Many developing countries will need to double their food production by 2020 if they are to successfully feed their burgeoning populations. This will require maintaining, if not increasing, current rates of growth in national food production, and achieving this in sustainable ways that do not...

Tropical forests are disappearing rapidly with potentially high social costs in biodiversity loss and carbon emissions. While agriculture is critical to the long-term solution of sustainable livelihood and food security in the humid tropics, it is only part of the story. To take pressure off...

In agrarian developing countries the natural environment is a key determinant of both poverty and nutritional status. Climate, terrain, and soil characteristics drive the agricultural system, determining in large part cropping patterns, choice of crops, yield rates, and overall productivity...

Global food production, so far, has increased continuously because cropped area has expanded and productivity per unit area has increased. In some regions of the world, however, there is little scope for further spatial expansion of agriculture. In other areas, crop yields are stagnating. Does...

Global population in the year 2020 will be a third higher than in 1995, but demand for food and fiber will rise by an even higher proportion, as incomes grow, diets diversify, and urbanization accelerates. However this demand is met, population and farming pressure on land resources will...

Meeting world food needs in the year 2020 will depend even more than it does now on the capabilities and resources of women. Women are responsible for generating food security for their families in many developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Women not only process, purchase,...

Creating a hunger-free world in the 21st century will require prevention and resolution of violent conflicts, as well as a concerted effort to rebuild war-torn societies. Between 1970 and 1990 violent conflicts led to hunger and reduced food production and economic growth in 43 developing...

The right to food has always been recognized as a valid and fundamental right of the individual. In the absence of food, other political and economic rights and freedoms are meaningless. Global food supplies have for many years been more than adequate to feed the world's population. Nonetheless,...