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Why did Thomas Malthus believe population growth could outpace food production?

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Common wildebeest — population ecology A herd of common wildebeest (*Connochaetes taurinus*) migrating across a dusty savanna in Africa. The animal is a keystone species (i.e., a species with a disproportionately large effect on its biological community) in plains and acacia savanna ecosystems from southeastern Africa to central Kenya.

Thomas Malthus proposed that population growth inevitably outpaces food production because of the different mathematical rates at which they increase. He argued that if left unchecked, human population growth expands in a geometric progression, while the means of subsistence (food supply) increases only in an arithmetic progression.12

In the context of population ecology, Malthus’s theory serves as a foundational concept for understanding carrying capacity and environmental limits. He believed that population would expand until it reached the limit of available resources, at which point it would be checked by "positive checks"—such as famine, war, and disease—or "preventive checks," such as moral restraint.21

While Malthus’s work influenced evolutionary biology, his predictions were criticized for failing to account for the agricultural revolution, which significantly increased food production, and the widespread adoption of birth control, which altered fertility trends.12