A declaration that global food [1] production needs to double to feed the world by the middle of this century provoked shock when it was announced by the UN food chief. It has since become a founding pillar of food policy, cited by leading British politicians and government scientists, farming [2] leaders and some of the world's biggest agricultural companies.

[Two years into the financial crisis, developing countries remain extremely vulnerable. (Photograph: Onome Oghene/EPA)]Two years into the financial crisis, developing countries remain extremely vulnerable. (Photograph: Onome Oghene/EPA)
But the source of the now infamous statistic did not actually say that, claims a new report by the Soil Association, the UK's leading organic group.

The study, entitled "The big fat lie about doubling food production", traced the original source of the doubling claim back to a report published by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2006 [3].

However, using the FAO's own figures, the Soil Association says the forecast increase needed in production would be closer to 70% by 2050.

The FAO itself also warns that the figures are distorted by using food prices: because meat and dairy products are worth more per weight, a small increase in volume appears as a significantly bigger increase in "production" measured in US dollars.

The differences between the report and the claims has arisen because politicians and others have used calculations from 2000, which are now a decade out of date, and then rounded them up, said the Soil Association, which is worried that the doubling figure is being used to push unsustainable industrial-scale farming.

"In abusing the figures government ministers and others are trying to exclude the possibility of us producing food in a way that would be good for the planet and good for our health," said Peter Melchett, the association's policy director.

The report also questions assumptions made in the FAO report concerning, among other things, high levels of food waste and billions more people eating western-style diets that are high in meat and dairy products, which have been linked to obesity, diabetes and other health problems.

"Instead of assuming a ghastly starvation and obesity vision of the future, what we need is food systems which feed everyone a healthy and decent diet," added Melchett.

The Soil Association study follows criticisms last summer [June 2009] by MPs on the Environment Food and Rural Affairs select committee [4], who warned that the forecasts were "projections rather than targets", and should be used to draw attention to other policies issues such as population growth, diet and waste. In its response in October 2009, the government revealed that by recalculating the figures to begin from 2005-7 [5], food production demand growth would be lower - up to about 70% by 2050. "The difference between 100% and 70% is not trivial: it is more than the food production of the whole American continent," added the government. "So claims around food production needing to increase 50-100% need to be treated with care."

Despite the government's partial back-down, however, the doubling figure, and that for a 50% increase by 2030, continue to be used by senior figures. Since October the old figures have been quoted by the Conservative farming manifesto [6]; the government chief scientist Professor John Beddington [7]; former chief scientist Sir David King [8], who was advocating a "more open minded approach" to GM foods; and Peter Kendall, the president of the National Farmers Union [9] in the UK. The doubling figure was also quoted at a conference in February by an executive at agri-chemical company Syngenta, according to an article in Farmers Weekly [10]; and appears on the website of Monsanto [11], the global GM giant.

The purpose of the Soil Association report was to draw attention to the misleading use of the figures, said Melchett. "We can start to have a more sensible and open discussion about food and what farming systems are going to be possible in 2030 or 2050 when oil has started to run out and is very much more expensive, and how could greenhouse gases be lower," he added.

A major international report in 2008 by hundreds of scientists and other experts, commissioned by the FAO and the World Bank [12], also advocated a more varied response to feeding a growing population, including diversification of farms and diets, more conservation schemes on farms, reforming subsidies which encouraged unsustainable agriculture, and promoting more healthy diets. The report, under an organisation called the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, was signed off by 58 countries including the UK, though the US, Australia and Canada only accepted part of the findings.

The FAO report, World Agriculture towards 2030/2050 says world food production growth would be principally driven by rising populations, and trends towards eating more calories and more meat and dairy products, especially in developing countries. As a result, the FAO forecast an average 1.5% a year growth in agricultural production by value from 1990 to 2030, and then 0.9% a year for the following two decades to 2050.