Food shortages are not a distant hypothetical. They’re already happening in parts of the world, and the pressures driving them are intensifying. Around 735 million people faced hunger in 2023, roughly one in every 11 people on Earth. Another 2.33 billion, nearly 29 percent of the global population, did not have regular access to adequate food. The question isn’t really whether food shortages will occur in the future. It’s how much worse they’ll get, where the worst impacts will land, and whether the solutions scaling up now can close the gap.
How Much More Food the World Will Need
Global food demand is projected to increase by 35 to 56 percent between 2010 and 2050, driven by population growth, rising incomes, and shifting diets in developing countries. When climate change is factored in, that range shifts slightly to 30 to 62 percent. The wide spread reflects genuine uncertainty about how the world develops over the next few decades: how fast populations grow, how dietary preferences shift, and how effectively countries reduce poverty.
The number of people at risk of hunger could drop by as much as 91 percent in the best-case scenarios, where economic development is broadly shared and climate impacts are managed. In the worst cases, the hungry population could grow by 30 percent. That gap between outcomes is enormous, and it depends heavily on policy decisions being made right now.
Climate Change Is Already Cutting Crop Yields
Rising temperatures directly reduce the productivity of the world’s three most important staple crops: wheat, rice, and corn. For every 1°C of warming, corn yields drop by about 4 percent on average across countries. Wheat loses roughly 6 percent per degree of warming, and that rate accelerates to over 8 percent per degree once temperatures rise past a threshold of about 2.4°C above pre-industrial levels.
Rice has been somewhat more resilient so far, losing only about 1 percent per degree of warming at current temperature levels. But past a 3.1°C threshold, losses jump sharply to over 7 percent per degree. These aren’t linear, predictable declines. They’re curves that steepen as the planet warms further, meaning the damage compounds over time. The regions most dependent on these crops, particularly South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, are also the regions warming fastest and least equipped to adapt.
Heat isn’t the only climate threat. Droughts, floods, and increasingly unpredictable growing seasons all reduce harvests. A single extreme weather event can wipe out an entire season’s crop in a region, and those events are becoming more frequent.
Water Is Running Out Underground
Agriculture accounts for the vast majority of freshwater use worldwide, and much of it comes from underground aquifers that are being drained faster than they refill. Rapid groundwater declines of more than half a meter per year are now widespread, especially in dry regions with extensive croplands. In 30 percent of the world’s regional aquifers, the rate of decline has accelerated over the past four decades.
When aquifers drop too low, wells run dry, land subsides permanently, and in coastal areas saltwater seeps into freshwater supplies. Major agricultural regions in India, the Middle East, the western United States, and northern China are all drawing down groundwater at unsustainable rates. Once these aquifers are depleted, the farmland above them loses its irrigation capacity, sometimes permanently. There’s no quick fix for an aquifer that took thousands of years to fill.
The Fertilizer Problem Most People Don’t Know About
Modern agriculture depends on phosphorus, a mineral mined from rock deposits that cannot be manufactured or substituted. At current production levels, the world’s known phosphorus reserves could be exhausted in fewer than 80 years. More pressingly, global phosphate production is expected to peak before 2040 and then enter a long, slow decline, even as demand continues to rise.
Phosphorus is one of the three essential nutrients in virtually all commercial fertilizer. Without it, crop yields drop dramatically. Unlike nitrogen, which can be pulled from the atmosphere, phosphorus has to come from the ground. The deposits are also concentrated in just a handful of countries, creating a geopolitical vulnerability similar to oil dependence. As supply tightens and prices rise, farmers in poorer countries will be priced out first, widening the food gap between wealthy and developing nations.
Pollinators and the Crops That Depend on Them
Pollinator populations, particularly bees, are declining across much of the world due to pesticide exposure, habitat loss, and disease. This matters for food security because animal pollination supports a significant share of global crop production, with its economic contribution estimated at $235 to $577 billion per year. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and oilseeds all depend on pollination to varying degrees. Staple grains like wheat and rice are wind-pollinated and less affected, but the dietary diversity that keeps populations healthy relies heavily on pollinator-dependent crops. A world with adequate calories but collapsing fruit and vegetable production would still be a world in nutritional crisis.
One-Third of Food Never Gets Eaten
An estimated 13 percent of all food produced globally, about 931 million tonnes, is lost in the supply chain between harvest and retail. On top of that, another 1.05 billion tonnes is wasted at the household, restaurant, and retail level. Combined, that’s roughly a third of all food produced. This represents both a massive inefficiency and an opportunity. Reducing food loss and waste is one of the fastest, most cost-effective ways to stretch existing food supplies without needing to grow more.
The causes differ by region. In lower-income countries, losses happen mostly after harvest due to poor storage, lack of refrigeration, and inadequate transportation. In wealthier countries, waste happens primarily at the consumer level: food that expires in refrigerators, oversized portions thrown away at restaurants, and cosmetically imperfect produce rejected by retailers. Tackling both ends of the problem could meaningfully reduce pressure on global food systems.
Technologies That Could Close the Gap
Vertical farming, where crops are grown in stacked indoor layers under controlled conditions, offers dramatic improvements in both yield and water use. Lettuce grown in vertical farms produces 80 to 90 kilograms per square meter per year, compared to just 3 to 4 kilograms from traditional outdoor farming. Some operations have achieved yields 100 times higher per unit of land. Water savings are equally striking: hydroponic systems used in vertical farms reduce water consumption by 85 to 95 percent compared to conventional irrigation.
The catch is scale. Vertical farming works well for leafy greens, herbs, and some berries, but it’s not viable for calorie-dense staples like wheat, corn, or rice. The energy costs of lighting and climate control remain high, and the upfront investment is substantial. These systems will play an important role in feeding dense urban populations and reducing pressure on farmland, but they won’t replace traditional agriculture for the bulk of the world’s calories.
Other technologies are filling different parts of the gap. Drought-resistant crop varieties are being developed and deployed across Africa and South Asia. Precision agriculture uses sensors and data to apply water and fertilizer more efficiently, reducing waste. Gene editing is accelerating the development of crops that tolerate heat, salinity, and poor soil. No single technology solves the problem, but collectively they represent real tools for keeping production closer to demand.
Where Shortages Will Hit Hardest
Food shortages won’t be distributed evenly. Sub-Saharan Africa already has the highest hunger rates, with one in five people undernourished, and faces some of the steepest climate impacts. South Asia, home to more than a billion people dependent on monsoon-fed agriculture and rapidly depleting aquifers, is similarly vulnerable. Parts of the Middle East and North Africa that rely heavily on food imports and have limited water resources face growing risk as global supplies tighten and prices become more volatile.
Wealthier nations will feel the effects differently. Rather than outright shortages, they’re more likely to experience price spikes, reduced variety, and supply chain disruptions during extreme weather events. The pattern already visible today, where food is technically available globally but millions can’t afford it, will likely intensify. Food insecurity in the future will be driven as much by economics and inequality as by the raw volume of food produced.
The window for action is open but narrowing. The difference between the best and worst projections for 2050 hunger comes down to investments made in the next decade: in climate adaptation, sustainable farming practices, food waste reduction, and equitable distribution. The food system can feed a larger world, but not on its current trajectory.