Controversial Demographic Projections Under Climate Collapse in 2050 - South and Mesoamerica in a Global Context

Agri-food production, consumerism, waste and food waste

 

Nubia Barrera Silva

The corporate sector is building another aggressive re-engineering of global agrifood systems in South America and Mesoamerica. The region represents a pillar for global food security, warns the UN in the New Mission. Capitalist euphoria assumes 10 billion inhabitants by 2050. This is forging higher agricultural productivity, innovation, digitalisation and the expansion of standardised agriculture. Thus, they produce and market food destined for populations with some or enough consumption capacity, overconsumption and waste of food with equivalent carbon footprints.

In contrast, global overpopulation predictions based on empirical data analysis by Vienna Applied Systems analysts have declined over the last decade. From this perspective, the UN replicates another unsustainable pressure on fertile land in productive decline, under unreturnable alterations of soil properties, following ecological fractures in the Earth's biogeochemical and hydrological cycles. Among the consequences, meteorological collapse spreads through fires, high temperatures, droughts and water shortages. From the South, internal displacement, border crossings and migration to the North of thousands of people are escalating, driven by hunger, undernourishment, loss of food security and family livelihoods. At the same time, from different parts of the world, a variety of livelihood solutions are being developed outside of consumerism, with other political options for change and transformation.


For a full review of this essay, click here or on the picture to download the pdf file.