Resource over-exploitation and running out

Food systems around the world are highly dependent on both renewable and nonrenewable resources. Drivers such as population growth, urbanisation and climate change put a lot of pressure on resources that have become core issues for the future of food systems. Cropland availability is limited in most parts of the world, adding pressure for cropping intensification. Fossil energy and phosphorus shortages are expected to occur within a few decades, with particular impact in Low-Income (LI) countries where farmers are more vulnerable to volatile prices. The availability of very unevenly distributed freshwater resources shows a similar picture, with an increasing number of regions reaching alarming levels of water scarcity. Some world fish stocks have been overexploited and are now depleted. But the situation is not without hope. While we need to intensify food systems to meet the challenge of a growing population, new ways to produce with less impact on the environment and more resilience to climate change need to be widely adopted

Report of the special session on advancing integrated agriculture-aquaculture through agroecology, Montpellier, France, 25 August 2018

A workshop, aimed at collecting and documenting the diversity of integrated agriculture aquaculture practices (IAA), was organized on 25 August 2018 in Montpellier during the International conference AQUA 2018 of the World and European Aquaculture Societies. The objectives were to clarify how an IAA implemented within an agroecological approach could help alleviating poverty and hunger, and to identify the knowledge gaps to be filled to ensure the sustainability of IAA. Twenty-five speakers presented background information and case studies