Crisis point

摘要

It is hard to overstate the importance of the agriculture sector to the global economy and societies around the world, yet it is a sector that is often ignored or taken for granted. "Food is one of the basic human needs and vital for a stable development of the global economy," says the Dutch co-operative bank Rabobank, a specialist in financing agriculture projects. The security of food supplies is under threat from a range of factors that includes climate change, water and land availability, the increased use of biofuels and higher oil prices. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that an increase in production of 70% will be needed to feed the world's growing population by 2050 and it is not just that there will be more mouths to feed - in many of the fastest-growing developing countries, the emergence of a middle class that wants to enjoy the same standards of nutrition enjoyed by those in industrialised countries is changing people's diets, -with demand increasing for meat, for example, which is not just expensive but also very resource- and water-intensive as well as a major contributor to global methane emissions.