The Qur’an An Abiding Wonder
The Qur’an: The Book of God
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foresaw, only slightly checked by wars and
other catastrophes, and now stands at about
eight times the total when he wrote. But food
production has more than kept pace, and the
present generation of humanity, is on average
the best fed in history.
Malthus was born in an age of ‘traditional
agriculture.’ He was unable to envisage the approach
of an age of ‘scientific agriculture,’ in which amazing
advances in production would become possible. Over
the 150 years since Malthus’s death, methods of
cultivation have been radically altered. Crops under
cultivation are chosen for their particularly high
yield. Cattle are able to produce a far higher amount
of dairy food than before. New methods have been
discovered to increase the fertility of land. Modern
machinery has brought vast new areas under
cultivation. In technologically advanced countries of
the world there has been a 90% fall in the number of
farmers: yet at the same time a tenfold increase in
agricultural produce has taken place.
As far as the third world is concerned, 3 billion
people inhabit these under-developed countries, but
