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Abstract
Improving agricultural productivity has been the world’s
primary defense against a recurring Malthusian crisis—
where needs of a growing population outstrip the ability
of humankind to supply food. Over the last half-century,
world population doubled while food supply tripled, even
as land under cultivation grew by only 12% (FAO, 2012).
It is by raising productivity, or getting more output from
existing resources, that has been driving growth in global agriculture, and what has proven Malthus wrong. In fact,
at the global level, the long-run trend since at least 1900
has been one of increasing food abundance—in inflationadjusted
dollars, food prices fell by an average of 1% per
year over the course of the 20th Century