A decline in agricultural labor caused by low birthrates and rural depopulation could threaten future food production more severely than expected, according to a new study. Food security research has so far focused mainly on securing farmland and climate and soil conditions, but the study draws attention by quantitatively analyzing the possibility of a shortage of people to actually work the land.
KAIST said Wednesday that a research team led by Professor Kim Hyung-jun of the AI Future Strategies Program analyzed the impact of declining agricultural labor on future food production, in collaboration with Professor Jun Hae-won of the Climate-Environment-Energy Research Institute, Professor Niklas Boers, and Professor Taikan Oki of the University of Tokyo in Japan.
The research team used five scenarios combining the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP), international scenario frameworks for projecting future society and climate change. To these, they newly incorporated variables for the decline in agricultural labor driven by population growth, economic growth, and changes in industrial structure. The model included the point that even if there is sufficient land suitable for farming under climate and soil conditions, a shortage of actual agricultural labor could limit the use of farmland.
The analysis found that in the future, agricultural labor shortages will become a key factor reducing the amount of farmland that can actually be used across most regions of the world. In some areas, the shortage of agricultural labor proved to be a greater constraint than climate or soil conditions. In particular, in regions such as East Asia and Eastern Europe, even if the cultivable area per person increases with technological advances, labor was likely to become a major obstacle to farmland supply as agricultural labor decreases due to population decline and industrialization.
The research team also analyzed that the agricultural labor problem may not be easily solved even through technological advances. Technological advances can raise agricultural productivity, but at the same time, the growth of manufacturing and service industries may accelerate the outflow of rural populations. In that case, even with farmland and technology, there could be a shortage of labor to translate them into actual production.
Whether international migration is restricted is also a variable affecting food security. The study confirmed that if migration is restricted, agricultural labor shortages would worsen in developed countries, while agricultural populations could increase excessively in some low-income countries. This shows that food security is closely linked not only to agricultural policy but also to labor mobility, migration policy, and poverty issues. "This study analyzed future food problems by considering not only climate and land but also changes in people," Professor Kim said. "It is a study that shows how realistic social problems such as low birthrates and avoidance of rural life can have a significant impact on future food security and responses to climate change."
The study was conducted with Lee Hong-tak, a doctoral student at the Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy, as the first author and Professor Kim as the corresponding author, and was published in the international journal Nature Sustainability on the first of this month. It was also covered separately in a "News and Views" commentary in the same journal, recognizing its academic significance.
