The article looks at the most pressing challenges facing the global community and world agriculture that should be addressed by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and other models of agricultural development. In terms of methodology, the paper combines an overview approach with meta-analysis. The research establishes that the main problem of world agriculture in the coming decades will be to meet growing demand for agricultural and food products under increasingly stiff competition for land, water and other non-renewable and renewable resources - amid increasing pressure on the natural environment and a changing climate. The world could deal with this problem by undertaking coordinated efforts to reduce food wastage, close the productivity gap, promote changes in diet, and foster sustainable intensification and climate-smart farming. On the one hand, CAP can contribute to solving this problem, the author says, but on the other hand, it may hinder efforts in this area by extensively subsidizing EU agriculture.