Des Moines Register: World still falling short of feeding 9 billion
Editorial Board

“…According to the 2015 edition of the Global Agricultural Productivity Report released in Des Moines on Wednesday by the Global Harvest Initiative, average global growth was stagnant for the second year in a row. Productivity is a measure of how much more can be produced from the same amount of land, labor, fertilizer, feed, and machinery. … Many factors go into the global food security equation, not the least of which is getting food from the field to the table, a serious challenge in developing countries … Other roadblocks to improved or even sustained production of food include droughts, extreme weather events due to climate change and, in many parts of the world, political instability and a lack of access to capital for small-scale farmers. … Even assuming those roadblocks could be cleared, agricultural productivity must also increase to keep pace with population growth because only so many acres of arable land and resources are available for producing food…” (10/14).