More than 400 expert authors have assessed evidence across a wide range of knowledge that is rarely brought together. They conclude we have little time to lose if we are to change course. Continuing with current trends in production and distribution would exhaust our resources and put our children’s future in jeopardy. And the increasingly globalised food market and ever-increasing food imports mean that no country can assume itself to be immune to the implications.

For the report and more see: www.agassessment.org

Gordon Brown, writing about the potential for improving developing country production capacity to help cope with recent food price inflation in his recent letter to the Japanese Prime Minister said:

“Rising food prices provide an opportunity as well as a challenge for poor countries - with three out of four poor people in the world living in rural areas and dependent on agriculture. We must help smallholders address problems of limited and insecure landholdings, lack of access to inputs and markets, poor rural infrastructure and inadequate market information.”

The IAASTD report calls for a more holistic view of agriculture, and urges governments, NGOs and the private sector to work together to ensure that the needs of the future are better served by the practices of the present:

“Although considered by many to be a success story, the benefits of productivity increases in world agriculture are unevenly spread. Often the poorest of the poor have gained little or nothing, and 850 million people are still hungry or malnourished with an additional 4 million more joining their ranks annually. We are putting food that appears cheap on our tables but it is food that is not always healthy and that costs us dearly in terms of water, soil and the biological diversity on which all our futures depend.”