Food and population : the unequal equation

Food production and population growth rates must be brought into better balance within the next several decades or the world will become more and more chaotic. The poverty that is already serious in many developing countries will become unbearable and it is possible that standards of living in some of the affluent countries will stagnate or even retrogress. Focusing on the symptoms of the complex malaise that threatens civilization rather than on the basic causes will not solve the underlying problems. The primary underlying cause--the human population monster--must be confronted. During the next several decades the world will face a worsening shortage of cropland on which to produce its food. Increasing problems in irrigated lands which produce a disproportionately large share of the worlds food supply are very serious. In some key producing areas the diversion of irrigation water to nonfarms uses is reducing potential food production. There is evidence that population growth is beginning to slow yet even if this reduced rate of growth prevails the necessary food production increases are staggering. These projections mean that within the next 40 60 or 80 years depending on how population changes world food production must again be increased by at least as much as was achieved during the 12000 years prior to 1975 just to maintain per capita food production at the inadequate 1975 level. It is believed that the production of food and fiber can be doubled in the next 40 to 80 years if world governments give sufficiently high priority and continuing support to agriculture and forestry. Producing more food and fiber and protecting the environment can at best be only a holding operation while population growth is being contained.