As events following the September 11th attack on New York and Washington have unfolded, there has been increasing recognition that extreme poverty, hunger and a sense of hopelessness provide ideal conditions for disaffection, crime, instability and even terrorism. The landless, the uneducated, unemployed and destitute provide the 'foot soldiers' of conflicts from Somalia and Sudan to Sierra Leone, and from the Philippines to Colombia. This month, New Agriculturist features reports, opinions, and books on some of the factors that keep the poor, poor and the hungry, hungry; what is required to significantly reduce hunger and what is at stake if we fail to do so.

Points of View features opinions from the international conference "Sustainable Food Security for All by 2020" hosted by IFPRI the week before the tragic events in the US, and includes the IFPRI Director General's prescient comment that "a world with a small number of rich people and a large number of poor people will not be stable. And that is what we are heading for as we speak."

The focus of Focus on are the self-help, low cost technologies that can ameliorate declining soil fertility, itself an underlying contributor to hunger and poverty. While in Perspective, Senator Sartaj Aziz of Pakistan, after a lifetime in the UN and domestic politics, reflects on the subsidies to OECD farmers, the tariffs and the trade barriers that stand between many countries and their attempts to increase agricultural productivity and so reduce poverty and hunger. In Print leads with a book which examines the role of desertification in culture and world history, not least in Islam, "The gardens of their dreams"..

Control measures for cattle, sheep and pig diseases feature in News, as do a blight resistant potato and using potato starch to make disposable packaging. And our Developments reports include a new approach to consensus building where there is conflict of interest over resources. As always, we hope that our pages provide food for thought as well as elements of practical application for agricultural development.

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Points of view The extent, causes and remedies for world hunger Focus on Soils: Securing the future Declining soil fertility, a time bomb Giving ploughs the push Green manures - slow on the uptake? Raised fields raise yields Address causes, not symptoms Legumes and livelihoods Home cure for soil sickness The magic of Mucuna bean GM crops - part of the solution for soils? In Print The Gardens of their dreams Dynamics and diversity:Soil fertility and farming livelihoods in Africa The Unfinished Agenda: Perspectives on overcoming hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation Shifting Cultivation: Towards sustainability and resource conservation in Asia Farmer innovation in Africa: A source of inspiration for agricultural development The Water Manifesto: Arguments for a World Water Contract Bolivia: An Oxfam Country Profile South Asia Vegetable Research Network Phase 2: Proceedings of the final workshop The State of Food and Agriculture 2001 Manual on the Preparation of African Swine Fever Contingency Plans Manual on Procedures for Disease Eradication by Stamping Out

Perspective 800 million hungry: Why have we made so little progress? By Sartaj Aziz News Half Zimbabwean cattle for slaugter Blight resistant potato No bread without water Earlier and disease resistant mungbeans Potato starch for disposable packaging Accra's snacks get a health warning Bluetongue - licking at the Mediterranean basin Fatal attraction for termites Vaccine project for Vietnamese pigs Farmers suffer heavy losses in Colombia's drugs war Closing doors on Corridor disease Meeting executive need with know-how Endangered sheep follows Dolly's lead Poultry breeds take flight Improving utilization of phosphate rock Perspectives on Pests Ugandan flowers show good growth Developments Food for all - the 2020 vision Resisting change or taking up the challenge? Winning taste of Polish country life Holding water? What price agro-biodiversity? Country Profile Morocco

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