By 2050, the global demand for food will rise by 70%, according to data from the World Bank, as the world’s population is expected to reach nine billion people. And in order to meet such a huge demand, at least US$80 billion annual investment will be required.
Now back to Asia. In terms of its regional food systems, food production also needs to increase by 77% by 2050 to feed the rapidly growing number of population. Despite such a challenging demand, it is found that 80% of Asia’s food is produced yet by smallholder farmers, compared to only 18% in the United States and 16% in Europe. Also six of the world’s climate-related disasters most damaging to agriculture from 2003 to 2013 were in Asia.
Such statistical data projects a challenging picture of how farmers especially those in Asian countries including Thailand are forced to cope with different agricultural…
