It pursues the work of Agrimonde, which explored pathways to feeding nine billion people in 2050 in a sustainable way, and highlighted the complex array of interactions between food (in)security, land and its uses, and impacts of human activities on the environment.

Agrimonde (phase 1) highlighted the complex array of interactions between food security and insecurity, land and its uses, and human impacts on the environment. There have been many projections and prospective studies on "land uses" and "food security", but the analysis of their relationship is not frequent. Until recently, land planning and land uses were not considered as a determinant factor of food insecurity at global level. We believe that at global level and even at regional level, the strategies implemented to ensure the food security of populations will depend, among other factors, on the availability of arable land, land accessibility (for agriculture and food), their level of fertility and the sustainability of their development.

Given the fact that resources are finite, that there is competition between different land uses (food, feed, biofuels, forests, residential, industrial, transport, recreational, protected areas, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, etc.) and between players, that other resources useful for agriculture are also scarce and that climate is changing, land availability for agriculture is becoming a major driver of food security in the future. Food security may prove difficult to attain, especially given the growing and changing demand for food, and the hypothesis of a possible land shortage is often put forward.

Future land use is also subject to uncertainty and to controversies between societal players, and is an important issue for global governance.

The foresight exercise will explore the conditions under which land use worldwide could become either an aggravating or a securing factor in food security.