Research by Exeter University has found that many of the world’s most important crop-producing countries will be fully saturated with pests in the next 30 years if current trends continue.
The university's bioscientists have warned that the spread of crop pests poses a grave threat to global food security.
They identified pests including fungi, bacteria, viruses and insects... and used global databases to investigate the factors influencing the number of countries reached by pests, and their numbers.
The research is published today in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography