Stanford professor of biology Paul Ehrlich predicted mass starvation, water and food rationing in America and the disappearance of England as a country. His apocalyptic forecast for an overpopulated, food insecure world were laid out in his 1968 book “Population Bomb,” then reiterated over 1,000s of media appearances for decades.

None of it happened. Everything Ehrlich predicted was wrong. Today we produce 60% more calories than humanity needs — and waste a third of what we grow. We’re literally discarding food surpluses 58 years after Ehrlich called for population control to reduce futurefood shortages. And the population has climbed from 3.5 billion humans on Earth to 8 billion since his book’s publication.

How did this happen? Because Agriculture responded to this unfounded panic exactly the way you'd expect producers to respond. We planted fencerow to fencerow and "got big or got out” as then Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz commanded, in response to the panic. Within 13 years of Ehrlich’s book, we glutted the world with food crops, triggering one of the worst farm crises in American history. Much of what ails the Business of Agriculture today, began with Ehrlich’s influential hysteria.

Paul Ehrlich was widely written up in media this spring after his passing. The fact that none of his starvation predictions came to fruition is due to another scientist who garnered much less media: Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution and Nobel Peace Prize winner. That contrast tells you everything.

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