BS Number Wise: How consumption is set to outstrip food grain production

Consumption will exceed food grain production but the world is not on the brink of a hunger crisis

In 1798, British philosopher and economist Thomas Malthus proposed in an essay that population growth would outpace food production to cause shortages and famine. The “Malthusian catastrophe” was widely criticised though it was not the first grim theory around population. Three years later, the first official census of the United Kingdom was conducted.

Malthus was proven wrong, but the theory found resonance during the 1960s when newly independent countries wanted to be self-sufficient in food. Their reason was not as much population sustenance but freedom from the shackles of dependence. India’s Green Revolution was a step in that direction. Times