ABSTRACT
Even though more people in more countries are making decisions that favour smaller families, the existing demographic structure ensures that the world's population will continue to increase for at least three to five more decades before it stabilizes. These additional people will require more food and other goods and services, and more and more of these people will be living in towns. We need to consider, therefore:
What fraction of the additional food production required can be delivered by improved, low-external-input ecologically-oriented agricultural systems?
Can these systems achieve the extra production required without eliminating the remaining natural forests of the globe?
Can they provide food to the people needing it and where it is required, including to the expanding urban population of the world?
