The Issues
The human population is growing at a rate of 90 million people per year; as a
consequence, natural ecosystems are rapidly being replaced by agricultural
systems and existing agricultural systems are being managed more intensely in
order to keep up with the increasing demand for food. Over eight hundred
scientists attending a meeting in Barcelona, Spain, on March 14-18, 1998,
sponsored by the GCTE/LUCC Programs, will be discussing the environmental
impact of converting natural and semi-natural ecosystems into intensively
managed agricultural systems.
The Science
- The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations estimates
that 93 million hectares of land (an area about twice the size of Spain) will
be converted to agricultural use by 2010 in South America, Africa, and Asia.
Even with this increase in the area of land used for agriculture, production of
wheat, rice and maize in developing countries will need to increase by about
250%, from 1 billion tonnes now to 2.5 billion tonnes by 2030, to meet rising
demands for food.
- On the second day of the conference, Dr. P. J. Gregory, from the University of
Reading, UK, and his colleagues will outline the environmental impact of this
increase in agricultural production. They will use examples from the Sahel,
Nepal and ?Slash and Burn? systems throughout the tropics to demonstrate the
effects that both intensification and extensification will have on land and the
long-term sustainability of crop production systems.
- Several new tools at the disposal of environmental scientists are helping them study the consequences of land use changes. Powerful computer programs called Geographical Information Systems (GIS) bring together a wide array of data including topography, hydrology, population density and satellite images for use in models that determine the patterns of land use over large regions. For example, Dr. S.S. Jagtap from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria, and his colleagues are developing strategies using GIS for managing crops and livestock in the environmentally-sensitive savannahs of West Africa. They project that the failure to develop such strategies will lead to large shortfalls of feed for livestock and substantial soil degradation and loss of vegetation.
Practical Information
Global change impact on agriculture will be discussed on the third day of the
conference (March 16) in session 3, and during the poster sessions of March 16
and 17. Eleven oral posters are scheduled during the Poster session of March 17.
In addition, two ad hoc meetings dealing with agriculture and global change will
be held in March 16 and 17 during lunch time.
Contact: Press Officer GCTE/LUCC Conference: Anne Larigauderie
Université Paris-Sud, Ecologie des Populations et Communautes, Bat. 362,
F-91405 Orsay Cedex, France
Phone/Fax: +33 1 69 15 56 92/6
E-mail: anne.larigauderie@epc.u-psud.fr
Conference Secretatiat, Barcelona, Spain:
Tel: +34 3 233 2387 FAX: +34 3 233 2575