题目内容：

    For most of recorded history, the struggle to eat has been the main focus of human activity, and all but a handful of people were either farmers or farm workers. Starvation was ever-present threat. Even the best years rarely yielded much of a surplus to carry over as an insurance against leaner times. In the worst situation, none but the powerful could be sure of a full stomach.

Now most people in rich countries never have to worry about where the next meal is coming from. In 1900 two in every five American workers laboured on a farm: now one in 5Q does. Even in poor places such as India, where famine still struck until the mid-20th century, the assumption that everyone will have something to eat is increasingly built into the rhythm of life.

That assumption, though, leads to complacency（自满情结）. Famine has ended in much of the world, but it still stalks parts of Africa -Ethiopia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to name three countries, depend on handouts of food. And millions of people still suffer from malnutrition. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation（FAO）, some 2 billion of the world's 7.3 billion people do not have enough to eat. Moreover, by 2050, the total population is projected to grow to almost 10 billion. Add this to the rising demand for meat, fish, milk and eggs, which is born of prosperity and which requires extra fodder to satisfy, and 70% more food will be needed in 2050 than was produced in 2009, the year the FAO did the calculation. That is a tall order. But it is not impossible.

Since the time of Thomas Malthus, an economist writing a little over 200 years ago, people have worried that population growth would outstrip（超过）food supply. So far, it has not. But neo-Malthusians spot worrying signs. One is that in some places the productivity of staples（主食）such as rice and wheat has reached a plateau（停滞期）.Neither new strains nor fancy agrochemicals are raising yields. Nor is there much unfarmed land left that is suitable to be brought under the plough. Neo-Malthusians also suggest that, if global temperatures continue to rise, some places will become unfarmable -particularly poor, tropical regions.

These are reasonable, concerns. But they can be overcome by two things: the application and spread of technology, and the implementation of sensible government policies.

Agricultural technology is changing fast. Much of this change is brought about by rich-world farmers and by rich fanners in middle-income places like Brazil. Techniques developed in the West 一 especially genome-based breeding that can create crops with special properties almost to order 一 are being adapted to make tropical crops. Such smart breeding, in alliance with new, precise techniques of genetic modification, should break through the yield plateaus. It can also produce crops with properties such as drought and heat-resistance that will. reduce the effects of global warming. Drought-resistant maize created in this way is already on the market.

The developing world applies as little to existing farming techniques as it does to the latest advances in genetic modification. Yield plateaus are a phenomenon only of the most intensively farmed parts of the world. Extending to the smallholders and subsistence farmers of Africa and Asia the best of today's agricultural practices, in such simple matters as how much fertilizer to apply and when, would get humanity quite a long way towards a 70% increase in output.

Indeed, government policy on reducing waste more generally would make a huge difference. The FAO says that about a third of food is lost during or after harvest. In rich countries a lot of food is thrown away by consumers. In poor ones it does not reach consumers in the first place. Bad harvesting practices, poor storage and slow transport mean that food is damaged, spoiled or lost to pests. Changing that, which is mostly a question of building things like better, pest-proof grain silos and monitoring their contents properly, would take a big bite out of the 70% increase.

The neo-Malthusians may throw up their hands in despair, but consider this: despite all the apparent obstacles, from yield plateaus to climate change, in the six years following the FAO analysis cereal production rose by 11%. If growth like that continues it should not only be possible to feed the 10 billion, but to feed them well.

1.According to Paragraphs 1 and 2, we can know that most people in the modern world ______ .

A.usually take food for granted .

B.are successfully getting rid of farming

C.tend to deal with lean years skillfully

D.enjoy equal rights to get good food

2.What does the underlined sentence, in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A.Feeding a population of almost 10 billion can be expensive.

B.A precise calculation of the food growth rate is hard to make.

C.Increasing the output of food by 70% in given years is very difficult.

D.There is no parallel to the rising demand for high-quality food in history.

3.According to the passage, neo-Malthusians ______.

A.have disproved Thomas Malthus' argument

B.have contributed to the increased output of crops

C.have found that population growth will exceed food supply

D.have claimed that climate change may influence food production

4.What can we infer from the example of the develop world in Paragraph 7?

A.Technology is of little use if it is not adopted.

B.Yield plateaus are common to see all over the world.

C.The developing world has got used to existing farming techniques.

D.More advanced agricultural practices should be introduced to the developing world.

5.The underlined part "take a big bite out of" in the last but one paragraph is closest in meaning to “______ "

A.make a big profit of.

B.take full advantage of

C.indicate the influence of.

D.reduce a significant amount of

6.What does the author think of the future of le world's food supply?

A.It is worrying. B.It is promising.

C.It is controversial. D.It is uncertain.