Drivers for emerging issues in animal and plant health

Richardson, Jane; Lockhart, Caryl; Pongolini, Stefano; Karesh, William B.; Baylis, Matthew; Goldberg, Tony; Slingenbergh, Jan; Gale, Paul; Venturini, Tommaso; Catchpole, Mike; de Balogh, Katinka; Pautasso, Marco; Broglia, Alessandro; Berthe, Franck; Schans, Jan; Poppy, Guy

Producing food creates and augments such drivers. Food production is a human activity, through which man is considered to have the largest environmental impact on the planet. As an example, food production uses twice the amount of water compared to all other human activities combined. The risk of emergence of new pathogens and the spread of existing ones has also increased as a consequence of deep and global changes in the way that food is produced and consumed, as well as many other factors that characterise the Anthropocene, an epoch that begins when human activities started to have a significant global impact. Rather than static practices, change is a key factor, with land-use change and agricultural industry changes being the two most commonly associated drivers of infectious disease emergence (Loh et al., 2013) . These trends in changing land use and agricultural practice are likely to continue into the immediate and longer term future considering that, by 2050, the global population is expected to grow significantly, potentially reaching over 9 billion. The financial income of a substantial part of the global population is expected to increase to be nearly three times what it is today with expected changes in food habits such as an increased demand for meat. These new habits, and shifting demands, will result in an effort to increase food production, which will place a greater burden on the resources of the planet.