A report from a food policy organization says intensive farming may limit the world's ability to feed itself.

The World Resources Institute in Washington says industrial farming has also ruined the environment.




The report says the productivity of crops was a risk from a lack of water, poor soil quality and loss of plant and animal species.

While food supplies for the average person are 24 per cent higher than they were 40 years ago, the benefit of cheap, plentiful food is not reaching hundreds of millions of the world's poor.

Both the WRI and the International Food Policy Research Institute recommend environmental taxes in Europe and North America to make up for intensive farming in those regions.

The report says water supply is dwindling because of competition for its uses – for drinking and industry.

The use of fertilizers and pesticides have also polluted water sources and produced pesticide-resistant organisms.

Prices for food have fallen 40 per cent in half a century but the real costs, says the institute, will be evident in the next 20 years – that's when the world's population will be boosted by another 1.5 billion people.

Some environmental advocates blame intensive farming techniques for the advent of mad cow disease or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).

Scientists believe the disease may have entered the food chain after cattle were fed bone meal.

The mad cow scare has reared its head again in Europe where Germany, Italy and Spain have uncovered infected cattle.