Current and forthcoming Issues of World Agriculture

The New Year will see a new ‘face’ to World Agriculture. 

We shall change our WEB format, and to keep our Journal abreast of developments in internet technology, we shall for example, simplify the procedure by which one downloads references on-line. 

Moreover, we shall invite readers to comment on World Agriculture, or on relevant current issues, by publishing your unedited comments, to which we shall append only your name and country.

In the present Issue we give evidence of the effects of population growth and climate change on food security in China. 

We propose there needs to be a change in Government Policy for the Eastern more heavily populated region of China. 

The pattern of rainfall is changing in various food growing regions of China affecting output – a critical development in a country whose population is expected to rise by 60 million by 2030.

Conservation of fresh water reserves and greater efficiency in their use becomes an essential part of good crop husbandry. 

Similar developments are occurring in other parts of the World. These factors are eventually likely to influence the availability of foodstuffs and their international price, the importance of which will be  especially felt in developing countries.

Early in the New Year we plan to publish a review on how India, and South Asia generally, are adapting to climate change in ‘smart villages’.

India is a country whose population is expected to exceed that of China by the early 2020s and to reach 1.5 billion by 2030. 

Nevertheless, in ten of the World’s countries with the highest current birth rates, of between 5.8 and 7.6 babies per family, nine are in Africa – the tenth is in the East Indies(1).  

The Indian study will be followed by reviews on: 1) how China is increasing the yield/ha of cotton by use of a novel technique; 2) Is temperate forestry being promoted for the wrong reasons? 3) The effects of tropical bat droppings and 3) socio-economic factors that influence African tropical bean culture.

David Frape, November, 2016