Can the world succeed in becoming more efficient with water and food resources, while preserving sufficient nature by 2050? No, according to a recent study* (Seijger et al., 2024) that assessed the period after the Green Revolution, from 2000 to 2020, and concluded considerably more agricultural land was required than initially anticipated. This will result in significant depletion of water reserves and loss of natural land. Compared to envisioned scenarios for water and agriculture, the world is on a trajectory toward the direst conceivable outcome. Anticipated enhancements in international trade, rain-dependent farming, and irrigated agriculture have not been realized. Who bears the immediate consequences? Primarily, the environment, with diminished forests, dwindling rivers, and diminishing natural habitats. Moreover, the most impoverished suffer, as disappointing yields and reduced grain trade will contribute to escalating food costs and food insecurity.

The point of departure for this study was the publication 'Water for Food, Water for Life: Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management for Agriculture' (Molden, 2007). This influential work from 2007, akin to the IPCC climate reports as it involved over 700 scientists, demonstrated that producing sufficient food by 2050 without significantly increasing water consumption and agricultural land was feasible. This would entail optimizing international trade and the productivity of rain-dependent agriculture, along with limited expansion and improved productivity in irrigation.

To assess potential improvements, researchers from Wageningen University & Research collaborated with international water and agriculture organizations (IRRI, IWMI, IIASA, IHE Delft)*. They employed national agricultural data (collected by the FAO and available in FAOSTAT) to gauge global advancements.

The study shows that anticipated progress in international trade and rain-dependent farming has faltered. In the world's major cereal-producing regions (Europe, North America, Australia, South America, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe), there has been a decline in agricultural land, paradoxically in climates with adequate water for cereal production that could be used to feed other regions (sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, Eastern Asia).

Furthermore, sub-Saharan Africa has not realised the envisaged increases in grain production per hectare, leading to a substantial expansion of agricultural land that directly encroaches upon natural ecosystems. Irrigation in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East has escalated far more swiftly than anticipated in the publication, thereby contributing to expedited depletion of water reserves. Cereal yields increased slightly, by 1.38% per year during 2000-2020.

The trends spanning 2000-2020 thus illustrate that anticipated enhancements have fallen short. The world is headed towards the direst conceivable scenario, where water consumption and agricultural land will double by 2050 compared to 2000, directly jeopardizing land and water designated for nature.

This study therefore adds much-needed evidence to be cautious about the realistic, achievable gains in land and water productivity. Not only due to the limited progress in international trade and rainfed agriculture but also because other avenues did not contribute to realistic gains. Crops have not become more efficient in converting water into biomass as photosynthesis breakthroughs did not occur. In addition, variation in crop water productivity might be explained by methodological procedures (satellite data, agronomic studies) but do not represent true field-level variation in evapotranspiration and biomass.

As authors, we were surprised by how telling the evidence was that the most optimistic scenarios of the Comprehensive Assessment – improve rainfed production, optimise trade, modest expansion irrigation - did not materialise. During the Post-Green Revolution period of 2000 to 2020, the world has clearly not succeeded in veering off the development path of more land and water for agriculture at the expense of the environment. Climate change, poor drainage, soil salinity, unsustainable mining of groundwater, and demands for feed and biofuel crops all continue to affect this rather pessimistic development path.

The study therefore concludes that given the observed relatively small gains in land and water productivity, the world will fall short against its food, water security, and biodiversity targets. Significant systemic shifts in our agricultural food systems are needed to veer off this development path. The main options do not lie in further improving land and water productivity, but rather in changing agricultural and food systems with a multipronged approach to:

  • Gradually change, for large parts of the world, to a diet in which plant-based calory intake is prevalent to effectively reduce total agricultural land and water use.
  • Reduce industrial crops and food waste along the value chain from farm production to consumption to effectively reduce total agricultural land and water use.
  • Increase or stabilise productivity against a changing climate, associated shocks, and depleting water resources as crop yields level off and climate extremes increase.
  • Increase the use of underutilised traditional crop types as they are nutritious and often more resilient to climate change than high-yielding varieties.

The Comprehensive Assessment considered most of these options, but did not prioritise them in the 2050 scenarios. The last twenty years have made clear these are the few remaining options through which the world can feed itself while protecting nature.

This multipronged approach that we propose requires strong coordinated leadership and governance at a global level – something that was not witnessed for the period 2000 to 2020 - to divert the world from its unsustainable path of using steadily more land and water to produce food, feed, and biofuel at the expense of nature. Effective implementation in the coming decades, for instance by incentivising farmers in large parts of the world to produce food crops rather than biofuel or fodder, might just provide a turn-off from the current pessimistic path. The approach therefore represents a small opportunity to pursue the original, admirable mission of the Comprehensive Assessment in 2007 of producing sufficient food by 2050 without a significant escalation in water consumption and agricultural land.


*The paper was co-authored by Anton Urfels from IRRI, Simon Langan from IWMI, Maria Christoforidou, Petra Hellegers, Gerlo Borghuis and Gerardo van Halsema from Wageningen University. Earlier versions received valuable inputs from Charlotte de Fraiture from IHE Delft, anonymous reviewers were instrumental in scoping and nuancing the manuscript.

References

FAO, 2023. FAOSTAT Database, License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. FAO, Rome. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data

Seijger, C.; Urfels, A.; Christoforidou, M.; Hellegers, P.; Borghuis, G.; Langan, S. and van Halsema, G. 2025. More food, but less land and water for nature: Why agricultural productivity gains did not materialize. Agricultural Water Management 307(2025), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2024.109229

Molden, D. (Ed.), 2007. Water for Food Water for Life. A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. Earthscan, London and International Water Management Institute, Colombo. https://archive.iwmi.org/assessment/Publications/books.htm

Photo credit: Bruce Barnett/Flickr. Irrigating tomato fields, Davis CA, USA