RESUMO
The dependence on imports of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for its food needs has increased steadily since the early 1960s, from 10% to about 40%. This import dependence could continue to rise in coming decades due to the projected MENA population growth and the expected negative impacts of climate change on the region's natural resources and agricultural performances. To what extent the food import dependency of the MENA region will continue to increase up to 2050 and how the region could mitigate its rising reliance on food imports is both a key question for the region itself and a crucial geopolitical issue for the world as a whole. In this paper, we use a biomass balance model to assess the level of the food import dependency of the MENA region in 2050 resulting from six scenarios. We show that under current trends and severe impacts of climate change the food import dependency of the MENA would continue to rise and reach 50% in 2050. Maghreb would be particularly affected becoming dependent on imports for almost 70% of its food needs. Adopting a Mediterranean diet, reaching faster productivity growth in agriculture or reducing waste and loss along the food chain would contribute to decelerate the rise of the MENA's food import dependency. However, only the combination of these three options could significantly offset the increased import dependency in the most affected sub-regions: Maghreb, the Middle and the Near East. In all scenarios, Turkey strengthens its position as a net exporter of agricultural products. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10113-023-02045-y.
RESUMO
Facing a growing and more affluent world population, changing climate and finite natural resources, world food systems will have to change in the future. The aim of the Agrimonde-Terra foresight study was to build global scenarios linking land use and food security, with special attention paid to overlooked aspects such as nutrition and health, in order to help explore the possible future of the global food system. In this article, we seek to highlight how the resulting set of scenarios contributes to the debate on land use and food security and enlarges the range of possible futures for the global food system. We highlight four main contributions. Combining a scenario building method based on morphological analysis and quantitative simulations with a tractable and simple biomass balance model, the proposed approach improves transparency and coherence between scenario narratives and quantitative assessment. Agrimonde-Terra's scenarios comprise a wide range of alternative diets, with contrasting underlying nutritional and health issues, which accompany contrasting urbanization and rural transformation processes, both dimensions that are lacking in other sets of global scenarios. Agrimonde-Terra's scenarios share some similarities with existing sets of global scenarios, notably the SSPs, but are usually less optimistic regarding agricultural land expansion up to 2050. Results suggest that changing global diets toward healthier patterns could also help to limit the expansion in agricultural land area. Agrimonde-Terra's scenarios enlarge the scope of possible futures by proposing two pathways that are uncommon in other sets of global scenarios. The first proposes to explore possible reconnection of the food industry and regional production within supranational regional blocs. The second means that we should consider that a 'perfect storm', induced by climate change and an ecological crisis combined with social and economic crises, is still possible. Both scenarios should be part of the debate as the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic shows.
