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China's recent economic surge has called attention to factors that may slow down, and perhaps even reverse, this vigorous trend. There is no shortage of items to explore, ranging from brittle politics and ingrained corruption to intensifying environmental pollution and runaway unemployment. In the long run few among these considerations are more decisive than the country's ability to feed itself: it is of critical existential importance, and it subsumes a universe of political, social, environmental and technical capabilities and limitations.
Vaclav Smil (Fri,) studied this question.