Pre-modern subsistence farmers were minimising the risk of starvation rather than maximising output, and their apparently backward practices are rational once that is understood.

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• It is false that the world needs no more food and only better distribution of the food it has. MGMichael Grunwald13 Jul 2025similar wording
• An economy running on muscle power has a hard and low ceiling on total production, because its only real input is land and the returns to more of it fall away fast. BDBret Devereaux26 Aug 2022similar wording
• The claim that higher yields backfire and end up increasing farmland is much weaker than the literature assumes. LBLinus Blomqvist13 Mar 2024similar wording
• A pre-modern countryside produces an enormous amount of food and almost no extractable surplus, which is the hard limit on everything the state above it can do. BDBret Devereaux24 Jul 2020similar wording
• Local self-provisioning cannot feed the world, because most people do not live within reach of enough fertile land. GMGeorge Monbiot4 Oct 2023similar wording

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