Question

The existence of significant improvement potential in land productivity of wheat and corn, particularly in developing countries, has convinced some to believe that the world will never face food shortage as predicted by Thomas Malthus. Briefly discuss why this prediction is flawed

Answer 1

The prediction is flawed for many reasons. This is because the prediction was based on the fact that technological advancement will also increase population growth rate which means, although food supply will be greater, there will be an even greater population, to devour that food so that there will always be a food shortage.

But in reality population has not increased at the rate, predicted by the malthusian trap theory. Also, due to sharp technological advancement, the growth rate of food production has often been greater than the growth rate of population. Limitation imposed on the land use as predicted in the theory presented under malthusian trap was also weakend by international trade and globalisation. These factors have shown that the prediction can be wrong.