Years of plenty: maize production in India, which is self-sufficient in food grain
High-yield agriculture
In 1798 Thomas Malthus, the British theorist, postulated that the world’s population would eventually outstrip the planet’s ability to produce sufficient food for all, leading to widespread famine and death.
Nowhere did this dismal prediction seem likelier than India in the 1950s and early 1960s, when increases in grain production failed to keep pace with population growth, forcing New Delhi to depend on imported food aid. Fears of imminent famine intensified after two droughts in the mid-1960s.
Today, however, India is self-sufficient in ...
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