Agriculture: Lagging Food

Food is everybody's business — but the business of providing it is faring badly in most of the world. So reports the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which keeps a close watch on the world's food supply. While the world population increased another 2% last year — to 3.218 billion — farm production continued to follow a laggardly trend, rising barely 1%. Chief reasons for the poor performance: bad weather and primitive, inefficient farming methods. Harvests were poor in the developing nations that most need good crops if they are to have any hope of improving their economies. As a result, living costs increased in 74 of the 85 nations surveyed.