The Crawford Fund’s Annual Parliamentary Conference for 2012, ‘The Scramble for Natural Resources’, addressed a question of fundamental importance to Australia and to the international community: that is, how to feed, adequately, an extra 2 or 3 billion people within a few decades without...

In a little over a decade, the global population is expected to reach 8 billion. The task of feeding this growing population will become harder with rising natural resource constraints, declining or stagnant crop productivity, more frequent extreme weather events, and climate change. These...

The Sir John Crawford Memorial Address has been presented since 1985, in honour of the distinguished Australian civil servant, educator and agriculturalist in whose name the Crawford Fund was established. Sir John Crawford was a remarkable Australian who contributed at the highest levels, and...

Global rates of deforestation and forest degradation continue at persistently high levels, although annual net rates of forest loss have slowed to approximately 8 Mha as the extent of planted forests increases. Drivers of deforestation vary geographically. Conversion to both large- and...

Who feeds the world? Two billion small-scale farmers who in addition to feeding themselves also produce surpluses for local markets — these are the food producers for a global population. Domestic markets along with the food consumed by the producers’ families constitute more than 70% of the...

Sustainable food production depends on well functioning agro-biological ecosystems: a diversity of living organisms—the biodiversity—plays a critical role in the function of these ecosystems, particularly in the way in which biotic and abiotic processes shape agricultural productivity and...

The production of food from marine and freshwaters is undergoing a profound revolution—from hunting to farming or from fishing to aquaculture. Fishing and aquaculture exploit and alter the biodiversity on which they are based, each in different but convergent ways. Fishing harvests a much...

Australia's isolation from other continents over millions of years led to the evolution of many species that exist nowhere else, so called ‘endemic’ species. Of the ten megadiverse countries in the world, we are the only one that is labelled as ‘developed’ so have a global leadership...

Mining companies’ main business is to focus on their core expertise — best-practice mining development and operation. Resolute Mining Limited has over two decades of expertise, and is one of the largest gold producers listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. In Africa we mine, or have mined,...

For decades, the rural development and poverty alleviation agenda in sub-Saharan Africa has emphasised support for smallholder farming and little else. Foreign large-scale miners and other industrial operators have complied, establishing agriculture-support services and programs for communities...