International Futures Help System

Agricultural Demand

IFs computes demand for three agricultural categories—crops, meat, and fish. Total human food demand (for both crops and meat) is responsive to calorie demand, which in turn responds to GDP per capita (as a proxy for income). The division of calorie demand between demand for calories from crops and from meat changes in response also to GDP per capita (increasing in income). The calculation sequence of human food demand in IFs thus begins with determination of calorie demand, determines how much of that is satisfied by the typically increasing share from meat (bounding that share with reasonable upper limits), and how much remains to be satisfied from crops. At this point IFs does not track calories from fish. Once the remaining needed calories from crops are determined, the physical demand for crops in million metric tons can also be determined.

Crop demand also involves demand for industrial use and animal feed. Total crop demand is the sum of those two demands and that for food crops.

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