This piece was originally posted on the IFPRI blog.
By Sara Gustafson, Communications Specialist, IFPRI
The world’s urban population is growing rapidly. According to a new publication from The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, more people live in urban areas than rural areas today, and by 2060, 66 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. This growth is particularly obvious in developing regions. Africa’s urban population is projected to grow from its current 40 percent to 56 percent by 2050; Asia’s urban population will grow from 48 to 64 percent during the same period, while Latin America’s will rise from 80 to 90 percent.
This explosion in urban growth presents both challenges and opportunities for the global food system. According to the report, urban residents consume a larger share of the total value of food than rural consumers, due to both higher incomes and preferences for more diverse, and oftentimes more costly, food. Urban diets are shifting from reliance on staple foods, like grains, to include more fruits and vegetables, dairy and meat products, and processed foods. While the poorest households, mostly concentrated in rural areas, still depend almost exclusively on staple crops for their food consumption, grains have become a minority of overall food expenditures in terms of value in many countries, the report says. For example, in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda, the share of non-grain foods in urban households’ total food expenditures is, on average, 66 percent; in Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, and Vietnam, this share is 74 percent.