Question

Why did Thomas Malthus argue that food production could never keep up with population growth?

Answer 1

Malthus argued the tendency of population to grow geometrically while food production would increase only arithmetically.

For 200 years, economists have contended that Malthus overlooked technological advancement, which would allow human beings to keep ahead of the population curve. The argument is that food production can indeed grow geometrically because production depends not only on land but also on know-how. With advances in seed breeding, soil nutrient replenishment (such as chemical fertilizers), irrigation, mechanization and more, the food supply can stay well ahead of the population curve. More generally, advances in technology in all its aspects—agriculture, energy, water use, manufacturing, disease control, information management, transport, communications—can keep production rising ahead of population.

Another factor undermining Malthus’s argument, it would seem, is the demographic transition, according to which societies move from conditions of high fertility rates roughly offset by high mortality rates to conditions of low fertility rates together with low mortality rates. Malthus did not reckon with the advance of public health, family planning, and modern contraception, which together with urbanization and other trends, would result in a dramatic decline in fertility rates to low levels, even below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children per household. Perhaps the human population would avoid the tendency towards geometric growth altogether.