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MIDEAST ON BRINKOf NEW WAR
Rumors of renewed fighting in the vola–
tile M iddle East are causing anxiety in
the industrialized Western world.
WORLDWATCH-
4
Repor ting from Armageddon
News Editor Gene Hogberg discusses
growing threat of atomic weapons in
Mideast.
6
THE INCREDIBLE HUMAN POTENTIAL
•••
The Missing Dimension in Knowledge
The first install ment of a new and illumi–
nating book by Herbert W . Armstrong.
How liberated CanYou Get?
7
Can one successfully look into the
Women 's Movement and not become
"ms.merized" by emotional battle críes?
PROPHECY–
8
NoLonger a Dirty Word
Forecasting the future has become seri–
ous business, and prophecy is now a
respected scientific tool of the Establish–
ment.
IN BRIEF–
11
A behind-the-scenes account of Herbert
W. Armstrong's visits with dignitaries
and heads of state, by Stanley R. Rader .
GARNER TED ARMSTRONG
SPEAKSOUT!
12
The Deadly lnternational Monetary Game,
as viewed by radio-TV commentator
Garner Ted Armstrong. (See Radio-TV
Log. page 13.)
14
Orchids
&
Onions
Readers react by throwing their favorite
vegetation at the editors.
2
by
Dexter H. Faulkner
With drought in Africa, food
shortages in Bangladesh, anda 2 7-day
global grain reserve - the lowest in 30
years - the world faces a food scarcity
of unprecedented dimension and
du-ratton . There is " a very real threat;•
says Amencan Senator Charles H.
Percy, Republican of llhnois. " of a
worfdwide food cnsis far e.xceeding in
impae1 the energy crisis. ··
Theworld has now come to the place
where ..50 million people, perhaps
more. coutd perish trom famine.. in a
si ngle year. So
says
Nobel Prize wonning
agronomtst Norman Borlaug.
World food authority Lester Brown of
the Overseas Oevelopment Council adds
that the world has enterad i nto a period
of more or less chronic food scarcity.
The soaring demand for food. he
stresses, has begun to overrun
~he
production capacity of the world's
farmei'S
and
fishermen.
Population growth is putting 70 to 75
million more mouths to feed on the
planet eanh y'early, about 200,000
each day . These figures translate i nto a
demand for millions of extra tons of
grain each year.
11 the problem of worldwide lamine is
to be dealt with - at least on a short–
term basís - American agriculture will
have to play a major rol e. The United
States remains the chief producer. and
more importantly. the number one
exponer of food and agricultura!
products in theworld.
In recent years. American farmers
have produced around a fourth of the
world 's combinad wheat and corn crops
and three lounhs of the world' s
soybeans. The United States has been
the largest cash exponer of these and
other farm products and by lar the
largest single source of food aid.
The big question now
is:
Can the
United States provide food in sufficient
amounts to make more than a mere
dent in what threatens ro be a runaway
situation?
Late in 1g74, the United States
Oepartment of Agricultura called on
American farmers to ··go afl
ouf ' 1n
a
drive toward full product •on to refill the
natlon·s grain bins and pump more food
into the world's commodity pipeline.
Based on preliminary estimates.
USDA officials predictthe 1975 wheat
crop will be a record 2 billíon bushels. a
ten percent increase over '1974
production. Yet. despite cautiously
optimistic predictions of an increased
U.S. food output (tainted as it is by the
need for far more fertiliters, pesticidas
and herbicidas). two elements stand to
seriously discolor
it.
First of all, the world has become
dangerously over-dependent upon the
United States anda mere handful of
other food exponing nations. Then
there
tS
the second. all •mportant yet
many times overlooked element - the
weather. Wíth allthe modern
technology and dogged determination
to produce bumper crops, man is still
very much atthe merey of the weather.
Weather can either be the ace or ihe
joker in the deck of cards when it comes
to production.
Only last year the worst weather in
three decades plagued the United
States - excessive rains, drought. then
early frost . The bad weather cut into the
expected 1974 U.S. harvest by 7% to
8%. The falloff was unfortunately
timed. fl came when American
food
reserves airead
y were
at
the
lowest
in a
quarter
of a
century.
Weather
experts
warn that
more
climatological upsets could be in the
offing this year. Sorne fear that the
agricultura! boom-years of the past two
decades
are over and that long-term
disfavorable climatic changes are
occurring
around
the
ean.h. So
once
again the question must be asked: "Can
the U .S. provide?" Or willthe crushing
(and often thankless) task become the
proverbial " Mission lmpossible"?
Seven years ago in a book entitled
Famine 1975!
brothersWilliam and
Paul Paddock warned that population
growth would soon ovenake the ability
of the less·developed countries to leed
themselves. The authors foresaw the
United States. as the principal food–
surplus country.
facing
terrible choices
about which countries to leed. They
suggested that the only realistic policy
would be todo nothing for the
hopelessly poor and overpopulated
countries.
such as India , and
concentrate only on those who might be
able to sustaín themselves if they
stopped their population growth .
The
crunch is that population rates
ha
ve not trailed off since the book was
written. In fact.
lndia~s
rate has rísen
trom 2.3% a decade agoto 2.6% now.
The assessments of brothers Paddock
and Dr. Handler sound callous. They are
not pretty. Butthey are cruelly realistic
and should shock a largely apathetic
citia:enry in the
Wester-n world still
more
concerned about the
price
of food rather
than
its
availability.
WEEK ENOING FEB. 8. 197!