Science à la Carte In the history of humankind, more than two million years elapsed
before an evolving human race eclipsed one billion people. When agri-
culture emerged ten thousand years ago, there were roughly six million
people. Not until the nineteenth century did the world’s population
pass the one billion mark. When it did, for many in Europe, optimism
turned to fear. “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the
power in the earth to produce subsistence for men,” Thomas Robert
Malthus had written in 798 , enshrining for himself a place in history
by shortchanging the power of science.
Owing to an earlier scientific discovery, the nineteenth century
ushered in a booming trade in seabird excrement, called guano, shipped
from the coasts of Peru to Europe. Applying guano to grains like
wheat boosted yields. Coupled with new plant varieties, this natural
fertilizer launched a new era of food productivity. European concerns
were put to rest. By 9 7 , one hundred and twenty three years later
after reaching one billion, the number of people on Earth surpassed
two billion.
Fast-forward three decades to the 96 s. The world’s population
surpassed the three billion mark, yet some percent of these people
did not have enough to eat. The US President’s Science Advisory
Committee reported that the food shortfall was “so great that a massive,
long-range innovative effort, unprecedented in human history, will be
required to master it.”
Despite the ominous warning, Western governments did little to
help. So the Rockefeller Foundation hired a scientist named Norman
Borlaug and shipped him off to Mexico. Using science, he and his
colleagues crossed strains of different wheat varieties until landing on
one that produced both high yields and resistance to disease.
Mexico’s newfound self-sufficiency in crop science was replicated
across Latin America and then Asia. Not stopping with wheat, sci-
entists developed new varieties of rice. Other technologies that were
also adopted or advanced included synthetic fertilizers, liquid fossil
energy, irrigation from groundwater, modern mechanization, and
marketing infrastructures.
In one generation, the amount of food in so-called developing
countries doubled. Global population swelled by 6 percent.^ The