Enabling poor rural people
to overcome poverty
- Nearly 2 billion people live on less than US$2 a day. Most live in the rural areas of developing countries.
- Every day, around 1 billion people go hungry.
- The world’s population is expected to rise from 6.7 billion people to 9.1 billion by 2050, with most of the growth in developing countries.
- By 2050 food production needs to increase by 70 per cent, but the total arable area in developing countries may increase by no more than 12 per cent, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
- About 95 per cent of African agriculture depends on rainfall.
- In Africa alone, climate change will expose 75 million to 250 million more people to increased water stress by 2020.
- Since the 1960s, the Sahel region of Africa has experienced a 25 per cent decline in rainfall.
- Agriculture accounts for 14 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, and forestry for 18 per cent.
- There are around 500 million smallholder farms in the world. Smallholders provide up to 80 per cent of food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.