Biodiversity: Farming Will Make or Break the Food Chain

BROOKLIN, Canada - As the world population swells to nine billion by 2050, global biodiversity will be under extreme pressure unless new ways to grow food are developed, experts say.

An additional one billion hectares of wild lands -- mainly forests and savanna -- will be converted to food production fields by 2050. While this may provide enough food, it is likely to result in a massive decline in biodiversity, undermining ecosystems that provide vital services such as clean water and air, and capture carbon to slow the build-up of climate-altering gases in the atmosphere.