Chen 1 Yun Chen Ms.

Stacey Dearing ENGL 106 14 April 2014

The Scholarly Article Jensen, N. "Limits to Growth in World Food Production." New York: Science 201.4353 (1978): 317-20. Print.

The author established a counter argument to the claim, Robert Malthus made in 1798, which the population growth and food productivity is unbalanced and the limit to food production is higher more than that of population growth. The author disagrees with Malthus and he believes that the food production is relevant and highly correlated to the population growth. He uses statistic evidence that shows the connection between the worlds population growth and increment in food productivity to prove his claim is right. More specifically, he uses the example of wheat production in New York State to illustrate his model (Jenson). Jenson argues that in modern days, the food production is effected by several factors such as the limits in technology, economy and other unpredictable environmental issue. Thus theres a limit in food production but mostly by artificial factors. Jenson is an expert in agricultural history, plant genetics and plant breeding; he has published several scholarly research papers about agrobiology and a book about plant breeding methodology. However, this article was published in 1978 and therefore some of the contents are outdated (Jenson). The article may be used as a source for a research paper for some parts of the contents but not very useful.

Chen 2 First of all, the publisher of the article is Science Magazine. It is a well-known academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the worlds top scientific journals ("About the Journal."). The intended audience may vary for the magazine, therere wide varieties of different audience reading the magazine, from students to K-12 teachers and researchers as well since the magazine publishes mostly academic journals. However for this paper, I believe the targeted audience will be the person who believes in Robert Malthus controversial discourse of population growth occurs geometrically while the growth of food production occurs arithmetically (Jenson), agricultural scholars and of course, regular Science Magazine readers. The author argues about Robert Malthus theory and makes counter argument throughout the whole paper. The article is easy worded that will make most of the reader that is not in the agricultural field easy to understand, graphs and tables are provided to show evidence and credibility of his claim for scholars. There may be several purposes of this article, but the main thesis is the counter-argument to Robert Malthus theory of population and food production. The author believe Malthus statement cannot be applied to the modern day because Malthus, who lives in 1798, didnt foresee how technology will be able to change food production so much. Therefore, Jenson argues Malthus theory cannot apply to the modern day and claims the food production increment rate will be correlated to the population growth speed. The genre for this paper is most likely to be a scientific journal. The author of the article, Nelson Jenson, is an agricultural scientist. His focus in the field is agricultural history, plant genetics and plant breeding; most of his articles published are categorized in scientific journal. This specific journal is published by Science Magazine, which makes it certain that the genre for this article is a scientific, academic journal. The language in the article is easy going doesnt

Chen 3 contains too much technical terms; the graphical charts and analytical tables are straightforward with well explanatory contents. Overall, the article appears to be trustworthy easy for reader to follow. The stance is obvious; the author challenges and makes counter-argument to the previous claim of another researcher and a scientist in his field study, he writes this article as a credible researcher that will convince the public and the targeted audience about his claim and his new theory with evidence and research data to prove and thus prove the previous claim is wrong. In order to support his claim as a credible scientific researcher, the author has used a lot of scientific research data as well as statistical data as evidence to prove his claim. For the most part, the author is using logos to support his claim. For example, when he is introducing the idea of how technology increased the state wheat production, he uses the example of relations between the wheat production yields increment is correlated to the source of productivity, he collects the data of the state wheat production yield of New York in different years and the data of different wheat sources average production yield and their introduction year to New York state. He uses a simple equation that explained that the relations between the state wheat production increment and the new wheat sources average production yield (Jenson). It helps explains how the increase of production yield of a new source of wheat mainly causes the increase in the total production yield of wheat in the whole state. And behind that, the technological improvement is the main driving force that makes every new generation wheat source with increased wheat production. Interestingly, the article has cited total of one source. This reference is cited in CMS citation format. An important fact to mention is that the source he used for this article is a work himself with other scholars conducted earlier in 1968. The author himself still agrees on the

Chen 4 assumptions him and his colleagues made earlier. The source he used appears to be a both scholarly and popular book. The name of the book is Man and the Ecosystem. The publisher of the book is The University of Vermont Press, which mostly focused on printing scholarly books.

The Popular Article

Heinberg, Richard. "Earth's Limits: Why Growth Won't Return - Climate Change, Pollution, Accidents, Environmental Decline, and Natural Disasters." RSS. Post Carbon Institute, 17 Mar. 2011. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

This article is originally an excerpt from chapter 3 of Richard Heinbergs book The End of Growth which was first published by New Society Publishers in 2011. While this article is found on the website of Post Carbon Institute. In this article, the author briefly talks about his opinions on food shortage and limits of food production and he also relates food growth to economic growth. Throughout the article, the author emphasizes on how important farming efficiency and how Mother Nature plays the role to limit the growth of food production. This includes challenges such as water scarcity, top soil erosion, declining soil fertility (Heinberg, Earth's Limits) and etc. He thinks it urgent that the population growth is faster than food production and demand for food is slowly outstripping supply (Heinberg, Earth's Limits). However, in this article, he also states possible solutions to the food shortage problem and it is possible to increase food production. Richard Heinberg, an American journalist and educator who has extensively on energy, economic and ecological issues (Heinberg, "About."). This

Chen 5 article could be used as a research source since the author is a credible expert in the field and it is recently published. The intended audience of the article is not only the people who are working or studying in the field sustainable agricultural system, but also for everyone in the public who are interested in this topic since it is a popular article on the Internet. The article was found in the website of an organization names Post Carbon Institute This is an organization provides individuals, communities, businesses and the government resources to understand the relations between economy, energy and the environment in the 21th century ("About"). So, the article is literally for everyone who lives in the present. The original publisher of this article is a publication agency called New Society Publishers. It is an organization that focuses on publishing nonfiction books and articles in topics such as food, gardening, economy, environment, and sustainable livings ("Books to Build a New Society ). Among all the publications, some can be seen as scholarly and others are not. For instance, this article which is from a relatively more scholarly book The End of Growth, which the author Richard Heinberg is an expert in study of peak oil, resource depletion and sustainability. The author has published several books on those topics and he served as an advisor to the National Petroleum Council (Heinberg, "Earth's Limits). As a credible and notable person in those fields of study, some of his work can be used as references for scholarly researches. Thus most of the targeted audience is likely to be scholar that is in same field of study. For the most part, this article is phrased in simple and easy words and it makes the content in the article easier for students and non-scholar to read and understand. The purpose of this article is to tell the public and prove that we are not in a safe place in terms of food production. Rather the problems of food shortage and rapid population growth are urgent and they will cause bigger problems to the human civilization in the near future. The

Chen 6 author is not optimistic about he current issues related to food. In the article, He gives several examples to show how important food production is to civilizations; he stated problems with maintenance of far-flung and intensive food production systems played a role in the collapse of previous civilizations, including the Roman Empire (Heinberg, "Earth's Limits). He argues about the likelihood of the collapse of present human civilization caused by food shortage and warning us to see the problem as important as he sees it. The genre of the article is more likely to be a scientific journal. Even though this article is an excerpt from a book, by the article alone will be considered as a scientific journal in which the author express his own opinions on the current issue with supporting evidence. The stance of author in this article is to support his perspective on the dangerous situation in term of food production. In the article, he stated that demand for food is slowly outstripping supply, food producers ability to meet growing needs is increasingly being strained by rising human populations (Heinberg, "Earth's Limits). Throughout the article, he argues that the current food issue is urgent in term of food growth are limited by a lot of factors and it cannot match the speed population grows. His argument does not come along without supporting details. The article is constructed with total number of fifteen different references. The author has done analysis and uses many research results, which are conducted by other experts in the field as references for this article. Logos are used most frequently and consistently throughout the article. When he explains how the food production goes down by limitations of energy consumption since 1980s, be uses logical evidence to prove this claim: as the energy required to run the food system becomes more costly, food is increasingly being used to make energy. Many governments now offer subsidies and other incentives for turning biomass into fuel. It well explains the food production

Chen 7 goes down not because we are not efficient enough to produce food, but rather we turns food into fuels since energy shortage comes along before food shortage. More farmers are likely to switch wheat field to maize or soy and turn them into bio-fuels rather than selling them in the market because it has more benefits and receives governments subsidies to do so. The method is ethos doesnt appear in the article but therere some example of pathos where stated that we are running out of time to save the world and without giving strong supporting evidence (Heinberg, "Earth's Limits). The author uses several research methods while constructing this article. There is total number of 15 sources cited in APA format. All sources are either from online journal articles or popular journal magazines such as the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Most of the sources are scholarly and published within five years before this article is published in 2011. The author uses the statistical data and research results from those sources as supporting evidence for his own claim and theory; thus he agrees with all the contents from his reference source since his argument wont be convincing enough without those statistical data and research results as supporting details.

Chen 8 Work Cited "About the Journal." Science/AAAS. Science/AAAS, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014. "About." RSS. Post Carbon Institute, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014. "Books to Build a New Society." About New Society. New Society Publishers, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014. Heinberg, Richard. "About." Richard Heinberg. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.