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I do not agree that agricultural improvements have had a major impact on human fertility. Women have to be severely malnourished before fertility is affected4. State of nutrition is not normally one of the principal determinants of human fertility; the women in Belsen and in the Dutch famine of the Second World War continued to get pregnant.
However, improvements in agricultural productivity have certainly prevented deaths from starvation in today's overpopulated world, and, as Malthus said, at the end of the day food is necessary to the life of the man.
References
Short, R. Nature 395, 456(1998).
Warren, G. F. Weed Technology 12 (in the press).
Mann, C. Science 277, 1038–1043 ( 1997).
Bongaarts, J. Science 208, 564(1980).
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Short, R. Did agriculture cause the population explosion?. Nature 397, 101 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/16339-c1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/16339-c1
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