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Abstract
Today, a rough estimate of global population is about 7 billion, which is 4 times greater than what it was in 1900. For thousands of year human population showed a very slow and measured increase in numbers and suddenly in the past millennia we are growing at a staggering rate. In fact in 1700 the global population was roughly 10 times lesser than the current population. So, why we should be alarmed? Well! The answer is that the resources of the earth are not sufficient to cater to the needs of such huge amount of people and if this trend continues we would be requiring another earth. Analysts say, by the year 2050 the global population would touch 9 billion (FAO n.d.:2). Yes, the developing economies are growing at much faster rates than the developed nations, but make no mistake that it is an international problem and no country is immune to it.
Concern about the exploding population growth is not a new phenomenon. In fact Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus had submitted a very influential essay on this subject as early as 1798. The essay was titled “An Essay on the Principle of Population”, which influenced the later works of scientists like Charles Darwin, in establishing facts about natural selection. Malthus predicted that if the population keeps expanding at the same rate the food supply of the earth will not be sufficient to meet the demands of the entire humanity (Malthus 1826). Even in the Britain of 1798, Malthus noticed that the agricultural output was not growing in proportion to the increase in population and predicted that this would result in massive famine and widespread disease. He proposed that new innovations and scientific developments should be seen as a solution to cater the growing food demand and these ideas are relevant even to this day.
Reasons for population Growth
The later part of the twentieth century witnessed many remarkable achievements in the medical field, which drastically reduced the overall death rate of the human population. Particularly in the 1960s, many vaccinations for diseases which were then considered deadly, like malaria, cholera and diphtheria, were invented. This brought down the infant mortality dramatically. The Green revolution, which resulted in mass production of disease resistant food crops, coupled with these medical advancements, contributed to a scenario where the death rate decreased but the birth rate continued to grow.
The Green revolution had a more vital role to play in decreasing mortality rates because its benefits directly went to the poor, Food prices decreased up to 70%, in the 1970s as a result of green revolution (Conway and Doherty1999: 1). In most parts of the world innovative agricultural techniques had resulted in increased food crops yield in the past fifty years. So all these factors – improved public health, disease control and the increase in food production, has combined together and led to a drastic reduction in death rates. While this is good news, unfortunately enough steps have not been taken to control birth rates. With each passing year almost 90 million people (thrice the population of California) are added to this world.
The capacity of our planet
Though the increased agricultural productivity has left us with a vast amount of food supplies and the food prices has been declining in the last 20 years, still there are widespread poverty and hunger in developing nations (Conway and Doherty1999: 4). From the period the human species took control of this planet, we have exploited the earth’s capacity and almost drained majority of its resources.
- We have degraded close to 50% of the land area for urbanization and cultivation
- We have increased the carbon-dioxide component of the atmosphere by 30%
- 20% of bird species are extinct mainly due to human activity in the past 200 years,
- 22% of marine fish varieties are extinct and another 40% is at the brink of its extinction and
- We use almost more than 50% of fresh water resources.
The main source of food for human beings come from fisheries, irrigated lands, crop lands, pastures and forests. But with half of the seventeen main fishing areas of the world being shut down due to lack of marine life and 30 -50% of forests and crop lands being taken for various kinds of development projects, earth is facing a serious resource problem.
Immediate dangers
While in Japan and in parts of Western Europe the population continues to remain the same, in countries such as Russia and in certain eastern European countries the population is decreasing. Countries in southern parts of Africa have shown a decline in population due to the large amount of AIDS related deaths. In all other parts of the world, the population is steadily increasing. In short, in parts of the earth where the current population is 1 billion, the population growth rate is stabilized. Whereas in regions where currently 4 billion people live (like China, India, Congo, Pakistan, Australia, USA etc), the rate has accelerated.
This causes immediate concerns about allocation of available resources. There are already close to one billion people on earth who are undernourished and millions more who suffer chronic diseases due to hunger and poverty (FAO n.d.:34). As Malthus predicted some two hundred years ago even if part of the population from developing countries migrated to developed nations it still won’t solve the problem of their parent country (Malthus 1826: III.IV.1).
How to equip the earth to face this situation
In the year 2010, the UN established a panel on global sustainability. Its chairman, General Ban Ki-moon through his report, “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future worth Choosing”, conveys that our planet is under enormous stress, even though we are experiencing unparalleled economic prosperity. It is established now that we face a possibility of 9 billion people in near future. But can mother earth feed a billion mouths? That is the crucial question. At least Gordon Conway, the famous agricultural ecologist, seems to think so.
In his book “One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?” he explains that the best way to cater to the growing food demands is through agricultural innovations. He urges the governments across nations to tackle the challenges of recurring food price hikes. The first challenge to ensure global food sufficiency would be to somehow gain control over the sudden surge of food prices (Conway 2012:5). The demand for food crops is growing year by year but there is not enough production to meet this demand. While planning food crops cultivation, Governments should not just take into consideration the increase in population but also the change in consumption patterns. In the past few years many countries have recorded an increase in per capita income thus people are looking for higher quality and larger quantity of food supply(Conway 2012: 10). So, food crops that meet these demands should be cultivated more.
Another area where planning is required is in livestock breeding. The livestock revolution, which is needed because there is an increasing trend towards meat consumption in some developing economies like China, will in turn increase the demand for feed for the animals. China, for instance, purchased 35 million tons of feed for its livestock industry in the year 2007(Conway 2012: 12). Governments should forecast such needs and plan to meet such periodical demands to prevent sudden price hike of commodities.
Another point to note is that most of this population increase is taking place in urban areas. Statistics show that, 40 years down the line 70% of the earth’s population will be based out on urban areas(FAO n.d.:34). Urbanization will definitely result in a change in the consumption pattern and countries might witness decrease in reduction of demand for grains and see increase in demand for items such as diaries, meat and ready-to-eat foods. While this is happening, the rural population would be an area of concern, as majority of the earth’s poverty stricken population is found in rural areas. Almost one billion people in rural areas suffer from poverty and hunger. Many of them live in ecologically fragile areas and the increasing population can only make their plight further insufferable. So the political heads of developing nations should take steps to improve the employment opportunities in the rural area, so that people in these regions have an economic option to earn their livelihood, apart from agriculture.
Several theories claim that increase of food supply to underdeveloped nations might increase the chances of population growth, because well fed women will give birth to more children and they again when well nourished, will survive for long thus resulting in population growth . This cannot be more far from truth. A well fed woman will have healthy children with less mortality rates and thus she will be content with fewer children (Conway 2012: 9). The government just has to provide them access to basic family planning methods. So meeting global food demands and eradication of poverty goes hand in hand.
Another major step we have to take is bringing in new innovations in biotechnology. There is no better route to food sufficiency than agricultural development. Governments across nations should plan to cultivate highly resilient and productive food crops. The fields of molecular biology and ecology have gained more importance, in today’s context. Experiments in the above fields have already contributed towards much improved techniques in farming and animal breeding. The newly discovered ‘deepwater rice’ is one such innovation which allows submerged plants to survive under water for close to fourteen days. This variety of rice was found to be more tolerant to weather conditions than the ordinary varieties and almost 1, 00,000 farmers in India now use this variety of crops.
Not just scientific inventions but political systems also are equally crucial, to cope up with the needs of the ever increasing population. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa has supported thousands of agro dealers in Africa through training and supply of seeds and fertilizers. Similarly the RUMARK, an agro foundation by Bill Gates, educates farmers on crop husbandry and fertilizer usage and safety. Kenya has a similar program called the Kenya Agrodealer Strengthening Program, which helps almost 1.4 million farmers use modern farming technologies to increase their crop yield.
Agriculture in the coming years should not only be more productive but also should be environmental friendly. The benefits of scientific research in agriculture should be shared with the developing nations and more importantly systems should be in place to eradicate poverty and provide enhanced resource sharing. The earth has the means and resources to eliminate hunger and provide for the entire human species, it just requires the political will to do so (FAO n.d.:35).
Bibliograhy
- Conway, Gordon with Doherty, Peter and International Livestock Research Institute
1999 Feeding the world: ecology, biotechnology and farmers as experimenters. Second annual Peter Doherty Distinguished Lecture. New York: ILRI (aka ILCA and ILRAD)
- Conway , Gordon
2012 One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World? New York: Cornell University Press. (For reviews refer: https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/africanagriculturaldevelopment/Public/One Billion hungry Policy Briefing paper - final.pdf)
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
- Malthus, Thomas Robert
1826 An Essay on the Principle of Population. 6th edition. London: John Murray.
