POPULATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

On 2 January 2000 the Sunday Times of London carried an article that included the following sentence: ‘Some of the most intense debates of the coming century will be about ensuring, amid an exciting and empowering technological revolution, that we do not destroy our environment or forget the legions of the poor’. Within these ‘intense debates’ there is the issue of food production for a world population which is thought likely to increase by about 50 per cent to about nine billion by the middle of the century.

As shown in Chapter 9, food production in many developing countries will need to double, or more, to meet the demands of a larger population and improve dietary levels. Using more land and raising average yields of arable crops can both be used towards achieving the required production. Crucial questions are whether the increase will be sufficient and can be sustained, and whether there will be irreparable damage to the environment. First to be considered are the reasons for optimism that food production will be sufficient.

At a time when the population of England was increasing, Malthus (1798) postulated that population would outstrip food supplies and people would starve. History has shown otherwise; in the two centuries since, the world population has risen from around one billion to six billion and, although some severe local food shortages have occurred, still occur and seem likely to continue because of poverty, war, drought and floods, most of the extra five billion people are not short of food, for two reasons: more land has been cultivated and technological applications have raised yields (Grigg, 1993; Alexandratos, 1995; Evans, 1998).