AGRICULTURE NEWS - The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently identified a number of trends that will affect the global food sector. These include:

Fast growth in food demand
Global food demand is growing as a result of rapid population growth and increased per-capita food consumption. Changes in per-capita food consumption have coincided with a shift in dietary patterns. Developing countries have seen a rapid growth in per-capita consumption of livestock products (meat, milk, eggs), vegetable oils and, to a lesser extent, sugar.

These three product groups now provide 29% of total food in developing countries. According to the FAO, this will increase to 35% by 2030.

In developed countries, livestock products, vegetable oils and sugar provide nearly half of all food requirements.

In developing countries, demand for livestock products has increased at a rapid rate over the past decade. Milk consumption has nearly doubled, meat consumption has tripled, and consumption of eggs has increased by 500%.

Read the full article here on the Caxton publication, Farmer's Weekly