The Global Supply and Demand for Agricultural Land in 2050: A Perfect Storm in the Making?

Over the past three years, there has been a convergence of interest in the global farm and food system and its contributions to feeding the world's population as well as to ensuring the environmental sustainability of the planet. Agriculture and forestry are likely to be the economic sectors whose productivity is most sharply affected by climate change. This will shift the pattern of global comparative advantage in agriculture (Reilly et al. 2007), and may well reduce the productivity of farming in precisely those regions of the world where malnutrition is most prevalent, while increasing yield variability and the vulnerability of the world's poor (Ahmed, Diffenbaugh, and Hertel 2009). In light of these challenges facing the global farm and food system, this Presidential Address will review the evidence on the future supply and demand for agricultural land four decades from now and provide a critical evaluation of the potential for a perfect storm in land markets, worldwide.