Globally, agricultural production has managed to meet the demands from a rapid growth in the proportion of the workforce not producing food and rapid changes in food demands towards more energy- and greenhouse gas emission-intensive food. This has been underpinned by the rapid growth in the world economy and in the proportion of gross world product and of the economically active population working in industry and services (since most industrial and service enterprises are in urban areas). In 1900, worldwide, there were 6.7 rural dwellers to each urban dweller now there is less than one and projections suggest close to three urban dwellers to two rural dwellers by 2025. The paper gives particular attention to low- and middle-income nations since these have more than three-quarters of the world's urban population and most of its largest cities and these include nations where issues of food security are most pressing. To this are added the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to build resilience in agriculture and urban development to climate change impacts.
So the key issues with regard to agriculture and urbanization are whether the growing and changing demands for agricultural products from growing urban populations can be sustained while at the same time underpinning agricultural prosperity and reducing rural and urban poverty. But hundreds of millions of urban dwellers suffer under-nutrition. Globally, agriculture has met the demands from this rapidly growing urban population, including food that is more energy-, land-, water- and greenhouse gas emission-intensive. Urbanization has been underpinned by the rapid growth in the world economy and in the proportion of gross world product and of workers in industrial and service enterprises. This paper discusses the influences on food and farming of an increasingly urbanized world and a declining ratio of food producers to food consumers.
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