News stories by David Cronin interviews OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER

With the world's population predicted to reach 9 billion by mid-century, the notion that a form of agriculture aimed at producing more from less can put food in everyone's mouth may appear Utopian. Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations' special rapporteur on the right to food, begs to differ. The Belgian professor is a champion of agro-ecology, a science that stresses the need to work with nature, rather than to try and conquer and replace them with technology developed in laboratories.