Lead author of the World Development Report-2008, Alain de Janvry, has warned that the global demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become "increasingly scarce, degraded and vulnerable to the impact of climatic changes'. Delivering a lecture on "Agriculture in the contemporary world' here over the week-end, Prof. Alain de Janvry said the agriculture sector not only needed greater investments, but should also be placed at the centre of the planning process to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. The lecture was organised by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) here. Prof. Alain de Janvry