Millennium Project
Updating the Global Challenges Facing Humanity
3. Population and resources
How can population growth and resources be brought into balance?

This is the short description of the challenge as appears in the print version of the 2008 State of the Future report. The more complete version of this challenge along with actions to address it, graphs, and indicators to measure change is available on the CD-ROM included with the report. Please add your suggestions in the space provided after each paragraph and feel free to contact us with any questions.

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General Description

The current world population of 6.7 billion is expected to reach 9.2 billion by 2050, peaking soon afterward at 9.8 billion and then falling to 5.5 billion by 2100, according to the UN lower forecast. Scientific breakthroughs over the next 50 years are likely to change these forecasts, giving people longer and more productive lives than most would believe possible today. Nevertheless, global population is changing from high mortality and high fertility to low mortality and low fertility. A quarter of the world (excluding Africa) will be over 60 years old in 2050. There will be more people over 60 than under 15 by 2045, according to the UN medium forecast. Today about 65% of older persons live in developing countries; by 2050 nearly 80% will. To reduce the economic burden on younger generations and to keep up living standards, people will work longer and create many forms of tele-work, part-time work, and job rotation.

FAO estimates that 37 countries face a crisis over food. Prices of cereals are up 129% since 2006. The 2008 Rome Conference on Food Security in response to the world food crisis created global short- and long-term strategies with UN agencies, governments, and NGOs to act as a system to feed the world. Because food production has to increase 50% by 2013 and double in 30 years, because the demand for animal protein may increase 50% by 2020, because there are shortages of water, and because many of the other factors that doubled rice and wheat prices are expected to continue, new agricultural approaches will be needed such as meat production without growing animals; better rain-fed agriculture and irrigation management; genetic engineering for higher-yielding crops; precision agriculture and aquaculture; drought-tolerant crop varieties; and saltwater agriculture on coastlines to produce food for humans and animals, biofuels, pulp for the paper industry, to absorb CO2, to reduce the drain on freshwater agriculture and land, and to increase employment. An animal rights group has offered $1 million to the first producers of commercially viable animal meat without growing animals by 2012. Currently, agriculture uses 80% of arable land in developing countries, of which 20% is irrigated. Massive efforts are required to maintain fertile cropland. FAO estimates that $15–20 billion a year is needed to boost food production to control soaring food prices. Climate change and monocultures undermine biodiversity, which is critical for agricultural viability.

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Approaches to address this challenge

Just over 50% of humanity lives in urban areas today. Half of them live in cities of less than 500,000 inhabitants. By 2030 over 80% of humanity is expected to live in urban concentrations. During the same period, the 1 billion people living in slums today could double. About 385 million people are malnourished, and 25% of children worldwide have protein-energy malnutrition, which reduces cerebral development. Continued economic growth will increase the demand for meat, requiring more land and water. This will further increase competition between agricultural resources for food versus energy. However, rural populations are expected to continually shrink after 2015, freeing additional land for agriculture. About 40% of agricultural land is moderately degraded and 9% is highly degraded, reducing global crop yield by as much as 13%. A quarter of all fish stocks are overharvested; 80% cannot withstand increased fishing pressure. FAO estimates that water for agriculture needs to increase 60% to feed an additional 2 billion people by 2030, even as urban water requirements are increasing. Without sufficient nutrition, shelter, water, and sanitation produced by more intelligent human-nature symbioses, increased migrations, conflicts, and disease seem inevitable. ICT continues to more optimally match needs and resources worldwide in real time, and nanotech will help reduce material use per unit of output while increasing quality.

Challenge 3 will be addressed seriously when the annual growth in world population drops to fewer than 30 million, the number of hungry people and the infant mortality rate both decrease by half from their peaks, and new approaches to aging become economically viable.

Please suggest other actions to address this challenge or edits to the ones above:

Regional Considerations

Africa: About 40% of children under five are chronically malnourished. Africa is the only region with a median age below 20 today, and in 2050 the share of population aged 60 or above will still be just slightly above 10%. Ten of the 34 countries with life expectancies of 49 years or below are in West Africa. Sub-Saharan population is growing at the rate of 2.5% per year compared with 1.2% in Latin America and Asia. Some 12–13 million Africans are expected to move from villages to urban areas during 2008. The population of urban slums in Africa could increase to 350 million by 2020. Much of the urban management class is being seriously reduced by AIDS, which is also lowering life expectancy. Conflicts continue to prevent development investments, ruin fertile farmland, create refugees, compound food emergencies, and prevent better management of natural resources.

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Asia and Oceania: China is growing old before it has grown rich. With the one-child policy (to continue for at least another decade), the fertility rate in China has fallen to 1.7 from about 5 in the 1970s. The number of Chinese over 60 is expected to grow from 144 million in 2005 to 430 million by 2040. China could experience labor shortages in two years. The boy-to-girl ratio in 2007 was 118 to 100; China could be short 15 million women in 15 years. China has to feed 22% of the world’s population with less than 7% of the world’s arable land and could face a food shortfall of 100 million tons by 2030. India has more than 500 million people under 25, will have more people than China by 2050, and has more malnourished children than sub-Saharan Africa. Japan’s workforce is expected to shrink from 66.5 million to 42 million by 2050. Without some 4,000 new immigrants, Japanese population would have decreased in 2007. Japan expects to use robots to handle the future aging population. Australia’s population is growing due to migration. By 2025 South Asians may consume 70% more milk and vegetables and 100% more meat, eggs, and fish than today. Asians earning more than $7,000 annually outnumber the total population of North America and Europe—laying the foundation for unprecedented consumption. New concepts of employment may be needed to prevent political instability among the 60% of Arabs who are now under 25 and face poor prospects for conventional employment.

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Europe: By 2031 the population is expected to reach 71.1 million, with 22% over the age of 65. Spain’s fertility rate is 1.1, Italy’s is 1.2. Russia’s falling birth rates may be changing with government incentives like reproduction days off and $10,000 when the second child turns three; its birth rate increased 9% during 2007 and death rate decreased by 8%. Europe’s aging and shrinking population and the dearth of young people will force changes in pension and social security systems, incentives for more children, and increased immigration, affecting international relations, culture, and the social fabric.

Please suggest edits concerning Europe:

Latin America: The region is aging, but not as rapidly as Europe is. The population is expected to grow from 550 million today to about 800 million by 2050 and become 85% urban by 2030, requiring massive urban and agricultural infrastructural investments. Some 16% of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition.

Please suggest edits concerning Latin America:

North America: Less than 2% of the U.S. provides the largest share of world food exports. In the past two years, the U.S. allocated more than 20 million tons of grain to ethanol production, about half of the additional grain supply needed worldwide to have averted the current food crisis. Global warming should increase Canadian grain exports. Biotech and nanotech are just beginning to have an impact on medicine; hence dramatic breakthroughs in longevity seem inevitable in 25–50 years. Reducing “throw-away” consumption in favor of knowledge and experience could change the population-resource balance. In the U.S., the Incentives for Older Workers Act was introduced to eliminate barriers for older Americans wishing to work longer and to encourage employers to recruit and retain them.

Please suggest edits concerning North America:


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Additional Comments
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Thank you for your participation. The results will be sent to you in the next State of the Future.



Survey conducted by the Millennium Project of the ACUNU