XVI International Botanical Congess
The world has experienced an unprecedented decline in mortality rate since the second world war, which contributed to the so-called global"population explosion." Socioeconomic changes and national family planning programs contributed to fertility decline much later. Population growth rate started declining from 1970s, still adding 2.4 billion people over the last three decades. Most of the increase in population is now taking place in urban areas. The world will add another 2.3 billion population over the next three decades. Nearly two-thirds of them will be located in South Asia and Africa, where per capita consumption of staple food is also expected to increase due to large unmet demand for food. With economic development and growing urbanization, the food consumption pattern is expected to change, away from cereals to vegetables, fruits and livestock products. The rapid growth in demand for meat and milk will exert further pressure on the demand for corn and other coarse grains as livestock feed. For staple grains, the demand will increase by more than 50 per cent over the period 2000 to 2030, faster for coarse grains but slower for rice. Most of the demand will come from South Asia and Africa where the food will need to be produced locally, as these countries cannot afford to purchase food from countries with excess production capacity.