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The Agricultural Outlook 2019-2028 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations. It brings together the commodity, policy, and country expertise of both organisations as well as input from collaborating member countries to provide an annual assessment of the prospects for the coming decade of national, regional, and global agricultural commodity markets. This year's Special Feature focuses on agricultural development in Latin America. Some of the key anticipated developments include:
- For nearly all commodities covered, real prices are projected to remain at or below current levels over the coming decade, as productivity improvements continue to outpace demand growth.
- A growing global population will continue to use increasing amounts of agricultural products. Much of the additional food demand over the coming decade will originate in regions with high population growth, in particular Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and the Middle East and North Africa.
- Per-capita consumption of staple foods is expected to be stagnant as demand is saturated for most of the world’s population.
- A combination of excessive calorie consumption, unbalanced diets, and declining activity levels imply a growing burden of overweight and obesity in various countries. In many low and middle-income countries, these problems coexist with undernourishment and micronutrient deficiencies, implying a “triple burden” of malnutrition.
- Robust demand for animal foods products provides incentives to expand production in the livestock sector through larger herds. Paired with assumed improvements in offtake rates, demand for animal feed will be stimulated, with feed crops such as maize and soybeans expected to increase their shares in the global crop mix. Hence, the growth in feed use of cereals is expected to exceed the expansion of food use over the coming decade.
- Biofuels formed a major source of crop demand growth between 2000 and 2015, but the expansion will be lower over the coming decade.
- Agriculture continues to be a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions.
- Agricultural production is expected to grow by 15 percent over the coming decade.
- International trade will remain essential for food security in a growing number food-importing countries.