🌾 Can we feed the future?

We have the technology — if we choose to use and improve it

Declines in agricultural productivity have some experts concerned about feeding an increasing global population that’s headed to more than 9 billion over the next three or four decades. Among the culprits: intensifying weather shocks from climate change, resistant crop diseases and pests, slow technology adoption in developing regions, reduced agricultural R&D investment, and trade barriers limiting access to productivity-enhancing innovations.

But before we get to that issue, some fantastic Up Wing facts: Over the past 60 years, humanity's farmers went from feeding three billion people to feeding eight billion. The production of six major crops (see chart below) increased eightfold during this period, providing 80 percent more calories per person in 2022 than in 1961. Through improved technology and expanded farmland, crops like soybeans and maize saw dramatic increases of 1,300 percent and 560 percent, respectively. And this has been the magnificent result: