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<title>Tennessee Right to Life - Food Shortage Facts (United Against Abortion, Infanticide, Euthanasia, Human Cloning and Fetal Tissue Research.)</title>
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            <option value="#food_shortage_facts0">What about world food production?</option>
            <option value="#food_shortage_facts1">How much food is available now?</option>
            <option value="#food_shortage_facts2">Is the food supply improving?</option>
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    <p><big><big><strong>FOOD SHORTAGE FACTS</strong></big></big></p>
    <p><big><strong>A</strong></big>nother one of the tools the pro-abortion community uses to
    further their agenda is the FOOD SHORTAGE MYTH. They say that even if there was enough
    space for everyone, there would not be enough food to support them. They point to the
    current starvation and hunger problems and say that it would only get worse if we were not
    aborting our babies. They say there would be too many people for the worlds food
    supply...Well I say this is not true. Read the articles below and see if you agree.</p>
    <p><a name="food_shortage_facts0"></a><big><strong>What about world food production?</strong></big></p>
    <p>Numerous times over the last 40 years so-called &quot;experts&quot; predicted global
    famine because increases in food production couldn&#146;t possibly keep up with population
    growth. Thankfully, they were wrong. <br>
    The best indications today are that food production will continue to outpace population
    growth for the foreseeable future, though this doesn&#146;t preclude localized famines
    since, as we shall see in a moment, famine in the 20th century is largely unrelated to the
    ability to produce enough food to feed the world. <br>
    The accomplishment in food production over the last 40 years was a result of the Green
    Revolution agricultural processes focusing on hybrid plants designed to maximize yield
    while being resistant to pests, and intensive irrigation and fertilizing efforts. As Denis
    Avery points out, in 1950 the world&#146;s 611 million hectares of cropland produced 692
    million tons of grain. By 1992, the world planted 700 million hectares of cropland which
    produced 1,920 million tons of grain. In spite of skeptics in the late 1960s and 1970s who
    predicted the effects of the Green Revolution would be minimal, agricultural output
    increased from 1.13 tons/hectare to 2.74 tons/hectare in four decades. <br>
    The Green Revolution was so successful that the developed world now sees a glut of food.
    Many governments in the developed world now pay farmers to limit food production in order
    to increase prices. Even if population growth should increase along the lines of the worst
    case scenario, this underproduction could be converted quickly to meet the world&#146;s
    food needs. <br>
    What makes the world increase in food production so much more amazing is that many parts
    of the world have yet to experience its effects. Development of Green Revolution-style
    techniques for Africa, for example, has lagged for a variety of reasons. The introduction
    of hybrid crops designed for the relatively poor soil of central Africa combined with
    farming techniques to maximize productivity of the land have yet to be extensively adopted
    on that continent. Such techniques could increase food production in Africa by a factor of
    7 and allow that continent to finally be self-sufficient in its food production. <br>
    Unfortunately there may not be a lot we can do about the primary cause of famine and
    hunger in the 20th century -- government interference with food production. <br>
    All of the largest and most publicized famines of this century were the direct result not
    of inherent problems with food production but of government policies which discouraged
    proper production and distribution of food. <br>
    In the 1980s famine in Ethiopia resulted from the government preventing food aid from
    reaching provinces rebelling against the government of Haile Mariam Mengitsue. Famine
    which killed tens of millions in the Soviet Union in 1921-22 and 1932-3, China in 1958-61
    and Bengal in 1943 were all the direct result of government policies which severely
    distorted production and/or distribution of food. These large famines deserve a closer
    look. <br>
    With the famines in the USSR, not only did Soviet policies provide a disincentive to
    farmers to lower food output, but in both cases the USSR decided to export millions of
    tons of grain during periods when its citizens starved in large numbers. Lenin finally
    called in Western aid agencies (led by future U.S. president Herbert Hoover) to stop the
    1921-22 famine, while Stalin explicitly rejected appealing to outside aid during the
    1932-3 famine leading to the deaths of an estimated 7 million (another 7.5 million are
    estimated to have died in the collectivization and dekulakization programs undertaken by
    Stalin which directly caused the lowered grain output). <br>
    China experienced what is believed by many to be the worst case of famine in world history
    -- a mind boggling 30 million people are believed to have perished. The cause was not
    drought or pestilence or some other natural disaster, but Mao Tse-Tung&#146;s Great Leap
    Forward which destroyed Chinese agriculture. <br>
    Deciding it wasn&#146;t going to let the Communists lead the world in causing famine,
    Great Britain inflicted a terrible famine on Bengal in 1943. Fearing a Japanese invasion
    of that colony, Great Britain systematically reduced all local grain supplies so the
    Japanese wouldn&#146;t be able to seize it after the anticipated invasion. <br>
    Famine in the 20th century has been inflicted on tens of millions of people by the very
    governments they looked to for help during agricultural crises. Unlike crop yields, this
    problem does not have a simple solution.</p>
    <p><a name="food_shortage_facts1"></a><big><strong>How much food is available now?</strong></big></p>
    <p>The world currently produces more than enough food to provide every single man, woman
    and child alive today with an adequate diet. As the table below, taken from William Bender
    and Margaret Smith's <em>Population, Food, and Nutrition</em> makes clear, total per
    capita calories produced annually far exceeds nutrition requirements:</p>
    <div align="center"><center><table border="1" cellPadding="2" cellSpacing="1" bgcolor="#000000" width="300">
<tbody>
      <tr>
        <td colSpan="2" vAlign="top"><p align="center"><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>Annual World Food
        Production, 1991<br>
        (Bender and Smith 1997)</b> </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="bottom"><font color="#FFFFFF">Total food calories produced/person</font></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">7,460</font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top"><font color="#FFFFFF">Per capita calories per day/person</font></td>
        <td vAlign="top"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">3,810</font></td>
      </tr>
</tbody>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top"><font color="#FFFFFF">Surplus food calories</font></td>
        <td vAlign="top"><font color="#FFFFFF"><p align="right">3,650</font></td>
      </tr>
    </table>
    </center></div><p>Basically what the table shows is that there is enough food produced
    annually to provide 7,460 calories per day to every person on the planet. Since 3,810
    calories per day is more than what even extraordinarily active people require, there is
    more than enough food produced annually to feed the world's current population (<strong>almost
    twice as much!</strong>). This does not mean, however, that people do not go hungry --
    just that hunger does not occur because there is insufficient food produced globally.</p>
    <p>Currently, enough food is supplied globally [to meet total demand for food], but yet it
    is estimated that in 1990/92 some 839 million people in the so-called developing countries
    had inadequate access to food...</p>
    <p><a name="food_shortage_facts2"></a><big><strong>Is the food supply improving?</strong></big></p>
    <p>Some doomsayers concede there's currently enough food produced to feed everyone alive,
    but claim the amount of food available is beginning to decline. This does not appear to be
    the case. Consider this analysis of Food and Agricultural Organization figures by Dennis
    Avery:</p>
    <div align="center"><center><table border="1" cellPadding="7" cellSpacing="1" width="368" bgcolor="#000000">
<tbody>
      <tr>
        <td colSpan="4" vAlign="top"><p align="center"><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>World Calories Per
        Capita Per Day (Bailey 1995)</b></font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td width="34%">&nbsp;</td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="19%"><p align="right"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">1963 </font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="21%"><p align="right"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">1992 </font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="26%"><p align="right"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Percentage
        increase </font></strong></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="34%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">World</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="19%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,287 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,697 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="26%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">+18 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="34%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">United States</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="19%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">3,067 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">3,642 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="26%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">+19 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="34%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Third World</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="19%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1,940 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,473 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="26%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">+27 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="34%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Asia</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="19%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1,888 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,494 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="26%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">+32 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="34%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Latin America</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="19%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,363 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,690 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="26%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">+13 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="34%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Africa</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="19%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,155 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,348 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="26%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">+9 </font></td>
      </tr>
</tbody>
    </table>
    </center></div><p>The amazing thing about this chart is the huge absolute gain in food
    production this represents. Consider that in the 1960s some people predicted total crops
    yields would begin to decline. Not only did yields increase, but they expanded so fast
    that even though the world added many more millions of mouths to feed, each mouth had more
    to eat at the beginning of the 1990s. As Donald O. Mitchell, Merlinda D. Ingco and Ronald
    C. Duncan note in their book, <i>The World Food Outlook</i>, &quot;yield increases
    accounted for 90 percent of the growth of world cereals production from 1950 to 1990 when
    the annual rate of growth was 2.24 per cent&quot; (Mitchell, et al 1997, p.57). The
    following table illustrates the long term trend of increasing yields,</p>
    <div align="center"><center><table border="1" cellPadding="7" cellSpacing="1" width="452" bgcolor="#000000">
<tbody>
      <tr>
        <td colSpan="5" vAlign="top"><p align="center"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">World wheat,
        rice and maize yield growth rates, 1951 to 1990 (per cent annum) (Mitchell, et al 1997,
        p.58) </font></strong></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td width="20%">&nbsp;</td>
        <td width="21%"><p align="right"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">1951-60 </font></strong></td>
        <td width="18%"><p align="right"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">1961-70 </font></strong></td>
        <td width="21%"><p align="right"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">1970-80 </font></strong></td>
        <td width="20%"><p align="right"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">1980-90 </font></strong></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="20%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF"><br>
        <br>
        Wheat</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.84 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">3.06 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.99 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="20%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2.89 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="20%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF"><br>
        <br>
        Rice</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.27 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2.40 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.63 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="20%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2.34 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="20%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF"><br>
        <br>
        Maize</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2.74 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2.48 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="21%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2.84 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="20%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.01 </font></td>
      </tr>
</tbody>
    </table>
    </center></div><p><b>Note:</b> the downturn in maize production 1980-90 was the result of
    a severe 1988 drought in the United States.</p>
    <p>The upshot of this, as Mitchell, et al document, is that over the long term world
    cereals production has consistently grown faster than population. The following chart
    illustrating the growth of world cereals production and population based on data from the
    United Nations and the United States Department of Agriculture.</p>
    <div align="center"><center><table border="1" cellPadding="7" cellSpacing="1" width="423" bgcolor="#000000">
<tbody>
      <tr>
        <td colSpan="4" vAlign="top"><p align="center"><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>World cereals
        consumption and population growth, 1960 to 1990 (per cent increases, Mitchell, et al 1997,
        p.35)</b></font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td width="25%">&nbsp;</td>
        <td width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">1960-70</font></strong></td>
        <td width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">1970-80</font></strong></td>
        <td width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">1980-90</font></strong></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Industrial economies</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">&nbsp; </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">&nbsp; </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">&nbsp; </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Total cereals consumption</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">30.8 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">17.1 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">9.5 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Population</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">11.0 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">8.4 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">6.1 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td colSpan="4" vAlign="top">&nbsp;</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Developing economies</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">&nbsp; </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">&nbsp; </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">&nbsp; </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Total cereals consumption</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">42.9 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">46.6 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">26.8 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Population</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">27.7 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">25.0 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">23.3 </font></td>
      </tr>
</tbody>
    </table>
    </center></div><p>For the last three decades, growth in food production consistently
    outpaced growth in population.<br>
    As the Food and Agricultural Organization put it in a recent report on world food
    security, this increase in available food saved millions of lives and reduced the amount
    of hunger in the world: <ul>
      <ul>
        <p>This &#133; reflects a substantial degree of progress since the beginning of the 1970s:
        the number [of people facing hunger] has declined absolutely from about 907 million and in
        relative terms from 35% of the population of the developing countries to 21%, mainly as a
        result of progress in east Asia (including China) and parts of South Asia, such as India
        and Pakistan.</p>
      </ul>
    </ul>
    <p>Or to put it other terms, in 1960 fifty-nine percent of the global population consumed
    less than 200 kg of grain annually. In 1994, the percentage consuming less than 200 kg
    annually fell to 38 percent, an amazing feat given the enormous increase in population in
    the intervening years (Bender and Smith 1997, p.19).</p>
    <p><a name="food_shortage_facts3"></a><big><strong>How much food could potentially be
    grown?</strong></big></p>
    <p>Are there upper limits to how many people can be adequately fed? Gerhard Heilig of the
    International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Luxembourg, Austria, addressed
    this question in his excellent survey of past predictions and current knowledge about food
    production, &quot;How Many People Can Be Fed on Earth&quot; (Heilig 1995, pp.207-261).<br>
    Heilig concisely points out the various steps needed to arrive at a bottom line number. At
    the outermost layer is an upper hypothetical limit called the net primary production
    level. This is based solely on the maximum level of photosynthesis available from solar
    radiation. Knowing how much sunlight strikes the Earth&#146;s surface and how efficiently
    plants convert this solar energy, hypothetical upper limits of food availability on Earth
    can be calculated. Of course even here, estimates vary wildly from enough food to support
    30 or 40 billion to claims that theoretically enough food could be provided to feed 1
    trillion people.<br>
    But at any given period of time, it is technically feasible to extract only a portion of
    that hypothetical production into actual production. Assuming the universal use of the
    highest technical methods, enough food could be grown at current technological levels to
    feed perhaps 20 to 35 billion people.<br>
    But just as not all incoming solar energy can be converted to food, so neither is all
    technologically feasible food actually grown. Only economically feasible food production
    is generally engaged in. The costs of capital investments and opportunity costs limit
    farmers. In some areas, for example, soil is so poor that it would be better to devote
    land to some other use, perhaps for office buildings or untouched green space, than to try
    to cultivate it. Alternatively, capital investment might make no sense until local
    infrastructures to make use of it are built. It makes little sense to increase grain
    production, for example, if roads are so poor the grain cannot be cheaply transported.<br>
    Finally, not all economically feasible food production is ecologically feasible. It is
    certainly technically and perhaps economically feasible, for example, to clear the
    world&#146;s tropical rain forests and plant agricultural crops there. On balance,
    however, the potential value of maintaining the tropical rain forests is probably higher
    than the same area would be for crop planting. In addition, high yield farming creates
    problems such as nitrogen-heavy runoffs, which are not necessarily suited for every area.<br>
    Taking all of these factors into account, Heilig concludes that at current technological
    levels the Earth could sustainably support 10 to 15 billion people -- a little more than
    what the United Nations projects world population will likely stabilize at sometime during
    the next century.<br>
    But Heilig notes there is one more limit to food production -- political and social
    factors. Much of Africa, for example, could be producing enough food right now with low
    agricultural inputs to feed itself <i>if</i> the political will were there. Instead many
    African governments have engaged in policies which actually discourage farmers from
    producing food. Heilig writes that feeding 10-15 billion people is possible only,</p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>... If we can prevent (civil) wars with soldiers plundering harvests or devastating
      crop fields with land mines; if we can stop the stupidity of collectivization and central
      planning in agriculture; if we can agree on free (international) trade for agricultural
      products; if we redistribute agricultural land to those that actually use it for
      production; if we provide credits, training and high-yield agriculture to the
      agro-climactic and sociocultural conditions of arid regions and use it carefully to avoid
      environmental destruction; if we implement optimal water management and conservation
      practices. If we do all this during the next few decades, we could certainly be able to
      feed a doubled or tripled world population (Heilig 1994, pp.253-4).</p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>Other experts in food production have reached similar conclusions. William Bender and
    Margaret Smith note that by merely shifting to an all vegetarian diet, over 10 billion
    people could be fed without any increase in farm land or technology (Bender and Smith
    1997, p.5)<br>
    The Food and Agricultural Organization published a survey of food production capacities in
    developing regions whose results are shown on the table below.</p>
    <div align="center"><center><table border="1" cellPadding="7" cellSpacing="1" bgcolor="#000000">
<tbody>
      <tr>
        <td colSpan="6" vAlign="bottom"><p align="center"><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>Present and
        projected populations and ratios to present and projected population supporting capacities
        by location (Food and Agricultural Organization 1984, p. 82-7).</b></font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="17%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Location</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="13%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Land area (million ha)</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="17%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Year 2000 population (mill.)</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="23%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Low inputs ratio</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="15%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Intermediate inputs ratio</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="15%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">High inputs ratio</font></strong></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Africa</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="13%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,878.10 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">780.10 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="23%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.610 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">5.75 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">16.5 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Central America</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="13%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">271.60 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">215.20 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="23%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.35 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2.57 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">6.01 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">South America</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="13%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1,770.20 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">392.6 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="23%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">3.151 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">13.34 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">31.51 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Southeast Asia</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="13%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">897.60 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1,937.10 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="23%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.14 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2.25 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">3.27 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Southwest Asia</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="13%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">677.40 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">264.70 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="23%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">0.68 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">0.90 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.23 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Five-region totals</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="13%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">6,494.90 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="17%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">3,589.70 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="23%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.56 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">4.16 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="15%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">9.25 </font></td>
      </tr>
</tbody>
    </table>
    </center></div><p>Low inputs was defined as &quot;using no fertilizers, pesticides or
    improved seeds and no long-term conservation measures&quot;; intermediate inputs as
    &quot;some fertilizers, pesticides and improved seeds, conservation measures and improved
    cropping patterns on half the land&quot;; and high inputs as &quot;full use of all inputs,
    full conservation measures and the most productive mix of crops on all land&quot; (FAO
    1984, p.x) The ratios are to the projected 2000 population, so Africa's projected 2000
    population is 780 million and with intermediate inputs it could produce enough food to
    feed 4.5 billion people.</p>
    <p><a name="food_shortage_facts4"></a><big><strong>How much food is likely to be available
    in the future?</strong></big></p>
    <p>Although there is plenty of food grown today and the food situation has been improving
    for the last 40 years, will it continue to improve in the future?<br>
    In their book <i>The World Food Outlook</i>, Donald Mitchell, Merlinda Ingco and Ronald
    Duncan summarize their survey of existing studies of future agricultural production by
    asserting,</p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>Overall, these studies of the world food outlook are in broad agreement. They conclude
      that global food production will continue to increase faster than consumption, that
      developing economies will significantly increase imports and that consumption levels in
      developing economies will continue to increase (Mitchell, et al 1997, p.144).</p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>The two exceptions to this otherwise rosy evaluation are sub-Saharan Africa and the
    former Soviet Union which are weighed down by massive economic and political problems that
    led to lowered both domestic production and consumption of food (Mitchell, et al 1997,
    p.146-7).<br>
    By comparing potential agricultural production with actual agricultural production, the
    reader can see that agricultural production should have no problem meeting the growing
    population. Consider this table comparing the two by region,</p>
    <div align="center"><center><table border="1" cellPadding="7" cellSpacing="1" width="338" bgcolor="#000000">
<tbody>
      <tr>
        <td colSpan="4" vAlign="top"><p align="center"><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>Estimated maximum
        grain production by region (Bender and Smith, 1997, p. 26)</b> </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Region</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="18%"><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>Estimated maximum production
        (million metric tons)</b></font></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="28%"><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>Actual production (million metric
        tons)</b></font></td>
        <td vAlign="bottom" width="29%"><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>Actual as percent of estimated
        maximum</b></font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">South America</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">11,106 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="28%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">69 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="29%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">0.6 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Australia</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">2,358 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="28%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">24 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="29%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1.0 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Africa</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">10,845 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="28%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">88 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="29%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">0.8 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Asia</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">14,281 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="28%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">860 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="29%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">6.0 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">North &amp; Central America</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">7,072 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="28%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">402 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="29%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">5.7 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Europe</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">4,168 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="28%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">283 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="29%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">6.8 </font></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td vAlign="top" width="25%"><strong><font color="#FFFFFF">Total</font></strong></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="18%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">49,830 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="28%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">1,955 </font></td>
        <td vAlign="top" width="29%"><p align="right"><font color="#FFFFFF">3.9 </font></td>
      </tr>
</tbody>
    </table>
    </center></div><p>Increasing available grain to meet demand can be accomplished by putting
    into production relatively small amounts of the potential grain production of the world.
    Utilizing some of the more fertile land in Africa, such as in Sudan for example, would
    likely be sufficient in itself to meet the food needs of that continent.<br>
    As an FAO report summarized the likely future trend,</p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>Projections by FAO for food supplies by region suggest that future food problems will
      be concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. Availabilities in all other regions
      are expected to keep pace with growing food requirements (FAO 1996). </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>If Africans and others in the developing world continue to suffer from hunger through
    the middle of the 21st century, it will not be due to a dearth of grain but due to the
    political and economic factors that plagued the developing world in the 20th century.</p>
    <p><a name="food_shortage_facts5"></a><big><strong>What about fisheries and aquaculture?</strong></big></p>
    <p>A common claim made by those convinced the world is overpopulated is that the current
    world population is taxing available fisheries to the limit. Some groups such as
    Population Action even make the claim that total world fish catches have begun a downward
    spiral as the system begins to crash. A close look at what is really happening with the
    world&#146;s fish, however, warrants optimism.<br>
    As the Food and Agricultural Organization put it in <i>The State of World Fisheries and
    Aquaculture 1996</i>,</p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>In recent years fish supplies have expanded rapidly ... in 1994 they reached 109.6
      million tons ... and preliminary figures for 1995 indicate a new peak of total production
      at 112.3 million tons ... average annual per capita availability of food fish increased to
      14 kg&quot; (Food and Agricultural Organization 1996).</p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>So why do some groups claim that world fish catches are declining? And even if they
    aren&#146;t declining can the fish catch keep growing faster than population?<br>
    Groups like Population Action claim that fish catches are declining because they only look
    at one type of fish catch -- those from traditional fisheries such as ocean fishing. From
    1994 fish caught in this way varied between 80 and 85 million and from 1994 to 1995
    declined by 0.02 million tons (Food and Agricultural Organization 1996).<br>
    What environmentalists groups leave out is the huge rise in aquaculture, which are
    essentially fish farms. Fish procured from aquaculture grew from 18.6 million tons in 1994
    to 21.3 million tons in 1995, and could grow to as much as 39 million tons by 2010 (Food
    and Agriculture Organization 1996).<br>
    Will this be enough to meet demand for fish? Currently it is estimated that demand for
    fish in 2010 will be from 140 to 150 million tons. It is possible to meet that level, but
    only if governments stop squandering the natural fisheries which they control (Food and
    Agricultural Organization 1996). The mismanagement of the world&#146;s oceans is a classic
    example of the problem of failing to create property rights in natural resources -- no one
    has an incentive to preserve and expand the resource over time.<br>
    The world&#146;s fisheries, then, are in largely the same position that traditional
    agriculture is in. Where governments have allowed markets backed with strong property
    rights prevail, food and fish are abundant. Where instead political solutions determine
    everything, food and fish are scarce.</p>
    <p><a name="food_shortage_facts6"></a><big><strong>Why then are people still starving and
    going hungry?</strong></big></p>
    <p>The answer to this is as varied as the number of developing countries, of which
    detailed analysis is being added regularly. There are some general patterns that emerge,
    however.</p>
    <p><b><u>Hunger is often the result of direct political decisions.</u><br>
    </b>Famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s, for example, was not a natural disaster, but in fact
    was the direct result of decisions made by the government to starve out areas controlled
    by rebels. More recently the government of Sudan briefly ordered United Nations relief
    flights to stop airlifting food supplies to famine-prone southern Sudan controlled by
    rebels trying to overthrow the government. Famine in our century has become almost
    exclusively a political rather than an agricultural phenomenon.</p>
    <p><u><b>Government policies often artificially reduce the amount of available food.</b></u><br>
    Upon independence, many of the former colonial nations decided they would do something the
    colonial powers never did -- grant their people access to cheap food. To achieve that,
    many nations placed price ceilings above which farmers could not sell their grain. The
    results were predicable; farmers decreased the amount of crops sown. In some areas the
    amount of cropland in use actually fell. Developing world governments also made it
    difficult for their farmers to compete through prohibitive tariffs designed to protect
    local industry. While placing steep taxes on fertilizer imports to protect domestic
    fertilizer producers sounds like a grand idea, it hampers local farmers from providing
    food as cheaply and abundantly as possible.</p>
    <p><b><u>Wars, government corruption and political instability hurt food production in the
    developing world.</u><br>
    </b>Finally, good agricultural production requires political stability. If a civil war had
    been raging across the United States over the last 40 years you can almost guarantee it
    would have trouble feeding its people; it is thus unsurprising that a nation such as Sudan
    has trouble producing enough food. Similarly governments where official corruption is
    tolerated or even encouraged often results in distorted markets and infrastructure. Roads
    get built to the wrong places or not at all based on cronyism. Land gets seized from poor
    farmers and is given to rich landowners with little interest in farming the land. The poor
    get taxed but the government doesn't even pretend to offer services or even adequate
    police protection in return. If the reader sits down and closely examines the history and
    situation of any country facing severe food insecurity, he or she will find that is the
    result of internal political disorder unrelated to potential agricultural production.</p>
    <p>Additionally hunger has consistently declined in the 20th century. According to the
    United Nations, the number of malnourished people increased from 540 million in 1979/81 to
    580 million in 1989/1990. Since world population grew by 23 percent during the same
    period, the percentage of people hungry actually declined during this period.<br>
    What this means is more than 90 percent of all people alive today receive enough food. Of
    those who don&#146;t, according to the UN and World Bank, 90 percent of them are within 10
    percent of their needed calorie total. <br>
    The problem of hunger today is not lack of food, but interference with distribution of
    food. In Africa, for example, which has experienced the worst famines in the last quarter
    of the 20th century, people starved not because there wasn&#146;t enough food, but because
    of the actions taken by governments there to keep food out of the hands of people. <br>
    One of the best accomplishments of the 20th century is the near-eradication of famine. <ul>
      <p>Famine caused 20 to 25 million deaths in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
      For today&#146;s larger population, a comparable number of famine deaths for the current
      1975-2000 quarter of the century would be about 50 million people, yet the famine death
      toll for 1975-2000 is likely to be 2 million or fewer (Bailey 1995, p. 55).</p>
    </ul>
    <p><a name="food_shortage_facts7"></a>Ok, now your convinced that there is not a food
    shortage problem but you still believe there would be an &quot;Over-Population&quot;
    problem. Right? Well I thought of that...just click below and you will learn all about the
    <a href="human_life_issues_over-population_myths.htm">Over-Population Myths</a>.</td>
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