Abstract

I ask your permission to direct your attention to some aspects of soil improvement in relation to crop production. I propose to pass in brief review some of our problems and then to touch on the work to which my colleagues Khan Sahib Sheikh Mahomad Naib Husain, Rai Sahib S. C. Banerjee and myself have devoted a number of years at the Shahjahanpur Research Station. My subject is directly connected with the supply of the first necessity of life, namely, food. By what methods is the world going to continue to feed its growing population? It is increasing at the rate of nearly 20 millions a year, and it cannot be suddenly checked. Can food be found for all these extra mouths, or will the pressure on our land resources become unbearable, and end in disaster? That is the colossal problem facing the world in the next few generations. It must be met either by a continual expansion of cultivation, or an intensification of production on land already cultivated.

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