Cover Image close this folder9. Concluding remarks View the
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(introductory text...)  Juha I. Uitto  Today's world is
experiencing a growth in the human population that is
unparalleled in history. The world's population has doubled
since the 1950s and we have now reached a level of more than 5.6
billion people on this planet. Every year, some 90 million new
people are added to this number. The "most likely" scenario
forecast by the United Nations puts world population at 10
billion in the year 2050.  The pressures placed on agricultural
production on a global scale are daunting. In 1961, the global
arable area was 1.3 billion hectares, of which 10 per cent was
irrigated. Thirty years later, the global arable area has
increased by only 100 million hectares, while the share under
irrigation has gone up to 17 per cent. However, even if the
total arable area has increased somewhat, if one adjusts it by
the number of people that have to be fed, the figure l