Proceedings of the 2012 Parliamentary Conference, with Sir John Beddington; Professor Jonathon Foley; Dr Derek Byerlee; Dr Frank Rijsberman and others

This talk will explore the crucial linkages between urbanisation and food security, based on our recent and ongoing research studies. Urbanisation is often cited as one of the significant factors threatening food security. First of all, urbanisation leads to land use conversion from agricultural...

Global rates of deforestation and forest degradation continue at persistently high levels, although annual net rates of forest loss have slowed to approximately 8 Mha as the extent of planted forests increases. Drivers of deforestation vary geographically. Conversion to both large- and...

A simple bieconomic model (the Gordon-SChaefer model) is estimated for three species of tuna in the Eastern Tropical Atlantic. The model conformed well to the data and afforded estimates of maximum sustainable yield, bioeconomic and open access equilibria. Strong marginal stock effects were...

Food-for-work (FFW) programs are commonly used both for short-term relief and long-term development purposes. In this paper we assess the potential of FFW programs to reduce poverty and promote sustainable land use in the longer run. There is a danger that such programs distort labor allocation...

Who feeds the world? Two billion small-scale farmers who in addition to feeding themselves also produce surpluses for local markets — these are the food producers for a global population. Domestic markets along with the food consumed by the producers’ families constitute more than 70% of the...