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Facts About Sustainability and Agriculture

September 09, 2009

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Check your knowledge of sustainable agriculture with this list of facts.

By Produce More Conserve More

In the developed world, fewer people are employed in agriculture than at any point in history. Today, this means that very few people possess first-hand knowledge of farming. The following facts and figures provide a glimpse of the challenge facing farmers to produce more, while conserving more resources and helping to improve peoples’ lives.

The need to produce more

True or False: The world grows enough food to feed its population.

Generally true, although to eradicate hunger, people in the developing world need to be able to access food either by growing it or through purchase, which means it needs to be affordable. (UN Food & Agricultural Organization)

True or False: The global population will increase by 42 percent between now and 2050.

True. The world’s population is expected to increase from about 6.6 billion people today to 9.3 billion by 2050. (U.S. Bureau of the Census projections)

True or False: Agriculture must increase food production by 42 percent to keep pace.

False. Increasing demand for food, fuel and fiber in developing countries combined with other factors actually require agricultural food production to double by 2050. (International Policy Council, October 2007)

True or False: An acre of farmland is the size of a football field.

True, but without the end zones.

True or False: The expanding world population has cut the grainland area per person to just the size of a typical suburban yard.

True, or about one-fourth of an acre. (Earth Policy Institute)

Increasing food production requires wiser use of natural resources

True or False: On World Water Day in March 2008, more than a billion people around the world lacked access to safe drinking water.

True. And two billion have little or no sanitation. (UN World Water Development Report)

True or False: Global agriculture uses 50 percent of our fresh water.

False. It uses 70 percent, and in the developing world, that percentage is closer to 95 percent. (UN Food & Agriculture Organization)

True or False: Irrigation increases the yield of most crops by 50 percent.

False. Actually, irrigation boosts the yield by 100 percent to 400 percent. (UN Food & Agriculture Organization)

True or False: Agriculture uses 55 percent of habitable land.

True. And the percentage is growing as developing countries cut down forests to grow more food and other agricultural commodities. (World Wildlife Fund)

True or False: Agriculture contributes 70 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions.

False. But it’s a still-substantial 13.5 percent. (UN Food & Agriculture Organization)

Improving lives

True or False: Agriculture is the largest industry in the world.

True. Despite continuous decline in the total number of farmers, agriculture remains the world’s largest industry, employing over one billion people. (UN Food & Agriculture Organization, “The State of Food and Agriculture 2007”)

True or False: Development assistance investments in agriculture continue to rise.

False. Official development assistance from all donors to agriculture has been on a downward trend, from about $6.6 billion in the early 1980s, to about $3.4 billion in 2004. (Official Development Assistance statistics)

True or False: One-in-eight people worldwide are chronically hungry.

True, and that’s more people who are hungry than 20 years ago. (UN Food & Agriculture Organization)

True or False: Many of the world’s hungry are farmers.

True. Nearly 60 percent of the world’s hungry are resource-poor farmers. Another 20 percent are landless and rely exclusively on agriculture for their livelihood. (UN Food & Agriculture Organization)

True or False: Many of the world’s poor are farmers.

True. About 900 million rural people live on less than $1 a day. (World Bank’s 2008 World Development Report)

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