by Cynthia P. Green

About the author: Cynthia P. Green is an independent consultant specializing in international development issues.

The good news about the race between food and population growth is that the massive famines predicted for the 1970s and 1980s did not materialize, thanks
largely to the Green Revolution and foreign aid. The bad news is that, despite spectacular progress in both food production and fertility reduction, the threat
of famine and the reality of widespread malnutrition remains.

A False Sense of Complacency

Why hasn’t this problem been licked? Basically, we were lulled into a false sense of complacency. At the macro level, the situation looked promising. Food
production has kept pace with population growth since 1961 in all regions of the world except sub-Saharan Africa.

This rosy scenario...