As I was driving home from a meeting with a construction company last night, I heard this quote that shocked me: "We're going to have less arable land, less available water in the future. We know this. And at the same time, the population's set to go to 9 1/2, 10 billion. By 2050, we have to produce more food than the last 5,000 years combined."
The inteviewer opined, "There's not a sustainable amount of available fresh water for agriculture everywhere in the way we're going. So we really need plants that can thrive with less water." You can listen to the whole interview here: Encore: Agricultural research funding is down, impacting fight against climate change : NPR
I believe the de-centralization of low-cost energy can contribute to the solution here and have been studying how the Dutch became the #2 exporter of food after World War 2. This video is fascinating:
Pretty incredible they went from foraging acorns and chestnuts with tens of thousands dying to leading a food revolution to never experience famine again. Sometimes hard times create the innovation we need.