Two reports from world bodies have been published week saying that the world has ample capaicty to feed its projected increased population.
The first report, from the OECD and the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, projects ten years from the food price increases of 2008. It concludes that "Some 1.6 billion hectares could be added to the current 1.4 billion hectares of crop land [in the world], and over half of the additionally available land is found in Africa and Latin America."
The second report, from the UN Food & Agriculture Organization and the World Bank, concludes that 400 million hectares, spread across 25 African nations are suitable for farming.
The report cites Thailand as a model for agricultural development. In Thailand, land originally deemed agriculturally unpromising, due to irrigation problems and infertile soil, has been "transformed into a cornucopia" by smallholder farmers.
The report says that, as in Thailand, future success will come by using agriculture to lift Africa’s smallholder farmers out of poverty, aided by strong government measures to guarantee their rights to land, say both reports.