Nutrition Transition and the Structure of Global Food Demand

Abstract

Estimating future demand for food is a critical aspect of global food security analyses. The process linking dietary changes to wealth is known as the nutrition transition and presents well‐identified features that help to predict consumption changes in poor countries. This study proposes to represent the nutrition transition with a nonhomothetic, flexible‐in‐income demand system. The resulting model is estimated statistically based on cross‐sectional information from FAOSTAT. The model captures the main features of the nutrition transition: rise in demand for calories associated with income growth; diversification of diets away from starchy staples; and a large increase in caloric demand for animal‐based products, fats, and sweeteners. The estimated model is used to project food demand between 2010 and 2050 based on a set of plausible futures (trend projections and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios). The main results of these projections are: (a) global food demand will increase by 47%, less than half the growth in the previous four decades; (b) this growth will be attributable mainly to lower‐middle‐income and low‐income countries; (c) the structure of global food demand will change over the period, with a doubling of demand for animal‐based calories and a much smaller 19% increase in demand for starchy staples; and (d) the analysis of a range of population and income projections reveals important uncertainties—depending on the scenario, the projected increases in demand for animal‐based and vegetal‐based calories range from 74% to 114%, and from 20% to 42%, respectively.