the increases in the population as well as the increase in the supply of agricultural products in the concerned regions.

               

The top producer and consumer of food and feed in 1961 are – 1) USA 2) China, Mainland and 3) India. The top producer and consumer of food and feed in 2013 are – 1) China, Mainland, 2) India and 3) United States of America. This, thereby, indicates towards the fact that over the concerned period, these countries remained the leading producers of food as well as feed.

The change in production from 1961 to 2013 are considerably observed in – 1) China, mainland, 2) India, 3) United States of America. The average production of food and feed in 53 years can be seen to be highest in China, Mainland followed by United States of America and India.

               

The average production of feed in 1961 is 660,550 tons. The average production of food in 1961 is 556,410 tons. The average production of food in 1961 is 284,710 tons and in 2013 is 176,530 tons.

The average change of production and consumption is higher in case of feed than food. The average change of feed in 53 years is 436,620 tons and average change of food in 53 years is 407,030 years.

Data Collection and Analysis

The average production of food and feed are 417,340 tons and 313,650 tons respectively in the span 1961 to 2013 irrespective of all the countries, which in turn indicates towards higher average production in case of feed than in case of food.

            

The average production and consumption of meats in all the countries are observed in the following manner-

• The item 2731 (Bovine Meat) in 1961- 170,160 tons and in 2013- 368,500 tons. The increment is considerably observed.
• The item 2732 (Mutton & Goat Meat) in 1961- 31,040 tons and in 2013- 76,180 tons. The increment is also considerably observed.
• The item 2733 (Pig-meat) in 1961- 138,020 tons and in 2013- 663,310 tons. The increment is can be seen to be striking in this case.
• The item 2734 (Poultry Meat) in 1961- 52,450 tons and in 2013- 599,260 tons. The huge increment shows the considerable changes in the production and consumption pattern of poultry meat in the current period.
• The item 2735 (Other Meat) in 1961- 14,380 tons and in 2013- 37,390 tons. The increment is observed nominally.

The average production and consumption of meats in all countries is highest for item code 2733 (352,440 tons) followed by 2731 (255,630 tons). The average production and consumption of meats in all countries is least for item code 2735 (19,970 tons).  

The change of production and consumption from 1961 to 2013 is arranged as –

1) Poultry meat (555,210 tons)

2) Pig-meat (547,340 tons)

3) Bovine Meat (228,140 tons)

4) Mutton and Goat Meat (50,070 tons)

5) Other types of meat (25,200 tons).

This in turn implies that over the years the demand as well as production of poultry meat as well as pig meat have increased substantially.

Conclusion:

As can be seen from the above analysis, over the concerned time period (1961-2013), it can be seen that over the years, both production as well as consumption of food, feed and meet have increased substantially. However, the consumption demand has been increasing more than that of the supply. While production has been considerably increasing in China, India and the USA, there lies many other countries whose production of food products have not been increasing substantially, although the population and consumption of the products can be seen to be increasing.

In the recent period, the population of the globe has been increasing substantially and especially in the Asian countries, attributing to the increasing development and industrial activities in these regions, which in turn has led to a striking increase in the demand for food in these regions. However, barring India and China, the production and supply of food cannot be seen to be increasing in the same proportion in these countries, which can be due to loss of lands to industries and residential aspects. Thus, to avoid crisis, the food production in these regions need to be efficient in the aspects of proper utilization of resources and in meeting the rising demand for the same owing to the increasing population in these regions.

Respected Sir/Madam,

From the analysis of the data collected, regarding the changes in the consumption and production patterns of food products, feed and meat, across different parts of the globe, within the time period of 1961 and 2013, it can be asserted that both the consumption and average production of food as well as feed products have been increasing in the global scenario. However, while the consumption of the same has been increasing at all parts of the globe, owing to the increase in population, more or less everywhere, the production and supply of the same has not been increasing to that extent and the magnitude of increase can also be seen to be varying across different countries. The problem is expected to be more acute in the Asian countries, except China and India, which in turn indicates towards the need for implementation of more efficient production techniques as well as more effective allocation of the agricultural resources (which are scarce as well as decreasing) in order to avoid the potential food crisis and food inflation in these countries in near future.

Thanking You.

References:

Argote, L. (2012). Organizational learning: Creating, retaining and transferring knowledge. Springer Science & Business Media.

Bloom, D. E., Canning, D., & Lubet, A. (2015). Global population aging: Facts, challenges, solutions & perspectives. Daedalus, 144(2), 80-92.

Herrero, M., & Thornton, P. K. (2013). Livestock and global change: emerging issues for sustainable food systems.

High, R. (2012). The era of cognitive systems: An inside look at IBM Watson and how it works. IBM Corporation, Redbooks.

Hoyt, R. E., Snider, D., Thompson, C., & Mantravadi, S. (2016). IBM Watson analytics: automating visualization, descriptive, and predictive statistics. JMIR public health and surveillance, 2(2).

Khoury, C. K., Bjorkman, A. D., Dempewolf, H., Ramirez-Villegas, J., Guarino, L., Jarvis, A., … & Struik, P. C. (2014). Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(11), 4001-4006.

Knox, P. L., Marston, S. A., & Imort, M. (2016). Human geography: Places and regions in global context. Pearson.

Seto, K. C., Güneralp, B., & Hutyra, L. R. (2012). Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(40), 16083-16088.