How to Feed the World in 2050
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2006, 2009.
By 2050 the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion, 34 percent higher than today. Nearly all of this population increase will occur in developing countries. Urbanization will continue at an accelerated pace, and about 70 percent of the world’s population will be urban (compared to 49 percent today). Income levels will be many multiples of what they are now. In order to feed this larger, more urban and richer population, food production (net of food used for biofuels) must increase by 70 percent. Annual cereal production will need to rise to about 3 billion tonnes from 2.1 billion today and annual meat production will need to rise by over 200 million tonnes to reach 470 million tonnes.
 How to Feed the World in 2050 | [ ] |
| FAO_World_agriculture_2050.pdf | [ ] |
Agricultural land use of European Union new member states in the context of ALARM scenarios
Poster presented for the conference "Using Evaluation to Enhance the Rural Development Value of Agri-environmental Measures"
Parnu, Estonia, June 17-19, 2008
Piret Kuldna, Kaja Peterson, Isabelle Reginster and Nicolas Dendoncker
Agriculture has been more important sector in EU new member states than in old member states in terms of agricultural land use, employment as well as of gross value added. However, the socio-economic and political changes during the 1990s have changed the land use structure and patterns in the new member states significantly. Due to the rapid economic development that is taking place in these countries now, the threat to agricultural biodiversity has become more pronounced than in the past. Land use changes and intensity are among the most significant pressures on biodiversity. This study applies the ALARM scenarios to analyse the agricultural land use and associated biodiversity changes in 10 new EU member states compared to 15 old member states. It is concluded that similar trends in land use intensity are followed in new member states as in old ones but at a higher speed that may result in biodiversity loss if counter measures are not taken.
| Agricultural land use of European Union new member states | [ ] |
After the Common Agricultural Policy: towards an EU policy for Sustainable Food and Rural Environment?
Paul Terwan, Wouter van der Weijden, Gijs Kuneman and Rob Schröder
CLM Centre for Agriculture and Environment
Paul Terwan research & consultancy and Alterra / Wageningen UR, 2008
European rural policies face urgent problems to be solved, some of them new, some existing but increasing. Important global developments need European answers: increasing food scarcity, depletion of natural resources and valuable landscapes, climate change, water availability, biofuel production, etc. In addition, the EU faces serious governance problems relating to budget and communication problems, over-centralisation and bureaucracy, and enlargement. The European Commission has announced further reforms, but these remain largely within the current CAP context and do not sufficiently anticipate the problems mentioned before. Therefore, a more radical change is needed.
| After_CAP.pdf | [ ] |
Vision 2030: The Resilience of Water Supply and Sanitation in the Face of Climate Change
World Health Organization(WHO), 2009.
The study brought together evidence from projections on climate change, trends in technology application, and developing knowledge about the adaptability and resilience of drinkingwater and sanitation. While the reports emanating from this study focus on issues related to the provision of water and sanitation services, installing services with a greater resilience to the impacts of climate change will rely in turn on improved management of water resources. Water resources management in this context has been extensively discussed, for example in the technical paper on water of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
