Unused land

Since the 1970s, the FAO has been assessing the actual and potential areas of cultivated land in 117 developing countries to see which are or could become self-sufficient in food. There are some 2 500 million hectares of land in these countries that could be cultivated, of which about 760 million hectares are already under cultivation. By the year 2000, the FAO estimated that 64 countries would be facing a critical situation and, using traditional subsistence agriculture, 38 of these would be unable to support even half their projected populations (FAO 1995).