Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Tools available today, including plant breeding and biotechnology, can make presently unusable soils productive and increase the
genetic potential of individual crops - enhancing drought and stress tolerance, for example - while also producing gains in yields.
Existing tools can also internalize plants' resistance to disease, and even improve a plant's nutritional content meaning consumers can get more nutritional value without increasing their consumption. Furthermore, modern high-productivity agriculture minimizes
farmers' impact on the environment. Failure to embrace these technologies will result in further destruction of remaining forests. Adoption of
technologies that produce more output from fewer resources has been hugely successful from an economic
standpoint: prior to the price spike in 2008, there was a 150-year downward trend in the real price of food. The jury is still out on whether the long-term downward trend will resume,
prices will flatten out on a new higher plateau, or they will trend upward in the future. The key is investing in research in the public and private sectors to increase agricultural productivity faster
Malthus predicted that the human population would eventually outgrow its
ability to feed itself. However, Malthus has been proven wrong for more than two centuries precisely because he
underestimated the power of agricultural research and technology to increase productivity faster than demand.
There is no more reason for Malthus to be right in the 21st century than he was in the 19th or 20th - but only if
we work to support, not impede, continued agricultural research and adoption of new technologies around the
world.
than global demand grows. Long ago, British scholar Thomas
wasted in the fields and orchards waiting to be harvested will drive the prices up.
Occupy Wallstreet has gained momentum because of the focus it attracted maybe immigration will get its focus when we realize there is a lack of
occupation of the farm roads in many communities. The response of Americans needing the fill the open jobs is pointless, they arent filling the
open jobs and in many cases arent even willing to do much of the work. How long are we going to mull around our options and continue to
deport a million more people (Pres. Obama) before we start caring about immigration.
According to a report in the New York Times earlier this month, Obama