"While famines and other episodes of severe hunger receive significant press coverage and attract much public attention, chronic hunger and malnutrition are considerably more prevalent in Africa. It is estimated that 14 percent of children are born with low birthweights every year, around 45...

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...