Maybe we can beat famine back forever. But I'm not counting on it. The whole situation is actually pretty tenuous. You don't see a lot about it on the news, but I understand the Horn of Africa has been experiencing massive famine over the past several years and hundreds of thousands have died from lack of nourishment. From an outside (rather than personal) perspective, this is just part of the cycle. In the first world we have beat famine back over the past century and the third world has enjoyed much of the benefit of this as they import much of their grain staples. But, we have sucked the aquifers dry, damned up most of the rivers and overallocation the water, are running short of essential nutrients like phosphorous and the whole thing is oil based. So, I am guessing in spite of massive efforts, the cycle of famine re-appears around the world again. Maybe next time around we can make our political/social systems a bit more efficient and forward looking which is, in my opinion, the only way to eliminate famine forever. But I'm not necessarily counting on that either.

"How do you feed the number of people we expect to have on the planet in 30 years time?"

Wrong question.

"How many people can we expect to feed given the best possible conversion of sunlight into food?"

Right question.

Then you have to ask, "are we prepared to do that to our planet, or do we need to start seriously thinking about population control?"