"We think by 2050, there will be two billion more people on the planet. There are a number of factors affecting the supply of food, including climate change and other factors that might cause volatility in the production of food,” said Vijaya Ramachandran, lead author of the 21 October report.
“We need to worry about having a proper agency that will guide the thinking and policy dialogue around increasing the productivity of agriculture and increasing our food supply."
The working group argues that FAO is the right forum to do this. “FAO offers legitimacy, convening authority, and the trust of developing-country governments,” wrote the authors. “Moreover, it is the only entity that can provide many of the needed 'global public goods' in the area of its mandate (such as basic research, global analysis, statistics, international standards, and advocacy).”
But the report warned that FAO “risks squandering its potential at a time when demand for food is rising fast, supplies are under threat, and hundreds of millions of people already don’t have enough to eat.”