2010 Articles

Monitoring the world's agriculture

Sachs, Jeffrey D.; Remans, Roseline; Smukler, Sean; Winowiecki, Leigh; Andelman, Sandy J.; Cassman, Kenneth G.; Castle, David; DeFries, Ruth; Denning, Glenn; Fanzo, Jessica C.; Jackson, Louise E.; Leemans, Rik; Lehmann, Johannes; Milder, Jeffrey C.; Naeem, Shahid; Nziguheba, Generose; Palm, Cheryl A.; Pingali, Prabhu L.; Reganold, John P.

Agriculture must be transformed. Although global food production is increasing, today's farming systems undermine the well-being of communities in many ways. For instance, farming has destroyed huge regions of natural habitat and caused an untold loss of ecosystem services, and it is responsible for about 30% of greenhouse-gas emissions. Already, about 1 billion people are undernourished. Yet to feed the global population expected by 2050, more than 1 billion hectares of wild land will need to be converted to farmland if current approaches continue to be used.