MILAN, Italy (Reuters) – The world needs to invest about $85 billion a year in agriculture in developing countries to feed 9.1 billion people in 2050, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has said.
World agriculture needs massive investments to raise overall output by 70 percent over the next 41 years, including almost doubling the output in developing countries to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people by 2050, the FAO said.
Primary agriculture investment needs include about $20 billion a year earmarked for crop production and $13 billion for livestock, the FAO said in a paper ahead of a forum on how to feed the world in 2050.
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A further $50 billion a year would be needed for downstream services, such as storage and processing facilities, it said.
Most of this investment would have to come from private investors: farmers buying seeds, fertilizers and machinery and businesses investing in processing facilities, the agency said.
On top of this, public investments are needed in agriculture research and development, in big infrastructure projects such as building roads, ports, storage and irrigation systems as well as into education and health care, the FAO said.
Much-needed official development assistance (ODA) to agriculture plunged 58 percent in real terms from 1980 to 2005, dropping from a 17 percent share of total aid to 3.8 percent over the period. It now stands at about five percent, it said.
