is projected to fall from 2% for the period 1989 to 1997-99 to around 1.4% on an annual average basis over the period 2015 to 2030 (FAO, 2003). This declining growth rate is expected to be more pronounced in developing countries, where the food demand growth rate is projected to fall from an annual average of 3.7% over the past 30 years to a mean of 2% a year over the next 30 years. This differential is at­tributable to the fact that daily food consumption in many large developing countries such as China is approaching that of industrialized countries. Once this level converges, the growth rate in total food demand will slow. Notably however, this trend is not expected in India because cultural traditions will hold the country's demand for meat and ani­mal feed to well below that in China (FAO, 2003).
     Rapid population and income growth in East Asia have been key drivers behind the increasing demand for world food commodities (ADB, 2006b). Population and income growth in South Asia over the coming decades will contrib­ute to this growing food demand, as will movement toward adequate food consumption levels and improvements in nu­trition (FAO, 2006b).
     Growing projected demand for agricultural commodi­ties in the ESAP region suggests there will be significant challenges in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. For example, while future economic growth is projected to raise per person incomes by 1.9% a year between 2000 and 2015, it is unlikely that the absolute impoverished popula­tion can be halved, with projections suggesting a more lim­ited reduction from 1.27 billion in 1990 to 0.75 billion in 2015 (FAO, 2003).
     To satisfy the projected increases in food requirements, an additional billion tonnes of cereals will be needed each year by 2030.  These projections imply that developing countries could be required to import 265 million tonnes of cereals annually (FAO, 2003). Trade liberalization will therefore be an important factor in ensuring adequate food supplies in the region as regional production falls short of regional food demands (Park and Zhai, 2006).
     Developing Asia is increasingly influencing international commodity markets and prices. The rapid industrialization and structural change witnessed in China will continue to have enormous implications for global commodities de­mand and prices. Agricultural and light manufactures de­mand will increasingly give way to heavy industrial raw materials (ADB, 2006b). This process is expected to be re­peated in India over the next few decades, with additional significant implications for energy and other raw materials demand, and further into the future, food demands that can only be met through imports from lower income countries (ADB, 2006).
     Increasing wealth over the past few decades within the ESAP countries has facilitated a change in consumption patterns toward higher value food products and imports. Wage income will increase at the fastest rate in East and South Asia of anywhere in the world (World Bank, 2007). As disposable incomes increase, demand for starchy staples is expected to decline, while demand for livestock products, fruits, vegetables and processed food products is projected to increase (OECD-FAO, 2006).
     The implications of economic growth for food demand will depend on the relative wealth of countries. For low in-

come Asian countries, changing diets will result in an in­crease in per person consumption of wheat and rice and a decline in consumption of maize and other coarse grains by 2020 (IFPRI, 2002). With additional growth and improve­ments in per person wealth, food demand will shift again.
     A driver of changing import demand for cereals has been significant improvements in agricultural productivity as a consequence of the Green Revolution (Francks et al., 1999). Rapid urbanization has also contributed to chang­ing dietary profiles. Urbanization often generates additional demand for higher value processed food and tropical bever­ages such as coffee (ADB, 2006b). In China and India, this has also led to significant shifts in food import demands. This trend has been particularly apparent in China, where wage rates have risen faster than in many other developing countries and this has also created opportunities for agri­cultural exports from other low income countries (World Bank, 2007). In particular, changing dietary patterns have exerted an influence on the level and variety of imports for food products such as meats, vegetables, edible oil and oil seeds (ADB, 2006b).
     The fraction of the global population living in countries with per capita food consumption under 2200 kcal per day is projected to fall to around 2.4% in 2030. In South Asia, this fraction is expected to fall by 40% between 1997-99 and 2030 and in East Asia by 50% (FAO, 2003).
     Daily calorific intake increases through time in both regions, however the composition of that intake varies between South and East Asia (Table 4-4). The key differ­ences are that while demand increases for roots and tubers in South Asia, the trend in demand is downward for those commodities in East Asia. Meat consumption grows faster over the projection period in East Asia than in South Asia, and South Asian diets are far more heavily weighted toward milk and dairy products than in East Asia.
     The composition of aggregate cereals demand is expected to substantially change over the period to 2020. In Asia, the aggregate demand for rice is projected to decline by 4% and wheat demand to decline by 1% between 1997 and 2020, while aggregate demand for maize as a percentage of ce­real consumption will rise 6% (IFPRI, 2001). However, per capita demand projections for cereals reveal a slightly differ­ent picture. Per person demand for rice in Asia is projected to remain constant over the period 1997 to 2020, while per person wheat demand is expected to rise 9% and per person maize consumption is projected to decline by around 16%. These shifts are due to rapidly growing incomes and urban­ization (IFPRI, 2001).
     At the sub-regional ESAP level, it is expected that in North India, Northern and Southern China, the current demand for rice will continue well into the future (FAO, 2006b). A gradual shift in demand from rice to wheat is taking place  in  Southeast  Asia—especially in Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Although this trend is just starting in Viet Nam, and not yet evident in Myanmar, Laos PDR and Cambodia, it is expected that there will be an increasing shift in the ESAP region as a whole from rice staple diets to rice and wheat staple diets (FAO, 2006b). Pacific countries such as Samoa, Tuvalu and Solomon Is­lands are projected to reveal an increasing preference for rice and wheat based diets in place of traditional starchy