A High-Level Expert Forum on "How to Feed the World in 2050" was held at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome in October, 2009. This resulted in a heightened awareness of the need for every nation to put structures in place to ensure sufficient food for future generations. Food security for the future is an ethical and moral issue, as many of the decision makers today may not be directly affected by the challenge of having enough food 40 years from now. The discussions at the forum were on a wide range of topics with a special session on Africa. The Director General of the FAO, Mr Jacques Diouf, said that people were hungry today, not because the world is not producing enough food, but because the 70 per cent of the world's poor are not engaged in much of the production. He said the challenge was not only to increase global production but that production needed to increase where it was most needed, with a special focus on small-scale farmers, women and rural households. Attention should be paid to their access to productive resources and services to enable them to intensify their production systems. The implications are not only for ensuring food security but also for reducing poverty. The world will require a doubling of production to meet the increased demands for food, feed and fibre. Every nation needs to plan to meet future food needs. In Ghana, there are issues we need to address without delay, including policies on biofuel production in the face of volatile crude oil prices, climate change and its effects on agricultural production, population increases, farmer support, border restrictions, and the need to define the place of agriculture in national development. Ghana must place agriculture high on its development agenda. A nation that cannot feed itself cannot truly develop. According to the FAO, world population may increase by 34 per cent to reach 9.1 billion by 2050, with urban population swelling by 86 per cent and rural population declining by 18 per cent as a result of urbanisation. Most of the world's population growth in the years to come will occur in Africa, and in Africa, agriculture remains a major challenge. Agriculture is the most climate sensitive sector in the development of an economy, and especially for food security. Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are vulnerable to climatic changes with persistent droughts and floods. Analysing the problem on climate change, the FAO noted that the effects on agriculture will be as a result of high temperatures, precipitation changes, increased weeds, pests and disease pressure, droughts, heat waves, floods and severe storm. There is the need to put agriculture back on the drawing board as we formulate strategies for national development. Some of us are of the view that, rural development is critical for any meaningful economic development in a country such as Ghana. Others are talking about a Green Revolution in Africa but with a model different from the one used in Asia. It may be said to be a Rainbow Revolution with a collection of shades. Participants at the Forum on feeding the future generations affirmed the view that for Green Revolution to happen in Africa, it will be through the small-scale farmer with women farmers playing important roles. The inclusion of the small-scale farmer in our development efforts is paramount. In our efforts to reduce poverty and achieve the first Millennium Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, we need agricultural support that is not trade- distorting. A major challenge we have as a nation is the variability of farm incomes, which is partly the result of seasonality, and partly due to the absence of risk management measures of farm production systems. Farmers face a lot of risk in their production activities including the effect of droughts, floods, post-harvest losses, pests and diseases and other climate related shocks. Risk mitigation measures, including private insurance, are available to farmers in high income countries, especially the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries. Private insurance companies are quite hesitant to extend coverage to agricultural risks because the degrees and nature of some losses can be catastrophic and may cause them to go out of business. Options for public support in these circumstances need to be explored without delay in order to stabilise farm level incomes to some extent. The presence of risk management measures that have implications for government spending will compel the public sector to pay attention to farm production issues. African countries, and for that matter Ghana, cannot copy strategies from other parts of the world without adapting them to local situations. We must pursue the intensified domestic revenue mobilisation as outlined in our Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II and channel the resources into areas that will ensure adequate food for future generations. The requirements of the Maputo Declaration for African nations to allocate at least 10 per cent of national budgetary resources to the implementation of agricultural and rural development policies need to be revisited. This will ensure that enough local resources are available to support agricultural production. Critical questions about future food security can be posed, for which we should seek answers. In the next few years, can we have enough rice to meet domestic demand or will we continue to depend heavily on rice imports? Will we sell our land to foreign nations which will grow food to feed the consumers in their own nations? Will we have policies about having sufficient water to support agricultural production and will there be clear policies regarding the use of coarse grain for biofuel production? The policy environment today determines the extent of poverty and hunger in the future. Intensifying efforts for enough food production has enormous benefits for rural development. The benefits include the generation of non-agricultural income for rural dwellers, which in turn enables them to invest more into agricultural production. Many African countries are net-food importers and need to improve on domestic production capabilities. With the lessons learnt from the recent food price hikes, we need to put policies in place to reduce the degree of dependency on imports for local food supply. A number of food exporting countries banned exports in response to the high food prices to ensure sufficient domestic supply and protect their local consumers. Many economic analysts are of the understanding that food aid and grants do not provide any long-term solution to food insecurity. There is the need for new varieties of crops that will adapt to harsh weather conditions as we improve and expand irrigation and drainage facilities to enable farmers to cope with droughts and floods. Water will became increasingly important for farm productivity• improvements. In addition, intentional infrastructure development that opens up our food production areas to markets is a necessary requirement. Rural roads are critical for moving food from points of production to points of consumption and for moving inputs to farm communities, linking rural communities effectively to markets. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) states that in many parts of the world, increased agricultural growth will play a key role in addressing the world's food crisis, and contribute to economic growth. The challenge of feeding the world's future population is especially critical for Sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Ivy Drafor Amenyah Agricultural Economist, Methodist University College, Ghana Email: amenyah1@yahoo.com