POPULATION GROWTH & FOOD SUPPLY.   Term Paper ID:17301 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines global changes in population & impact on food production & allocation & world hunger. Land use, deforestation, desertification.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines global changes in population & impact on food production & allocation & world hunger. Land use, deforestation, desertification. Paper Introduction: During the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era, the world's population grew at a rate of 2 percent to 5 percent per century. The rate today in many countries is between 3 percent and 4 percent per year - meaning an increase of more than nineteenfold in the next century if nothing changes. It now takes less than a decade to add a billion people to the earth's population. The consequences of this unprecedented growth are the grounds for controversy. Continued growth at current levels will quickly outstrip the world's food supplies. Figures show global hunger has increased inexorably in recent years. One can look at the rates at which global food production has risen, outpacing population growth in recent years, and deduce that hunger is merely the result of the inequitable allocation of food supplies. A 1983 United Nations Food and Agriculture Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The studyalso assumed that no land capable of producing food for human consumptionwould be used to support livestock, and no allowance was made for greenvegetables or nonfood crops, such as cotton. Current patterns in population growth, however, tend to divide thenations of the world into two groups, leading to what Brown and Jacobsoncall the "demographically divided world." Nearly half the world, includingthe industrialized nations and China, have either established a balancebetween births and deaths or are in the process of doing so. During the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era, the world'spopulation grew at a rate of 2 percent to 5 percent per century. Leaders in the developing world are increasingly aware thatpopulation growth threatens all future economic opportunities. China has broken free of the cycle of decline. The Human Impact: Man's Role in Environmental Change. One can look at the rates at whichglobal food production has risen, outpacing population growth in recentyears, and deduce that hunger is merely the result of the inequitableallocation of food supplies. Norton andCompany, 1978.Brown, Lester R. Populationpressures lead to increasing demands on local resources and croplands, inturn causing ecological stress which diminishes the carrying capacity ofthe land. Washington, D.C., 1985.World Bank. This loss of rich forests and grasslands to farming is one of theecological costs of population growth. Decertification in the Sahelian and Sudanian Zones of West Africa. Fisheries provide a good illustration of the concept of sustainableyield and carrying capacity. Evidence indicates that overfishing in the late 196 s and early197 s permanently damaged the region's productivity. Peru'sfishing industry expanded spectacularly in the late 195 s, and by the late196 s, Peru had emerged as the world's leading fishing nation. World Development Report, 1985. Worldleaders need to realize that, in poorer nations, money spent on familyplanning and education may do more to prevent environmental deteriorationthan money spent on parks, reserves and environmentally safe technology. Nevertheless, thatwould mean a substantial reduction in hunger, even with much greaterpopulations. study, though, begins to shed some lighton the true consequences of food self-sufficiency for an additional billionpeople. This process has already hurt many of the world's fisheries. As a result, the soil fertilityin many regions hasdeteriorated. In most of theworld's poorer countries, a vicious cycle has taken hold. Taylor, eds. In West Africa as a whole, the population of 31 million was 1 million beyond the level sustainable by regional fuelwood. "Malthus, Marx and the Population Crisis." International Development Review 12(1982).World Bank. Finally, the demandfor paper is a third cause of shrinking forests. After 194 , breakthroughs in disease control brought anunprecedented imbalance between births and deaths and further increases inpopulation growth. The consequences of this unprecedented growthare the grounds for controversy. The carrying capacityof Peru's offshore waters may be forever diminished. Throughout the 195 s and 196 s, the worldwide catch of fish increasedby an average of 5 percent yearly, as the fishing industry adoptedsophisticated technology. Consideringfuelwood and food supplies, including livestock from grazing, Gorseconcluded that in the northernmost zones of West Africa, where rainfall islowest, population pressures, as of 198 , already outweighed sustainableyields. The deserts of sub-Saharan Africa have been expanding theirboundaries at a rate of 3 kilometers a year since the mid-196 s due inlarge part to this process, and food production has dropped correspondingly(Johnson and Taylor 91). Satellite photographs ofthe Philippines show that deforestation there is far more advanced thanofficial statistics reveal - less than one-fifth of the country's land arearemains forested, although official estimates assume the number to be 33percent to 5 percent. New York: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1984.Postel, Sandra. Jeffrey Leonard describes deforestation andsoil erosion in Central America as a "crisis." Some of the long-termconsequences he foresees, barring a reversal in current trends, aredeclines in income and per capita food production, financial losses, andthe sacrifice of future economic opportunities. The Lean Years. A World Crisis? Reducing population growth is essential if the cycle of decline is tobe broken. Birth ratesand death rates then, as in the first stage, return to equilibrium, but ata much lower level. The third stage follows when economic and social gains, including lowerinfant mortality rates, reduce the desire for large families. With the coming of desert, local water supplies are reduced aswater retention is lost, water cycles are disrupted, and water tables fall. New York: W.W. In 197 and 1971, there were record catches of11 million and 12 million tons. However, as population pressures increase and theneed for food grows, the fallow period on plots, through which they remainunused, out of necessity, becomes shorter. As carrying capacity declines and the resource base itself isused up, population pressures, even with no growth, are intensified.Unless the cycle is reversed, the ecological systems in much of the worldare likely to be irreparably damaged, if not entirely destroyed. Pressures on the world's fisheries rise as population increases.This is also true for grasslands, where food animalsare grazed, and for the world's forests. Over the past generation, deforestationon the Indian subcontinent progressively destroyed the soil's ability toabsorb and hold moisture - this is because soil from denuded regions losesits source of replenishing organic material and is further exposed tothe bleaching effects of direct sunlight. The loss of protective vegetation in turn exposes soils toincreased wind and water erosion, eventually leading to a decline in thesoil fertility. The loss of any biological system is aglobal tragedy, not a regional problem. The Ivory Coast is losing 5.3 percent of its forest covereach year. Once populationsexpand to the point where their demands exceed the sustainable yield oflocal resources, forests, croplands and water supplies, they begin toconsume the resource base itself. For any country, the consequences of exceeding the land's naturalcarrying capacity are severe. New York: Oxford UP, 1985.----------------------- 12 There seems to be some hope that the hunger problem can besolved. Human life depends on the output of biological systems - such asfisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands. But, as Brown points out, theorists didnot say what happens when developing countries get trapped in the secondstage, unable to achieve the economic or social gains that are counted onto reduce birth rates. This was immediately attributed to the effectsof the warm el Nino current, but in the mid-197 s with catches stillrunning below 196 levels, the Peruvian fishing industry began to collapse. Rates of populationgrowth rose gradually from the dawn of agriculture to the middle of the19th century. A study by Gorse gauged the carryingcapacity of various ecological zones delineated by rainfall. Many marine biologists feel that this is because theglobal catch may be approaching the maximum sustainable limit. Scientists have estimated the maximum sustainableyield of the Peruvian anchovy fishery to be around 9.5 million tons peryear. Per capita incomes in China are now rising (Brown and Jacobson 42).Public educationabout the consequences of population growth proved instrumental in China'sfamily planning program, as did government incentives encouraging smallfamilies. The same basic process is degrading the resourcebase throughout Africa, on the Indian subcontinent, and in regions ofCentral and South America. Decertification is a related ecological threat. Grasslands and forests in wet areas, for example, have greaterregenerative capacities and therefore greater carrying capacities thanforests in semi-arid regions. New York: Viking P, 1972.Johnson, R.J. The ratetoday in many countries is between 3 percent and 4 percent per year -meaning an increase of more than nineteenfold in the next century ifnothing changes. Decertification. This is one cause of deforestation. These nationshave population growth rates of .8 percent on average. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981.Hardin, Garrett. Eventually, theresult is desert: a skeletal landscape with sand soil devoid of organicnutrients. Exploring New Ethics for Survival. In some areas, they also represent the tragicconsequences of ecological stress. Almost every country undergoing rapid population growth is beingdeforested. Decertification, at the onset, is characterized by adecline in the diversity of plant and animal species. 9percent yearly. Wood is also the primary buildingmaterial everywhere. But in 197 the trend was abruptly interrupted,and since then, the catch has fluctuated between 65 and 75 million tons(Simon and Kahn 124). On Java, only 12 percent of the once-lush tropicalforest remains (Johnson and Taylor 198). What appears to be true is that the same, self-reinforcing trends,those that cause birth rates to decline as income rises, work in reversewith ecological deterioration and economic decline. The Twenty-Ninth Day. The need to house 64 million new people each yearplaces a substantial burden on the world's forests. Works CitedBarnet, Richard J. Experts debatingthe population/hunger issue often fail to consider the ecological stressesand costs associated with the demand for more food. Forests and grasslands disappear, soilerodes andland productivity declines, causing reductions in per capita foodproduction and income and triggering declines in living standards.Ultimately, Brown predicts, higher death rates and loss of life take over,forcing a country back into the predevelopment stage. During the first stage, which characterizes pre-modernsocieties, both birth and death rates are high and population grows slowly. The result would be that evengreater tracts of marginal land would have to be cleared and cultivated. The carrying capacity of a naturalbiological system, as defined by Barnet, is a function of its maximumsustainable yield, and this, in turn, is the product of its size andregenerative powers. Simon, eds. This wasalmost entirely the result of expanding efforts to harvest Peru's vastoffshore anchovy fishery. Others are soil deterioration anderosion and declines in fisheries and decertification. Furtherefforts to increase the harvest could lessen the oceans' carrying capacityand affect future harvests. To understand why this happens, it is necessary to consider theconcept of carrying capacity. The picture that emerges from all this is bleak. The Resourceful Earth. The overuse of land also leads to a loss of cropland - and thisperpetuates the cycle of decline that traps poorer nations.Decertification and soil erosion, for example, claim huge tracts offarmland each year. Mexico is currently losing its forests at a rate of 1. In 1972, however, anchovies were scarce intraditional fishing areas. When a nationbegins to overtax its own forests, grasslands, and fisheries beyondreplacement levels, it loses resources that cannot be replaced. In this way, the carrying capacity of regions is further reduced (Glantz65). A secondgroup of nations, where birth rates remain high (2.8 percent in the MiddleEast and Africa) (World Bank 4 ) are threatened by rapid ecologicaldeterioration and declining standards of living. To sustain the new population, the study assumed that all possibleland could be cultivated and indeed would be brought into production. When soils deteriorate too badly, they can support littlevegetation and becomes susceptible to severe erosion. When grasslands areovergrazed and deteriorate to the point where they can no longer adequatelysupport livestock, herders in poorer countries often begin cutting foliagefrom trees, thereby putting even more pressure on the sparse tree coverthat remains. "Altering the Earth's Chemistry: Assessing the Risks." Worldwatch Papers 76(July 1986).Woods, Robert. and Peter J. In recent years, China, Thailand, and Zimbabwe, through the useof innovative family planning policies, have all had some success inmanaging population growth. Of these, people control,for the most part, only the productivity of the last: croplands.Fisheries, forests and grasslands are all entirely subject to the pressuresof demand. A further look at the U.N. Thisincluded, for example, a sevenfold expansion of Latin American cropland,whichwould require the plowing of vast portions of the Amazon basin. In the second stage, living conditions improve as public health measures,including mass immunizations, are introduced and food production expands.Birth rates remain high, but death rates fall and population grows rapidly. The entire process - based on the work of FrankNotestein and drawing heavily off the European experience - is known as thedemographic transition (Brown 85). This is because their higher growth ratesallow them to replace lost foliage, wildlife or soil nutrients quickly.The sustainable yield of a region may vary from a small percentage ofgrowth to well over half; but it cannot be exceeded for any length of timewithout reducing the system's resource base and, thus, its carryingcapacity. In western Nigeria,this problem has created "badland" topography in once productive farmareas. Figures show global hunger hasincreased inexorably in recent years. and Jodi L. By 194 , when modern industrial technology was first appliedto farming on a large scale, the annual rate of population increase reached1 percent. Deforestation threatens all ecological systems by undermining thefertility and stability of soils. Traditional demographic theories classified all societies into one ofthree stages. As a consequence, flooding inIndia has become more frequent and severe (Goudie 28). Today, the earth's population is growing annually at arate of1.6 percent (Woods 13 ). In the world's poorer nations,the average villager uses between one and two tons of firewood per year.As village populations rise, they outstrip the regenerative capacities oflocal forests, causing forests to recede further and farther from villages. New York: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1986.Kahn, Herman and Julian L. It has yet to recover. It now takes less than a decade to add a billion peopleto the earth's population. Declining ecologicalsystems undermine a country's economy. Continued growth at current levels willquickly outstrip the world's food supplies. New York: Simon and Schuster, 198 .Brown, Lester R. Maximum sustainable yield varies with biologicalsystems. He uses the analogy of aspaceship, where things may be recycled but never replaced, to dramatizethe situation with the environment. Jacobson. Haiti, already heavily deforested, is losing 3.2 percent of itsremaining woodland yearly (Simon and Kahn 133). A 1983 United Nations Food and AgricultureOrganization study (Brown and Jacobson 13) concluded that, with moderntechnology, only 19 countries, with a total population of 1 4 million,would be unable to feed their peoples at minimum levels by the year 2 -how this would be paid for, the study did not say. Boulder, Colorado: Westview P, 1977.Goudie, A. Garrett Hardin, in his book, Exploring New Ethics for Survival, makesthe point that the earth is a contained system with a finite number ofresources (some renewable, others not). Overplanting worldwide is an equally serious problem.In many regions of the world, strip-cropping, where rows of land areplanted during alternating years, and shifting cultivation, where a plot isfarmed for two or three years, then abandoned for 15 or 2 years to regainnatural plant cover and fertility, have been refined over the centuries toensure crop production. Geographical Perspectives. "Our Demographically Divided World." Worldwatch Papers 74(December 1986).Glantz, M.H., ed. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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