Here is Norman Borlaug, father of the green revolution, from about a decade ago but highly relevant today:

Yields can still be increased by 50-100% in much of the Indian sub-Continent,

Latin America, the former USSR and Eastern Europe, and by 100-200% in much of

sub-Saharan Africa, providing political stability is maintained, bureaucracies

that destroys entrepreneurial initiative are reigned in, and their researchers

and extension workers devote more energy to putting science and technology to

work at the farm level….

I now say that the world has the technology – either available or

well-advanced in the research pipeline – to feed a population of 10 billion

people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will

be permitted to use this new technology. Extremists in the environmental

movement from the rich nations seem to be doing everything they can to stop

scientific progress in its tracks. Small, but vociferous and highly effective

and well-funded, anti-science and technology groups are slowing the application

of new technology, whether it be developed from biotechnology or more

conventional methods of agricultural science. I am particularly alarmed by those

who seek to deny small-scale farmers of the Third World -and especially those in

sub-Saharan Africa – access to the improved seeds, fertilizers, and crop

protection chemicals that have allowed the affluent nations the luxury of

plentiful and inexpensive foodstuffs which, in turn, has accelerated their

economic development.