The acreage used worldwide in the cultivation of food crops would prob-ably be sufficient if modern synthetic chemical fertilization were employed on all of it. For example, chemical fertilization accounted for crop yield explosions including (1) U.S.corn-25 bushels per acre in 1800, 110 bushels per acre in the 1980s. 130 Bushels per acre in the 1990s; (2) English wheat-less than 10 bushels per acre from A.D. 800 to 1600, more than 75 bushels per acre in the 1980s. However, the cost of synthetic chemical fertilization is beyond what developing countries can bear, and the environmental impact of such a large dispersion of fertilizer chemicals would probably be massive. For example, aquifer contamination with nitrates due to corn crop fertilization renders well water from these natural underground basins unfit for drinking in large areas of the U.S. corn belt.