Illinois Crop

The New York Times reported 8 December that USA corn yields have risen 31% since 1995. Despite the drought in Illinois in the summer of 2005, that State produced a bumper crop. While for more than 30 years, many experts have forecast a leveling of yields, farmers keeping lifting yields and creating the chance to spare Nature. Alternatively, the success of corn farmers feeds the rise in meat consumption by the Chinese and others. Cesare Marchetti shows that increases in Chinese meat consumption in kilocalories per day fits well a double logistic that will saturate in a few years (not far from European meat eating but below USA). The early deviations from the second logistic also show the havoc that politics can create. Mao was an enemy of meat.