When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969, he looked down at a world with just 3 billion inhabitants. Fast forward four decades to 2020, and the world's population would have grown to 8 billion - certainly one giant leap for mankind. At the current growth rate, 9 billion people could be walking the Earth by 2030. Following on from our recently concluded Earth's Resources Conference, we release this detailed study on the rising pressures from Earth's growing population and the likely impact on commodity prices. This report continues from the extensive analysis by Gerard Lyons and team presented in their 2010 The Super-Cycle Report, which highlights the long-term implications for global commodities. A growing population - and one with a rising ability to spend - promises to become an even more important driver of commodity prices than the consumption impact China wields currently.

The world's population could reach 7.2 billion by the end of this year and 8 billion by 2020, with the largest increase to come from Africa, such that the continent could overtake both India and China in the next 10 years. We estimate Africa's population to reach 1.4 billion by 2020 from 1.1 billion now. Indeed, as highlighted in our Super-Cycle report, Africa's growing population could contribute to what we had called "an arc of growth" stretching from China through India and into Africa. The population on the African continent is growing five times faster than China, and it is the youngest in the world. Moreover, it is relatively free of consumer debt and boasts a swelling middle class.

Soft commodities are likely to be beneficiaries in this new age, with palm oil, corn, soya and sugar to rise on the cusp of major new bull markets. To feed the large population, we need to find new agricultural land that is larger than the farms in India or Russia. The emergence of producer power comes at a time when China seems to be more reliant on food imports. We could be one bad season away from another spike in food prices.

Copper and gold could be the big winners in the metals arena. Supply constraints in these commodities are unlikely to ease as the world's population becomes increasingly hungry for these two metals.

David Fuller's view This overall outlook is very much in line with views provided by Fullermoney over the last decade. A rising global population is inevitably a factor in the need for commodities. However, it is the growth economies, which most people still refer to as emerging markets, which are the single biggest factor behind this increased demand for resources, not least foods.

As incomes within growth economies increase a rapidly growing middle class worldwide can afford to eat more, including protein in the form of meat products. This greatly increases demand for staple grains and beans which are a major source of animal feed.

Modern farming techniques, once adopted by growth economies, can greatly increase food production, storage and transportation. This would be more than sufficient to feed the world's growing population given a reasonably stable climate. Unfortunately, adverse weather conditions and to a lesser extent pests have been a problem for farmers throughout human history. The combined US heatwave and drought commencing in July has been severe, as we have already seen. Consequently the spike in food prices mentioned above will occur.

The report above also mentions that copper and gold could be big winners. Copper may take longer to move, at least initially, being more dependent on a revival in China-led GDP growth. Gold could move more quickly due to seasonal factors and its hard money status at a time of historically low interest rates and an excessive amount of quantitative easing. Platinum should see an even bigger recovery as it remains historically cheap relative to gold, is more scarce and also subject to supply squeezes when labour unrest or power outages occur in South Africa. (See also Eoin's item on platinum below.)