Complexity and unsolved problems are at the very heart of the sustainability challenge, and at the very heart of M.S. Swaminathan's thinking and essays. In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus offered the piercing insight that geometric population growth would inevitably outstrip food production, leaving society destitute and hungry. Since that time, our optimism of beating the “Malthusian curse” has waxed and waned. Few people in modern history have done more to help...

The legacy of Industrial Agriculture With the world population passing the 6 billion mark last October, the debate over our ability to sustain a fast growing population is heating up. Biotechnology advocates in particular are becoming very vocal in their claim that there is no alternative to using genetically modified crops in agriculture if "we want to feed the world". Actually, that quote might be true. It depends what they mean...

EVERY OTHER day there is either a newspaper report or an editorial comment lamenting the loss of food grain stored in buffer stocks. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, while prophesying a bumper kharif crop, admits he is worried about not having adequate storage for the produce. At a national conference in 2003, the Central Warehousing Corporation said it had covered storage capacity for 48 million tonnes of food grain. In 2002,...

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has cut its global wheat production forecast for 2010 due to the impact of poor weather on crops in recent weeks, but allayed fears of a new food crisis, noting that current stocks should be adequate. The global wheat production forecast is now expected to be 651 million tonnes, down from the 676 million tonnes reported in June, the Rome-based agency said in...

Wheat prices have staged the most drastic rise in more than 50 years, as a drought in Russia fuels growing worries that it could lead to a global shortage of the grain. Harsh heat and a lack of rain in Russia have killed half of the crop in some hard-hit areas. The slump in production in one of the world's most fertile breadbaskets has pushed prices up 62% since early June,...