"A
concern is that despite the increase in INVESTMENT in agricultural R&D and
education during this period [from 1981 to 2000], the relative rate of yield
gain for the major food crops has decreased over time together with evidence of
upper yield plateaus in some of the most productive domains," reads the
study.
So much for all those "studies" that boast of great boons in
food production as a result of things like GMOs and pesticides. Not only is
this assessment fundamentally flawed -- pesticides and synthetic fertilizers
were identified in the study as contributing factors to decreasing rates of
yield increase -- but it is the very basis of many fundamentally flawed yield
projections, which are grossly overestimated.
"The
study criticizes most other yield projection models which predict compound or
exponential production increases over coming years and decades, even though
these 'do not occur in the real world,'" adds Ahmed.
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