FARMING, the world’s biggest industry, uses some 40 per cent of the Earth’s ice-free land surface. In recent decades it has delivered phenomenal increases in yields of food, fodder, fibre and fuel. Most people now have access to cheap food, and more children are obese than underfed. Yet millions of farmers remain poor and lack access to modern science and technology, and more than 850 million people remain hungry.
Environmentally, the successes of agriculture have come at a price. It uses unsustainable amounts of water, has driven steep losses in biodiversity, is responsible for about 14 per cent of the…
