How can we meet this growing demand for food, feed, fuel and fibre in a sustainable way? Competition over resources is bound to increase while the availability of these resources are finite (fossil fuels) and also vulnerable to degradation and depletion (land, water and nutrients). Indeed, most of the available arable land is already developed, and any further land cleared may not be very good, while much existing land is already depleted by poor management (some 24% of the 11.5 billion hectares of vegetated land worldwide is degraded by human activity, and 12% of crop land has been lost for farming).
How does the textile sector respond to these challenges? And is there a link with the wider context of food, farming and business cooperation? Which sourcing strategies for textile raw materials are future proof?