The Asian Maize Economy in 2025

This chapter looks more qualitatively at Asia as a single region and focuses more speculatively on the longer run. It is also more personal, since views of the 2025, like beauty, depend inevitably on the eyes of the beholder. The chapter begins by running history backwards via a thought experiment. Suppose in 1975 that one had been predicting the contours of the Asian maize economy in 2000. What variables and parameters would forecasters have missed in significant ways? This procedure turns out to be a very sobering exercise for anyone now predicting events in 2025.