In 1798, Thomas Malthus warned humankind about the dire consequences of unchecked population growth. The French mathematician Marquis de Condorcet, a contemporary of Malthus, pointed out that population will stabilise itself, if children are born for happiness and not just for mere existence. Thanks to dramatic advances in preventive and curative medicine, particularly from the end of World War II, human numbers have been increasing at a rapid rate. A billion persons are now being added to the human population every 12-13 years, a number that will require an increase in annual food grain production of 250 million tons once in every 10 years. When Malthus published his essay in 1798, the global population was 980 million. The population of India alone is now 990 million. In spite of such a rapid rise in population, food production has, on the whole,kept pace with the needs of the expanding population during recent decades. How did this happen?Four important factors have helped to keep Malthusian fears at bay: (i) rapid advances in science and technology, particularly in the area of breeding new varieties and hybrids of food crops that can respond well to irrigation water and good soil fertility; (ii) services, such as the production and distribution of good seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides, as well as the organization of efficient credit and extension services; (iii) public policies in the areas of land reform, rural infrastructure development, input and output pricing, and marketing; and (iv) the hard work of farm women and men, who have demonstrated that, whether they live in industrialized or developing countries, they will respond to technological progress and opportunities for assured and remunerative marketing.