How to feed an extra 2 billion people by 2050? A shift in how we grow food.
By 2050, the Earth's population is expected to hit 9 billion (!). That means we're going to need to get creative to feed 2 billion more mouths every day.
How in the heck are we going to do that?
We already live in a world where nearly 800 million people suffer from chronic hunger. How are we supposed to get that number down while also sustaining a growing population?
One answer lies in our cities:
This video illustrates the need for food to be produced closer to where people live. As more people are moving to cities, hauling food products hundreds or thousands of miles from farms to grocery shelves isn't a sustainable option. That's why farms are moving into cities.
To feed everyone, we have to rethink where our food comes from.
The urban population of the world has been growing incredibly fast. In 1950, there were 746 million people living in urban areas. By 2014, that number jumped to 3.9 BILLION. And it only keeps increasing.
Within the next 30 years, it is expected that 70% of the world population will be located in urban areas, with most of the growth occurring in less developed countries.
The good news: We already produce enough food to feed 9 billion people. It's just not reaching the people who need it, and a third of all food produced is wasted. In other words, the major problems are access and waste.
In the United States alone, we waste enough food to fill up a 90,000-person football stadium EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
One way to help with both the access and the waste problems is to grow food where people already are: in cities.
Image by Junko Kimura/Getty Images.
When you picture a farm, a city setting doesn't typically come to mind. But these days, it's becoming quite common to see farms on the tops of buildings, in small, communal plots of land, or in abandoned warehouses that beam with artificial light.
The traditional concept of farming in rural "farm country" has been broadened to more dense environments around the world, in cities with all types of weather and climate.
Image via iStock.
Yes, that means you can even grow food in the middle of a desert city like Dubai. Pretty cool!
Farming closer to home means the food is fresher, people are healthier, there's less food waste, and the environment is happier because of shorter distances from farm to table. And not only that, but urban plots can be up to 15 times more productive than rural ones, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Growing food in urban areas is one answer to feeding more people, but it's just one piece of the puzzle.
To feed the world's growing population will require an equal focus on traditional agricultural practices in order for us to make real impact.
Image via Esther Havens/The Adventure Project.
Up to 80% of the food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa is produced by female and smallholder farmers — many of them female. If we really want to close the hunger gap and feed more people, we must properly invest in their resources and growth to help boost their incomes and productivity with their yields.
There's a lot of work to be done before we're successfully able to feed an additional 2 billion people. It will take a global effort to find a sustainable balance between old and new agricultural practices.
It's cool to see that work in progress — quite literally, growing from a rooftop in the middle of a city.
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Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.