The best part of the world's maize and soyabean crops goes to feeding animals.Separately, before poor farmers start buying seeds from big Western seed companies they should try some basic technologies such as crop rotation, green fertilisers and agroforestry.
Mr Briggs persuaded his landowner to lengthen his tenancy, studied agroforestry practices in China and, implementing them in Britain, ploughed his own money into the rented ground.
This could be achieved simply by growing trees on degraded croplands and grasslands, an approach known as agroforestry.
There is evidence that shade-grown coffees, which are not grown as monocultures, are somewhat less susceptible, as the agroforestry practice of mixing tree crops greatly slows the spread of the disease.
Research and interest in agroforestry have expanded and become institutionalized.
Their use in agroforestry may help conserve rainforests while providing an income for small farmers.
Several genera show excellent potential for silviculture and agroforestry in land use systems where they are mixed with other species, sometimes also with animal components.
In 2004 the World Bank estimated that agroforestry practices were being used by 1.2 billion people.
Although American and Canadian temperate-zone agroforestry nomenclature differs from that used in the tropics and Europe, five temperate-zone agroforestry practices are generally recognized worldwide.
In Ecuador, palms that are grown by the agroforestry industry include the peach palm; the tagua, or ivory, palm (Phytelephas aequatorialis) grown for vegetable ivory; and a fibre palm (Aphandra natalia).
Cacao can also be grown in pristine rainforests at low densities as a form of agroforestry, providing an economic use for protected land.
