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only food shortages of a sporadic
short-term nature, but " chronically
acule shortages as far ahead as we
can see." The warning was given in
the opening address by Dr. Clifton
Wharton , presiden! of M1chigan
State Univers1ty.
" The challenge of providing food
for hungry people ... is the great–
est challenge of the last quarter of
the twentieth century, " added Dr.
John A. Hannah, executive director
of the United Nat ions World Food
Council. " Despite the need for a
system of world food secu rity, " he
said, " there has been little progress
since the [Rome] World Food Con–
ference " of 1974.
Agricultura! Experts Only
Unlike the Rome conference, spon–
sored by the United Nations, where
politicians and agriculture ministers
were given center stage, the 1976
conference in Ames, lowa, was
sponsored by lowa State University ,
a world leader in agricultura! re–
search and international food devel–
opment. Food-related specialists
16
from over 70 nations - agron–
omists, cattle breeders, plant genet–
icists, nutritionists, and food
distributors - met to classify and
determine how mankind can best
pool 1ts efforts to overcome the
constraints tnhibiting world food
production and improved human
nutrition. Poli tical figures were de–
liberately excluded so that the facts
presented and the recommenda–
tions made would not be colored by
any political or ideological biases.
Conference participants we re
again reminded of the hard realities
of the food -population crisis:
- Even with the best population
control efforts, the tour billion
people inhabitlng the earth today
will increase to over six bill ion by
the turn of the century , barring
some intervening disaster.
- Unless b1rth rates are signifi–
cantly decreased in the developing
world , all other efforts will be futile
in the long run.
- The ranks of the world's
seri–
ous/y
malnourished and chronically
hungry are already around 500 mil-
Ernst Herb - The Plam Trulh
lion and growing , and another great
portian of mankind 1s signi ficantly
malnourished . (Estimates vary be–
tween a quarter and a hall of hu–
manity, depending on the source.)
- The huge surpluses of gra1n
which buffered the world are nearly
gone and the concept of a world
reserve could abort due to conflict–
ing national agricultura! pol icies.
Plain Truth
correspondents at–
tending the conference, however,
felt that two other staggering chal –
lenges facing modern agriculture
failed to be emphasized sufficien tly
during the four-day meeting:
1 .
In 25 years - or about one
generation - world food production
must more than
DOUBLE
to give the
rapidly increasing world population
justa little improvement in food quan–
tity, and hopefully, quality.
2. The food
deficits
of the devel–
oping countnes projected by 1985
will, by all indications, amount to a
staggering 80 mill1on tons to over
1
00 million tons annually - roughly
equal to the ent1re annual cereal
productlon of all of Latin America.
The
PLAIN TRUTH November 1976