New figures from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisations shows that the world’s cereal harvest, which provides more than half the calories that humans eat, broke a new record last year and was 20 per cent higher than ten years ago.
The world’s farmers have provided a growing population with more food per head year after year, largely without cultivating extra land or using extra water or chemicals.
Famines last year in South Sudan and the Central African Republic were caused by conflict, rather than drought or population pressure.
Source: Matt Ridley, The Times, 9 March 2015.