Sir Gordon Conway, an Ecologist from the Imperial College London well experienced in development policy, describes an environment with three key challenges for food security. Challenges for food production. 1. One billion people hungry in the world. 2. A necessity of increasing food production by 70 to 100%. 3. A world price-crisis that still now is causing problems for marginalized people in developing and developed countries. The higher demand for food is explained by a rising population, an increase in income of some countries with economic growth and energy policies (demand for bio-fuels). On the other hand, degraded lands, degraded water, impact of climate change is negatively affecting food production at a global scale. “Marginalized people are those who own less than 2 hectares of productive land, involving 400-500 million of smallholders, most of them in Asia and Africa.” Sir Gordon Conway, Key Note Speaker at Tropentag 2011. Multiplier effect of agriculture.