Food has always been more than a basic human necessity. It is a foundation of economic development, social stability, public health and national security. Throughout history, the ability of societies to produce, distribute and afford food has influenced the rise and decline of civilizations. In the twenty-first century, however, the global food challenge has acquired an unprecedented complexity. The world is not simply required to produce more food; it must produce sufficient, nutritious and affordable food while confronting climate change, water scarcity, land degradation, biodiversity loss, geopolitical tensions, population growth, urbanisation, technological disruption and increasingly fragile supply chains. The question confronting humanity is therefore no longer simply how much food can agriculture produce. The more fundamental question is: Can the world transform its food and agricultural systems sufficiently to feed a growing population without destroying the natural resources on which future food production depends? The urgency is unmistakable. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that about 645 million people may have experienced hunger in 2025, equivalent to approximately 7.8 percent of the world’s population. Around 2.1 billion people i.e. 25.8 percent of the global population were estimated to be moderately or severely food insecure in 2025. The burden is particularly severe in Africa, where more than half of the population was estimated to face moderate or severe food insecurity. At the same time, the global population continues to expand and dietary patterns are changing. United Nations projections indicate that the world’s population is expected to reach approximately 9.7 billion by 2050, compared with about 7.7 billion in 2019. Much of the future population growth will occur in developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia. Pakistan is among the countries expected to make a significant contribution to global population growth during this period. This demographic transformation means that the global agricultural system must deliver substantially more food, but doing so through the traditional model of simply expanding cultivated land, increasing irrigation and intensifying the use of chemical inputs is no longer a sustainable option. The future of food will depend increasingly on productivity rather than expansion, technology rather than resource exploitation, resilience rather than efficiency alone, and transformation rather than incremental adjustment.
The world has already achieved remarkable progress in agricultural production. Improvements in seeds, irrigation, mechanisation, fertilisers, crop protection, animal genetics, logistics, refrigeration, agricultural research and international trade have allowed food production to increase dramatically over the past century. Yet the success of agriculture has created a paradox. Humanity has become capable of producing enormous quantities of food while millions remain hungry and billions cannot consistently afford a healthy diet. This demonstrates that food security is not simply a production problem. It is simultaneously a problem of access, affordability, nutrition, distribution, resilience, income and governance. The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2025–2034 projects that global consumption of agricultural and fish commodities will increase by about 13 percent by 2034, with nearly all additional consumption occurring in low- and middle-income countries. Global agricultural and fish production is expected to expand by approximately 14 percent over the same period. This projected increase will not be evenly distributed. Middle-income economies are expected to remain major engines of agricultural growth, while population expansion will be especially important in low-income countries. Rising incomes and urbanisation are also changing consumer preferences, increasing demand for livestock products, fish and other nutrient-rich foods.
The challenge, therefore, is two-dimensional. The world must produce more food, while simultaneously changing the composition and quality of food systems. A food system capable of supplying calories but unable to provide affordable nutritious diets cannot be considered fully successful. Few sectors are as closely connected to climate as agriculture. Agriculture depends directly on temperature, rainfall, soil quality, water availability and ecological stability. Climate change is therefore not an external threat to agriculture; it is a direct threat to the production system itself. Rising temperatures, irregular rainfall, prolonged droughts, floods, heatwaves, changing pest patterns and extreme weather events can reduce yields and increase production risks. At the same time, agriculture contributes significantly to the problem it is trying to survive. FAO’s latest data show that global agrifood-system emissions reached approximately 16.5 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2023, accounting for around 32 percent of global anthropogenic emissions. Although the emissions intensity of agricultural production has improved, total agrifood-system emissions have continued to rise as food systems have expanded.
The composition of these emissions is particularly important. Farm-gate crop and livestock production accounted for around 8.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2023, while pre- and post-production activities including manufacturing, processing, transport, packaging, retail and consumption accounted for approximately 5.2 billion tonnes. Land-use change contributed another 3.2 billion tonnes. Livestock alone represented the largest single component of agrifood-system emissions at around 4.3 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2023. This makes clear that transforming agriculture cannot mean focusing exclusively on farmers. The entire chain from soil to seed, farm to factory, warehouse to retailer and supermarket to household must become more efficient and sustainable. The food system must therefore become part of the global climate solution.
If climate change represents one side of the food-security equation, water scarcity represents another.Agriculture is by far the largest user of freshwater globally. FAO estimates that agriculture accounts for approximately 72 percent of global freshwater withdrawals, with irrigation being the principal driver. Around 1.2 billion people live in agricultural areas facing severe water constraints. This presents an extraordinary dilemma. FAO estimates that by 2050 agriculture may need to generate about 50 percent more food, feed and fibre than in 2012, while freshwater demand could increase by another 25 percent. The solution cannot simply be to extract more water. Agriculture must learn to produce more output per unit of water. This requires precision irrigation, drip and sprinkler systems, improved water storage, drought-tolerant crops, better soil management, rainwater harvesting, groundwater governance, improved irrigation scheduling and the widespread use of digital technologies to measure crop water requirements. Water productivity must become as important a measure as crop yield.
This is particularly relevant for countries such as Pakistan, where agriculture is deeply dependent on irrigation and where declining per-capita water availability is becoming an increasingly serious economic and strategic concern. The World Bank has noted that Pakistan’s per-capita water availability declined by approximately 80 percent between 1964 and 2020. Pakistan’s experience is therefore not isolated. It is a preview of the challenge that many water-stressed economies may increasingly face: how to maintain agricultural production while the resource base becomes more constrained. Water is not the only natural resource under pressure. Soil, the foundation of agriculture is also being degraded.
The FAO’s State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture 2025 highlights the growing pressure on land, soil and water resources. More than 60 percent of human-induced land degradation occurs on agricultural lands, while agriculture accounts for more than 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals. The consequences extend beyond immediate reductions in agricultural yields. Soil degradation can reduce fertility, increase erosion, lower water-retention capacity, reduce biodiversity and make farming more vulnerable to drought and extreme weather. FAO’s 2025 State of Food and Agriculture focuses specifically on land degradation across different landholding scales and highlights the fact that approximately 1.7 billion people live in areas where human-induced land degradation has contributed to lower crop yields. The future of agriculture therefore requires a fundamental shift from extracting maximum output from land to maintaining the productive capacity of land over generations.
Regenerative agriculture, conservation agriculture, crop rotation, integrated nutrient management, agroforestry, improved grazing management, soil organic matter restoration and reduced erosion can all contribute to healthier agricultural landscapes. The objective should not be to maximize production in one season at the expense of production in the next decade. The true measure of agricultural success is increasingly becoming sustainable productivity over time.
The author, is a freelance writer, columnist, blogger, and motivational speaker. He writes articles on diversified topics. He can be reached at sir.nazir.shaikh@gmail.com