Can We Feed 9 Billion?

The bottom-line question in the world is whether we are going to be able to feed the 9 billion people we expect to be alive on the planet in 2050 (with perhaps a billion more to follow after that). Over the past decade or so, it has seemed to me that we have generally had our heads in the sand on this issue--especially when there was a huge push to use grains to fuel machines rather than humans. The Economist, however, is bringing the issue to the foreground with a big conference planned in Geneva on 8 February of this year. The conference is called "Feeding the World--the 9-Billion People Question," and the details can be found online here. The conference is a bit pricey, but I'm assuming that the best bits from it will be made available to all of us. Stay tuned.