Decreasing rate of development of major agriculture technologies

There are no technologies waiting in the wings that will lead to the quantum jump in food output of the sort associated with the hybridization of corn, the eightfold increase in fertilizer use between 1950 and 1980, the near tripling of irrigated area in the same period or the rapid spread of the Green Revolution. Farmers are struggling to feed a record 86 million additional people each year, without any major new technologies to draw on.