Through constant repetition over the past siderable credence has been given to a very pessimistic outlook for world agriculture. The pessimists argue that recurrent and ever more serious food shortages will occur as a result of increasing population growth, rising affluence, and decreasing availability of cultivatable land. Based largely on world consumption of food and feed grains ranging between 1.1 and 1.2 billion tons per year, with a yearly growth in volume of some 25 million tons needed to meet increased demand, it has been asserted that the world has twenty-seven days worth of food reserves left and is living on a razor's edge with respect to famine. This assertion does not bear up under close examination.