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Squeezing ever-higher yields from the same fields is one reason why the famous theories of Thomas Malthus, the cleric who predicted catastrophic famine and disease as population growth outstripped food production, haven’t come to pass. During the last 40 years of the 20th century, when the world’s population doubled from 3 to 6 billion, our annual production of grain rose even faster, nearly tripling over the same period.
But the statistics in National Geographic journalist Joel K Bourne’s new book, The End of Plenty, suggest we are fast approaching the point at which we will be crunched by numbers.
There are 805 million malnourished people on the planet and the global population is expected to reach nine billion by 2050. Climate change could make half the world’s current farmland unsuitable; agriculture, ironically, produces a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. We are, argues Bourne, farming ourselves out of food.
Read full, original post: In 2050 there will be 9 billion people on earth. How will we feed them?
