As a result, the population is reduced. Malthus also suggested that human population tends to increase at an exponential rate. For instance, suppose that a mother and father have four children and that when these children grow up, they have four children each. The mother and father will then have sixteen grandchildren. The second part of Malthus's theory is that food produced by farming only increases at an arithmetic rate.
Population grows in increasing amounts, but food production only increases in constant amounts.
Hence, the checks and balances mentioned above would again play a role in limiting population to its carrying capacity. What Malthus did not foresee was the full impact of the industrial revolution and the agricultural revolution which accompanied it. Traditional farming produced small harvests and little surplus to reduce the impact of periods of crop failure. Farm families lived mainly on what they grew for themselves. Today, modern farming has developed new and better breeds of livestock and types of grain that can tolerate colder temperatures and can resist disease.