The single most important answers are:
1. Chemical fertilizers
2. Industrialized agriculture.
Prior to 1800, the whole world was in the Malthusian trap. Population growth is bounded by the rate of growth of agricultural production, which in turn is bounded by the rate of growth of aerable land under cultivation. Get them to give birth faster, and the population becomes less healthy due to reduced per capita nutritional availability and death rate increase. So population gorwth rate remain contained.
After 1800, particularly after 1900, the per acre productivity of farm land has grown even faster than population growth, thanks to chemical fertilizers and mass planting of optimal, but genetically uniform, crops. So population growth became unconstrained by food production in more and more of the world. hence the explosion in human population.
1. Chemical fertilizers
2. Industrialized agriculture.
Prior to 1800, the whole world was in the Malthusian trap. Population growth is bounded by the rate of growth of agricultural production, which in turn is bounded by the rate of growth of aerable land under cultivation. Get them to give birth faster, and the population becomes less healthy due to reduced per capita nutritional availability and death rate increase. So population gorwth rate remain contained.
After 1800, particularly after 1900, the per acre productivity of farm land has grown even faster than population growth, thanks to chemical fertilizers and mass planting of optimal, but genetically uniform, crops. So population growth became unconstrained by food production in more and more of the world. hence the explosion in human population.
