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The warning flags have long been flying. Aiready one billion
humans-one quarter of mankind-are significantly or
seriously malnourished. Food authorities estimated half of that
number-500 mil/ion-are abjectly poverty-stricken.
India expanded wheat production
from 11 million to 26 million
tons-an increase in production
of a food staple unmatched by
any other country in history.
The Philippines was able to
achieve self-sufficiency in rice,
ending half a century of depen–
dence on imports.
But tbe hope that such means
of agriculture on a world scale
would end food shortages is an
illusion.
The "decade of grace" was
really a chance for mankind to
reduce soaring population birth–
rates and put top priority on
sound agricultura} practices-put
the combine and tractor before
the Cadillac and tank. l t was a
chance to eliminate public and
government corruption and Ieth–
argy. l t was a chance to put aside
política! and social antagonisms
and mobilize the interoational
community to meet the world
food crisis.
It
was a chance to
build national and interoational
food reserves.
But little of this has been
achieved. Tbe good years of crops
lulled most nations to go on much
as before. The "decade of grace"
was frittered away because of
human se lfishness and wrong
priori ties.
By the mid-1970s, drought-hit
harvests, increasing food de–
mands caused by affiuence, rap–
idly rising energy costs, tighten–
ing fertilizer supplies and relent–
less population growth in the
developing world combined to all
but wipe out the gains made in
the previous 15 years of the
Green Revolution.
Mexico, which had exported
1O percent of its grain between
1965 and 1969, found it neces–
sary to import 20 percent of its
grain by the mid-1970s. The
Philippines went from indepen-
August 1980
dence from rice imports to depen–
dence in less than 1O years. The
Soviet Union, customarily a net
grain exporter, has become the
world's largest importer of grain
in recent years.
And India, which thought it
had solved its chronic food prob–
lems with 20 million tons of grain
reserves from severa! good weath–
er years in a row, has had the
bulk of it wiped out by this year's
drought in 14 of its 31 states.
What a world it is when the
survival of hundreds of millions
now bangs on the vagaries of
weather, energy supplies and po–
litical and economic conditions in
a handful of nations!
Vulnerable Modero Agricultura
The handful of big nations which
export food, pride themselves on
their agricultura! power in the
world. The United States, in par–
ticular, is a veritable modero
Joseph's Egypt to which a hungry
world Jooks for food.
But the fabled American cor–
nucopia ís built on an agricul tural
system extremely vulnerable to
drought , to disease, to energy
shortages, inftation and interoal
disruption.
United States agricu1ture is
the epítome of energy-íntensive
agriculture.
lt
needs mammoth
infusions of petroleum, chemical
fertilizers, pesticides and other
chemicals to make it work.
The United States and many
other nations' agricultura) prac–
tices fly in the face of every
known law of natural systems.
Through genetic engineering
aimed at producing highest yields
rather than overall quality, mod–
ero hybrid grains and livestock
herds have lost critical hardiness
to many stresses. They have lost
resistance to many pests and dis–
eases. They are completely de-
pendent upon an arsenal of
chem~
icals to survive: artificial fertiliz–
ers, pesticides, herbicides and
fungicides for crops; drugs, ant i–
biotics and other chemicals for
livestock.
Many farmers have eliminated
all but those seeds that produce
the greatest production. The re–
sulting crop uniformity, or mono–
culture, over vast geographic ar–
eas is highly vulnerable to the
Ioss of entire crops in one year
from a single disease. A small
forerunner happened in 1970
when more than 15 percent of the
United States coro crop was
wiped out by coro blight.
Today a ll but forgotten are
concerns for healthy soil struc–
ture, water content, trace miner–
als or the presence of organic
matter (humus). lnstead soils are
beingforced
to produce by chem–
ical means. Get now and Jet
future generations take care of
themselves is the phi losophy. But
increasingly, these practices are
ruining soi ls. They are producing
less and Jess in food returos for
the heavy use of artificial fertil iz–
ers put on them.
Lester R. Brown, authority on
food and population, points out
the ultimate folly of the Green
Revolution so prevalent in many
nations: "The heavy use of ferti l–
izer made with cheap energy has
masked the basic deterioration of
the soil. We're only now begin–
ning to realize that what we're
doing is not sustainable in the
long run."
Even worse, population-food
pressures have made the world
captive to such damaging agricul–
tura! practices. " If we suddenly
stopped using chemical fertiliz–
ers," says Mr. Brown, "world
food production would drop by
something like a third."
Much of mankind has been
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