WORLD’S FOOD SUPPLY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 29 June 1927, Page 10

WORLD’S FOOD SUPPLY.

REDISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION. SCIENTISTS’ FEARS OF THE FUTURE. To an international science congress held in the United States a savant from Holland ha-s offered another ot those -speculations concerning the ultimate population for which the world will be able ,to provide food (states the “New Zealand Herald” editorially), it is not a new subject of forecast. About it have been built whole systems of economics and sociology, in \\hic\i the name .Malthas is generally found to figure. Of .recent years the leaders ot agricultural science have been most prominent in the field. I’roiessor Penck is of tlieir number. He ventures to quote a round number, B,(.KM>,(JOU,OUO, as the limit which can fie supported when all available land is tilled. The cabled account of his address suggests no date when that total may be expected. That forecast does not belong to the agricultural expert, it cannot be’ offered except, in the most general wav by the statistician, Tor medical science'inust be heard on the prospects of promoting longevity, of conquering those diseases which take most toll in childhood or early maturity, and generally -of extending the human span. The time is much more difficult to estimate credibly than the total popu.ation that will see the world occupied to saturation point.

Even so, the agricultural scientist must be cautious. He knows, or can calculate, the approximate quantity of land capable* ot cultivation. He can estimate the . .acreage required for the support: of, a- unit of population—usually a family of three. Whatever care he may take, however, any estimate he makes of productivity may lead him far astray. Science and system have multiplied the i etui ns from land closely tilled lor centuries. The resources of science are not exhausted vet. The agricultural and pastoral industries, the oldest known to man, allying themselves with modern science, may have new surprises in store for the world.

The sa'me subject as that discussed by Proiessor Penck was considered last year by the British Association for tide Advancement of Science. Sir Daniel Hail, president of the agricultural section, who introduced it. reviewed the prospect in a. decidedly gloomy tone. He said the unprecedented increase in the world’s population witnessed during the past century lino been possible, from the food production standpoint, only because there were vast areas of agricultural land, notably in North America, to be developed. The same rate could not safeIv be maintained, because there was no longer such a reserve; the remaining arahie land in ’the world could not be developed to the same extent by present methods. His argument was framed to emphasise the necessity lor continued intensive research. Without disputing his conclusion, other speakers combated the gloomy t-one of his review. One of them said that all the great economic predictions of the 19tJi cell f ury iuul gone astray, and some ot tlieir successors dealing with food yields had similarly proved false. There was. in his opinion, a great reserve of hope in intensification ot yield. Another remarked that for years the impending exhaustion of wheat productivity in the United States had been quoted as a factor promising a revival -of British agricultural prosperity. It had not materialised. Both in the United States and Canada the sum totai of wheat yield had grown greater, so that even as the population had increased there was a greater surplus for export. None of them denied the need for world development in the agricultural sense. Their tone was that, if it were intelligently prosecuted, the time when expansion of food resources would not lie sufficient for the growing population was not within measureable distance. Professor Penck also emphasises this need

Tiie Dutch scientist intro duces another question which has a direct interest lor all those concerned in the development of the British Empire. He discusses the possibility of the white races successfully inhabiting tropical countries, the moist tropics in particular. They have developed them, but the wider question of colonisation, of generation succeeding generation and maintaining the virility characterising their race in more temperate climates, is still an open one. It is keenly debated in Australia, where the Northern Territory is said by many not to be a white man’s country; it affects Kenya Colony, where the European settler tends to leave the moist coastal belt, and adds to the problem by seeking to debar the Indian colonists from the cooler uplands. Professor Penck obviously foresees the time when men of European stock will have to consider making their permanent homes in the tropics, not merely enduring their heat and .discomfort while amassing enough wealth to retire to more congenial climes. Thus he directs attention to a still more urgent question. again touching the British Empire nearly —the more even distribution oi the world’s population. Before the colonisation of the tropics is laced, there arc great spaces in the temperate /.one to be filled. Australia lias thorn. ( : 111 :i(I:i lias them South Africa has ai least dry tropics. New Zealand, more restricted m area, has empty spaces Older countries are filled with population to the saturation point. This unequal pressure cannot continue for ever. There must he a redistribution. If it is not engineered voluntarily the history of man shows it will happen in some other fashion. These deductions are not far-fetched. They arise directly from the suggestion that thought must he taken for the food supply of the future, that in assuring it. the application of available manpower to available land is essential. There is material to arouse thought in countries with unused empty spaces in the speculations of the scientist from Holland