Alex Evans: The Feeding of the Nine Billion | Chatham House

Today sees the launch of The Feeding of the Nine Billion (pdf), my Chatham House pamphlet on food prices and scarcity issues, which brings a year-long research programme to its conclusion. ...

So what needs to be done? The report sets out a ten point agenda for action at the international level and in developing countries, but overall I think of the challenge in four key areas.

The first is to get a 21st century Green Revolution underway, and fast. Spending on agriculture by aid donors and developing country governments has collapsed over the last 25 years; it's a similar story on R&D. At the same time, we need to move from today's input-intensive model of agriculture to one that's instead knowledge-intensive. People always ask whether that means GM crops, and I don't rule out that they may have a part to play; but for equitability and social resilience, I think more ecologically integrated approaches (like integrated soil fertility management) often score higher.