2 Agricultural Research and Productivity 



that very systematic relationships exist between levels of research 

 activity and economic performance. Our efforts to investigate the 

 growth process with the simple models employed in these studies 

 are crude. We fully expect that future theoretical studies will 

 make some of this work obsolete. 



Food Production 



The world food problem, the ability of the earth to support its in- 

 habitants, has been recognized since Malthus wrote his Essay on 

 the Principle of Population in 1 798. The problem has become more 

 acute in the twentieth century, particularly since World War II, 

 when widespread medical services have enabled the world popu- 

 lation to grow at an annual rate of 2 percent, from 2,500 million in 

 1950 to 3,723 million in 1970. Continuing at the same rate, the 

 world's population will double every thirty-five years. However, 

 food production has expanded even faster in the last two decades 

 and, for the lime being at least, widespread hunger has been 

 averted. 



Viewed globally, increased food output is the consequence of 

 intensification of agricultural production practices in most coun- 

 tries of the world. This kind of development is not a new 

 phenomenon. The gradual shifts in old civilizations in reaction to 

 growing population densities, from hunting, grazing, and slash- 

 and-burn systems to carefully cultivated and often irrigated 

 multiple-crop fields are manifestations of the same general inten- 

 sification process (Boserup 1965). These shifts required the dis- 

 covery or the adoption of new technologies, methods of produc- 

 tion, new crops, and new varieties of existing crops. The new ele- 

 ment in these historical trends is the prominent place now oc- 

 cupied by scientific research, which is creating new technologies 

 for agriculture in both the developed and the developing 

 countries. 



Three aspects of the recent developments in food production 

 are presented in this section at three different levels of aggrega- 

 tion: total food production, intensification in field crops produc- 

 tion, and wheat yields in five representative countries. 



Figure 1.1 summarizes total and per capita production data 

 from 1954 to 1974. Worldwide food production grew at an average 



