The World’s Food HOW ARE FUTURE NEEDS TO BE MET?

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30190, 23 July 1963, Page 13

The World’s Food HOW ARE FUTURE NEEDS TO BE MET?

IBV •LYNCSUS" of tte "gccmomlsfj (From the "economist" Intelligence Unit)

London, June 35.—Moat erf us are uneasily aware that some people do not obtain enough to eat and that population is growing most rapidly where hunger is an accepted part of life; sooner or later, we all admit, something will have to be done about it But those who have not seen the figures may not realise the size of the problem or its urgency. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has launched Its Freedomfrom Hunger campaign for the specific purpose of spreading this information. The situation is set out in the F.A.O.’s latest world food survey, published at the end of April. Estimates are difficult, partly because it is impossible to know precisely how much people are getting to eat, partly because it is not easy to decide how much they need to live a healthy life. But the experts of the F-A.O. estimate nearly one-sixth of the world’s population is actually hungry, and that between one-third and one-half of it is suffering from malnutrition.

If we compare food supplies and needs of the world as a whole, supplies are only 10 per cent short of the F.A.O.’s short-term target, and 20 per cent, short of its long-term target In countries where the average diet is low in calories, however, the short-fall is 20 and 35 per cent; for animal foodstuffs, it is 35 and 55 per cent.

Population Growth This is bad enough. But the world’s population is growing fast It is growing fastest, thanks to the introduction of Western hygiene and medicine, in its poorest and most backward areas. In 1960 it was 37 per cent, higher than in 1936—20 per cent higher in high-calorie countries and 46 per cent, higher in low-calorie countries. This disproportion is -likely to continue.

United Nations ' demographers have produced various estimates of toe likely behaviour of world population on the basis of high, medium, and low rates of growth. On toe basis of medium growth, they suggest that toe population, at present a little more than three billion, will have risen to nearly four billion by 1975, and 6| billion by toe turn of toe century. It will rise by 58 per cent, in high-calorie countries, but by 150 per cent, in low calorie countries. Of more practical importance, however, is the suggestion that the Far East, where hunger is already moat com-

moo, will contain 60 per cent of the world’* population by the year 2000.

The FA.O., working on these estimates, considers that world food production might increase by a third by 1975 it dietary standards are not too drop below their present inadequate level, and by a halt it there is to be a modest improvement; this means a rise of 80 per cent in the supply of all food (and 120 per cent in toe supply erf animal foods) to the nungry countries within the next 12 years. By the turn of the century, however, the supply of all food to these countries must increase four time* over and the supply of animal foods six times over. This is a fantastic target. Is its achievement feasible, or must toe gap be closed by famine, pestilence, and war? The FAO recently explored the question of feasibility—physical feasibility, that is, what nature can provide if toe capital and skills needed are made available. The study was reassuring as far as North America, Europe Australia and New Zealand are concerned. Africa and Latin America will probably be all right if they can attract the necessary assistance from abroad, and if Africans can adopt the habit of settled agriculture. The Middle East, however— “it is a little difficult to see how the extra food is going to be produced” —is expected to encounter trouble unless someone discovers cheaper methods to distilling sea-water and transporting it for irrigation. And in the Far East “toe balance between future food needs and known potentialities for production may well prove to be delicate." Possible Remedies

It .is important to realise just what is implied in this last remark. It means that the countries of the Far East, whose population is expected to be considerably larger by the turn of toe century than the present population of the whole world, may not be able to feed themselves then — even if the political will and economic resources are forthcoming elsewhere to help them to exploit what they have.

The circle will be squared by some means or other. It may be squared in toe violent' way Malthus would predict. It may be squared through a modification of toe assumptions adopted by toe F.A.O. and toe United Nations: Labour may have to be used more intensively and wastefully than at present to keep itself in food, or toe spread

of oral contraception may upset the demographers’ predictions. It may be squared, finally, by toe development of new methods of food production (artificial proteins, distillation of sea water, intensive cultivation of fish, and so on) or by toe voluntary production of large food surpluses for export by the countries which are already well fed. The agricultural lobbies of toe West are already arguing that it is absurd to discourage food production when half toe world is starving The fact that emerges plainly from the F_A.O. estimates is that the Malthusian nightmare cannot be left as a legacy to our grandsons India, South-east Asia, and China are already finding it difficult, for all the sacrifices imposed by communism or the politically-motivated help supplied by capitalism, to ward off mass starvation. If they are to have any chance of success, the richer countries of the world must soon discover the will and the means to supply them with food, capital and skill on a scale which really hurts.