European Union

"Cities have played a more important role in shaping the world than empires" (quote from M. Bloomberg, former mayor of New York (in office 2020-2013).
For the past two decades, the world has seen its population increasingly concentrated in urban areas. This trend is not new but will speed up at a remar-kable rate in years to come. Rising global urbanization is one of the defining trends of the 21st century. Projections show that urbanization combined with the overall growth of the world population could add another 2.5 billion people to the urban population by 2050. The megacity is a new form of urbanization, which has been described as the urban phenomenon of the 21st century. In 1950, only New York and Tokyo had a population of over 10 million. By 2025-2030, it is estimated that around 630 million people will live in close to 40 megacities around the world. Megacities are an invention of the West and have become a reality in the East. Japan's capital Tokyo will still be the largest of them all, followed by Delhi and Shanghai. The list is dominated by cities in Asia, but several in Latin America and Africa will grow rapidly as well. In addition to these megacities, about 400 million people will live in cities of 5-10 million people, and just over 1 billion people are expected be living in cities of 1-5 million. However, most of the world's urban population will still live in cities of less than 1 million people. The consequences of modern urbanization must not be underestimated. In today globalized world, "local" and "global" are more and more interconnected and many developments at urban level are in fact part of global trends. Understanding the causes and consequences of urbanization is crucial to ensuring a proper response to the global issues of our time and in preparing for the period ahead.

Global agriculture has evolved into a highly diverse sector, with operations that range from small subsistence farms to large multinational holdings. Farmers’ products are sold fresh in local markets, but also across the world through sophisticated and modern value chains. Beyond their traditional role of providing humankind with food, farmers are important custodians of the natural environment and have become producers of renewable energy. In order to meet the high expectations society places on agriculture, public and private decision makers require reliable information on the likely trends of global demand, supply, trade and prices and the factors driving them. To this end, the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook is an annual reference that provides a comprehensive medium-term baseline scenario for agricultural commodity markets at national, regional and global levels. In addition to providing a plausible baseline scenario for agriculture markets in the coming decade, the Outlook identifies a widening set of risks to agricultural markets that can help policy makers better anticipate and manage them.These include the spread of plant and animal diseases and the growing risk of extreme climatic events, as well as possible supply disruptions from growing trade tensions. This OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2019-2028 foresees that the demand for agricultural products will grow by 15% over the coming decade.