Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:

Malthus (1766-1834) produced his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. He said that the crux of the population problem was 'the existence of a tendency in mankind to increase, if unchecked, beyond the possibility of an adequate supply of food in a limited territory'. Malthus thought that an increased food supply was achieved mainly by bringing more land into arable production. He maintained that while the supply of food could, at best, only be increased by a constant amount in arithmetic progression the human population tends to increase in geometrical progression the human population tends to increase in geometrical progression multiplying itself by a constant amount each time. In time, population would outstrip food supply untill a catastrophe occurred in the form of famine, disease or war. War would occur as human groups fought over increasingly scarce resources. These limiting factors maintained a balance between population and resources in the long term. In a later paper, Malthus placed significant emphasis on 'moral restraint' as an important factor in controlling population.

Clearly, Malthus was influenced by events in and before the eighteenth century and could not have foreseen the great advances that were to unfold in the following two centuries that have allowed population to grow at an unprecedented rate, alongside a huge rise in the exploitation and use of resources. There have been many advances in agriculture since the time of Malthus that have contributed to huge increases in agricultural production. These advances include: the development of artificial fertilisers and pesticides, new irrigation techniques, high yielding varieties of crops, cross-breeding of cattle, greenhouse farming and the reclamation of land from the sea.