How Can We Feed Billions More People? One out of every eight people in the world goes hungry. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, which calculated this figure , has also reported that 852 million of these 870 million hungry people live in developing countries. Worse, the world population will likely balloon from its present 7.1 billion to 9.6 billion by 2050 . Scientists say this will be coupled with a projected doubling in demand for crops by that same year. Researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment now argue in a Science paper, however, that it is possible to feed at least 3 billion more people—with existing cropland. These researchers claim that a “small set of regions, crops, and actions” could “provide strategic global opportunities to increase yields, reduce the environmental impact of agriculture, and deliver food more efficiently from what is already grown.” […]