In the wake of the current crisis in international agriculture, these are some of the many questions which will be addressed by the 2 nd World Conference on Agriculture Statistics in Rome from 5 to 7 June 2001. A pplications in R ome. Few sectors have undergone such dramatic structural changes as agriculture during the last century. Enormous productivity increases driven by technological developments both in the areas of machinery and biotechnology, led to plummeting employment.
Similar trends exist in other industrialized countries.
Increased output is of course good but there are serious externalities. First , more and more farmers have difficulties in earning their living on farming alone which threatens rural development which all countries try to promote. Agriculture will always be a corner stone in all policies for rural development. A third and a very important issue is related to food security . Food security in the first aspect focuses very much on trade policies when it concerns developed countries while for developing countries, taking North Korea as an example, it is a matter of securing supply of food for the people.