I wasn't talking so much about increasing the efficiency of food generation in the US, which is already high.  I was talking more about that high level of technology spreading to the third world.  There are a lot of places that are still farming by hand.  You can see a lot of this in Brazil right now... there was a recent special on tv about a midwest farmer that was now farming thousands of acres of soy beans in Brazil.  There are vegetable farmers from California moving their operations to Mexico, where they can get cheap labor legally.  Africa has little in the way of mechanized farming...

There is lot's of room for better efficiency in food production in the world... and I would argue that it is essential to avoiding wide spread hunger... and there is plenty of money to be made doing it.  

I don't think that the reason it hasn't happened in the past is as much about R&D as it is about the availaibility of capital.  I think that you will see a lot more investment in third world ag, because the third world countries have the nat resource generated money to invest themselves and the investment climate for foreign investment has improved.  I wouldn't describe the past conditions as being compacency... if the only capital you have is borrowed money, there is only so much you can do.  Brazil and Argentina are emerging as ag powerhouses.  Can you imagine what Russia could do if it ever privatized those inefficient collective farms they still have?  No, there is a lot of room for improvement... and that would lower food prices in the world.

erryl