Agriculture Strategy Director

Global human population is predicted to stabilize at 9.7 billion people by 2050. There is consensus that world food supply will need to increase by between 70 and 100% by then, not just to feed three billion extra mouths at the table, but to support the lifestyles of expanding middle classes in countries like China, India and Brazil, which are expected to reach developed country per capita income levels a generation from now.

This poses major challenges for conservation- especially in Africa, where 60% of the potentially available cropland in the world is located.  Africa is critical to feeding the planet’s growing population.  Water issues are tightly linked to agricultural growth as 70% of global water consumption is for agriculture, water scarcity and water quality are major issues as we project out demand patterns for another generation.

To react to this increase in demand for food, The Nature Conservancy proposes that five principles must drive this new wave of agricultural demand:

1. Delivery and storage systems must be improved.  A great deal of agricultural production in Africa is wasted from spoilage, directly contributing to local and regional food insecurity.  Better storage and delivery systems stand the greatest chance of immediately increasing the net production of agriculture to the continent’s local households.
2. Production systems must intensify. This has to be at the center of conservation thinking about agriculture, a radical departure from tradition.
3. Intensification has to be sustainable. This will be hard to accomplish. An increase in return per unit area means market mechanisms can stimulate agricultural expansion. Increasing inputs – particularly fertilizers - can have environmental costs.
4. Some expansion of agricultural area is necessary: “freezing the footprint” of agriculture may be possible in some places – in the US or western Europe - but is not a realistic option at the global level. In Africa we expect significant agricultural expansion. China, Brazil, India and the US are investing significantly in agriculture expansion in Africa today. Channeling that expansion where it will do least harm is imperative.
5. Agriculture needs to intensify while maintaining the environmental services on which producers and society depend. Clean water, clean air, and productive soils are the basic environmental services upon which all life depends.  We must learn from the mistakes already learned from intensification in the developed world to improve this second wave of agricultural development. 

The Nature Conservancy believes that sustainable intensification is the basis our global agriculture strategy.  We are looking for an Agriculture Strategy Director to better define this strategy for Africa and to help position The Nature Conservancy to bring value-added science, policy and resource support to improve agricultural systems in Africa.