ABSTRACT
The human population is expected to exceed 8 billion by 2025, and most of this increase will occur in the developing countries. World food production capacity is quite substantial, and yet millions of people are too poor to meet their basic need for food. Agriculture is the primary interface between people and the environment and, therefore, agricultural transformation will be essential to meet the global challenges of reducing poverty and environmental pollution, and enhancing food security. Agricultural growth is central to economic growth in developing countries, and very few low-income countries have achieved rapid growth in nonagricultural sectors without a corresponding increase in agricultural production. Socioeconomic transformation will have to occur at the level of smallholder farmers so that their complex farming systems can be made more productive and effi cient in resource use. The “Green Revolution” led to a rapid increase in food production between the 1950s and the 1990s, but the total food production and per capita availability of food have become almost stagnant for the past decade. Therefore, there is a need to harness all the technologies, including biotechnology, for a sustainable growth in agriculture for food security (Serageldin, 1999).
