Surinder Sud / New Delhi July 05, 2009, 0:01 IST

The agriculture sector has shown more resilience to the global economic crisis than other industries, largely due to food being a basic necessity. As the downturn lowers food prices, pressure is eased on the recession-hit consumers.

MULUALEM TEGEGN bought a donkey last year. As a hard-working Ethiopian farmer, aged 58, he saw the purchase of the beast as a return to better times after several seasons in which drought and high prices had forced him to sell his livestock and take his grandchildren out of school to work on the farm.

Funds are increasingly looking to invest in farmland as a rising global population and changing diets lead to growing demand for food crops.

But the emergence of the asset class is not without pitfalls with the provision of food always highly political and a tentative global economic recovery potentially threatened by the H1N1 flu pandemic, fund managers said.

European Union (EU) and World Food Programme (WFP) would give assistance of 24.7 million Euro and 14 million Euro respectively for progress of Agriculture sector in Pakistan.

With Climate Change inching towards a

New Delhi: The number of hungry people in the world may cross one billion in 2009 due to the shocks of the global economic crisis combined with high food prices in a few countries, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.

The global economic crisis will help push 100 million people into poverty this year through lost jobs and lower earnings, leaving one sixth of the world

Monsanto and Germany-based BASF have discovered a naturally-occurring gene that can help corn plants combat drought and confer yield stability during periods of inadequate water supplies. The scientists of both companies announced the discovery in Germany on Tuesday.

ROME: A bumper cereal crop had stabilised the world food supply, but food prices remained high in many developing countries, said the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in a report on Thursday.

Easing of market conditions was reflected in the benchmark FAO Food Price Index, which had fallen by one-third from its peak in June 2008 .