Malthus and the Food Crisis

- Malthus predicted starvation as diminishing returns limited agricultural output and the population continued to grow.

- Why did Malthus' prediction fail?
Index of World Food Consumption Per Capita

- The data show that production increases shows exceeded population growth.

- Malthus did not take into consideration potential impact of technology which has allowed the supply of food to grow faster than the demand.

- Technology has created surpluses and driven price downward.

- Question

- If food surplus exist, then why hunger exist?

- Answer

- The cost of distributing food from the productive regions to unproductive regions and low income levels of non productive regions.