Crop Yields, Farmland, and Irrigated Agriculture

The specter of global food insecurity, in terms of capacity to meet food demand, will not be limited by water or even climate change but rather by inadequate and misdirected investments in research and development to support the required increases in crop yields. The magnitude of this food security challenge is further augmented by the need to concomitantly accelerate the growth rate in crop yields well above historical rates of the past 50 years during the so-called green revolution, and at the same time, substantially reduce negative environmental effects from modern, science-based, high-yield agriculture.