ABSTRACT
Since 1700, and as populations have increased, the cultivated area of the earth has increased by nearly 6-fold (Pimentel et al. 1995). By the year 2020, the world will have around 7.7 billion people, of whom 84 percent will be in developing countries (Scherr, 1999:31). These people will need to be fed and as populations grow and inequalities in land distribution continue, the amount of cultivable land per capita will decline. If the world’s presently cultivated arable land area is maintained at about 1.45 billion hectares (ha), the per capita arable land will fall from approximately 0.25 ha to 0.15 by 2050 (Lal, 1991).
