Chris Leaver

28 August 2008; Science Oxford

The world population has doubled to ca. 6.8 billion over the last 50 years and until recently the relative abundance of food has kept pace, with the poorest benefiting the most, although more than 900 million are malnourished and live below the poverty line. This dramatic increase in crop yields was due to a number of innovations: mechanisation, irrigation, genetics and plant breeding, nitrogen fertilisers, pesticides, and the developed world became complacent.