Billions more mouths to feed

Food security is the new energy security. So says Susan Payne, chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, a Surrey-based company which claims to run the biggest agricultural fund in Africa following the launch of its first fund less than 18 months ago.

Payne, a Canadian who cut her teeth as an emerging-markets expert first at JPMorgan and then at Goldman Sachs, attracts investors by conjuring up the Malthusian devil. The world’s population is set to grow by 2 billion to 9.1 billion over the next 40 years; feeding the children of tomorrow will require a 50 per cent increase in farm output by 2025 and a doubling by 2050.

Meanwhile, the price of staple crops has risen by more than 80 per cent since 2005, pushing 100 million people into poverty, according to the World Bank. And Payne is fond of pointing out that there were food riots in 15 countries during a period of soaring prices in 2008.