The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.įunding: This work was supported by Food from thought: Agricultural Systems for a Healthy Planet Initiative, by the Canada First Research Excellent Fund. Received: FebruAccepted: SeptemPublished: October 23, 2018Ĭopyright: © 2018 KC et al. Struik, Wageningen University, NETHERLANDS (2018) When too much isn’t enough: Does current food production meet global nutritional needs? PLoS ONE 13(10):Įditor: Paul C. Such a move will help protect habitats and help meet the Sustainable Development Goals.Ĭitation: KC KB, Dias GM, Veeramani A, Swanton CJ, Fraser D, Steinke D, et al.
For a growing population, our calculations suggest that the only way to eat a nutritionally balanced diet, save land and reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to consume and produce more fruits and vegetables as well as transition to diets higher in plant-based protein. Correcting this imbalance could reduce the amount of arable land used by agriculture by 51 million ha globally but would increase total land used for agriculture by 407 million ha and increase greenhouse gas emissions. Results show that the global agricultural system currently overproduces grains, fats, and sugars while production of fruits and vegetables and protein is not sufficient to meet the nutritional needs of the current population. In this paper, we explore whether global food production is nutritionally balanced by comparing the diet that nutritionists recommend versus global agricultural production statistics. Generally, scholars propose addressing this problem by increasing agricultural production, investing in technology to boost yields, changing diets, or reducing food waste. Sustainably feeding the next generation is often described as one of the most pressing “grand challenges” facing the 21 st century.
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