Jonathan Foley, an agricultural expert and one of the authors, told Plumer, "In many parts of the world, we haven't seen enough investment in agriculture because of economics or policies or institutions." But another problem could be that farmers are reaching a limit on how much yields can keep rising. Foley said, "We can sometimes bust through these walls with technology, genetics, better seeds. But at a certain point we run up against fundamental physiological limits for plants. If billion of years of evolution can't figure it out, are we going to be able to? That I don't know."
If crops yields don't improve quickly enough, food prices could increase, or new farmland will be needed, which means clearing away more forests, and possibly accelerating climate change, Plumer writes. In a 2009 essay for Scientific American, Foley argued that the world should focus on five things: Stop razing forests and savannas for farmland — by, for instance, shifting away from crop-based biofuels; focus on boosting yields where it's technologically doable, especially in Africa; figure out how to use water and fertilizer more efficiently everywhere; reduce the amount of meat in our diets; and cut down on the enormous amount of food waste worldwide. (Read more)
