The Mosaic Company, 2012 Sustainability Report
Growing Food
and Food Security
Over 20 years ago, The World Commission on
Environment and Development posed what was
then a pressing question — how could the world
address growing hunger concerns in a way that
was also ecologically sustainable? Their Advisor y
Panel on Food Securit y, Agriculture, Forestr y and
Environment repor ted that achieving this goal
would pose a greater challenge to global food
production than had ever been faced before.
Increasing yields in the face of unprecedented
demand was going to be a major under taking.
And achieving those goals, while at the same
time preser ving the ecological integrit y of
agricultural systems, was going to be colossal in
magnitude and complexit y. This is as true today
as it was then.
Today nearly one billion people are hungr y. By
2050,
the world’s population is expected to
reach nine billion, with much of this growth in
regions of the world most susceptible to food
insecurit y. To meet this demand, world food
production must increase by at least 70 percent,
assuming the growing global middle class
continues to demand higher-qualit y proteins in
its diet. To put this in perspective, we need to
match the last 10,000 years of improvements in
agricultural production in the next 40 years.
Mosaic strives for improved yield from existing
agricultural lands, as the world’s forests naturally
sequester carbon and are a major asset in
mitigating the potential negative ef fects of a
changing climate. Between 1961 and 2005,
Food
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