In the late eighteenth century, the English scholar Thomas Malthus theorized that human populations grow exponentially--as proven by how quickly the global population has grown in the past century--and that food production would eventually be unable to keep up with an exploding population, but as advances in agriculture and new ways to produce greater excesses in food came about in each succeeding century, Malthus's theory began to lose its ground.
My research question takes another look at Malthus's concern: can moving backward in the scheme of agriculture and returning to organic locally-grown foods keep up with an exponentially growing population?
One point of argument is that the industrial food production of today still produces an unnecessary excess of food--in America, it can be as much as 1/3 of the food supplied--, but one of my concerns is that organic local farms won't be able to produce nearly as much food to keep prices of food low.
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