In a world seemingly full of problems—problems of ideological conflicts, racial unrest, and the threat of nuclear war, to name a few—it is difficult to single out one problem as most important. But more and more it appears that the task of feeding the rapidly growing populations of the less-developed regions of the earth will be man's Number One challenge in the remaining decades of this century. Food shortages in the less-developed regions are not caused by a lack of potential but by a lack of the wherewithal to realize that potential as quickly as the current rates of population increase required. While total grain production increased in both economic regions, per capita grain production increased only in the developed regions where it was up 26%. Many less-developed countries must make the transition from primary dependence on the area-expanding method of raising food output to primary dependence on the yield-raising method of increasing food output.

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