UNEP at work. Valuing the invisible

Agricultural systems deliver many benefits to society. An industrial cornfield in the United States might yield several hundred bushels of corn per year for processing into foodstuffs, animal grain or ethanol, which could be exported and consumed halfway across the planet. Meanwhile, a cooperative of small-scale cocoa farms in the Congo Basin could feed up to 80 per cent of the local population, employ dozens of producers and sustain the livelihoods of countless local families.