More land urgently needed for agriculture
Updated
![An international water conference in Australia has heard that agriculture should take precedence over conservation. [AFP]](http://www.abc.net.au/ra/img/news/base/indon_forests_afp_170408.jpg?<BR> "An international water conference in Australia has heard that agriculture should take precedence over conservation. [AFP]")
An international water conference in Australia has heard that agriculture should take precedence over conservation. [AFP]
An international conference on water resources has been warned of worldwide food shortages unless more land is cleared for agriculture.
French hydrologist, Emeritus Professor Ghislain de Marsily, has told those gathered at the conference in the southern Australian city of Adelaide that current rates of food production are insufficient to meet the needs of a forecast global population of nine billion by 2050.
He says if production was to stop, the world would only have two months of food supply available.
"The population is growing on the one hand, climate change is changing the distribution of rainfall over the continents, so we have to do things to produce food on a larger amount and distribute or get that food to the people wherever they are," he said.
Professor de Marsily also says soil and ecosystems will become more of a worldwide concern than access to water.
He says Asia and Africa will move toward having no land left for conservation because it will be needed for crop production, and other continents will also have to help meet Asian food demand.
