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IN BANGLADESH
(above left) old
meets new in field cultivation. The
world"s most overcrowded major na–
tion foreshadows the food-popula–
tion crisis rushing in on many devel–
oping nations. Above right, cadres
in Communist China /earn new farm–
ing ideas. New varieties of wheat and
rice have helped the most populous
nation achieve near food self–
sufficiency.
Such a deficit, in the words of Dr.
Hannah, would be "too high to be
considered manageable," physt–
cally and financially. Yet, in the
years beyond 1985, these shockmg
shortfalls will greatly increase!
Who ls Going to Produce All
This Food?
To feed the present yearly increase
in world population of 75 million re–
quires nearly 20 million tons of ad–
ditional grain each year. This is
more than the annual Canadian
wheat crop and about the same as
the crops of Argentina, Australia ,
and Romanía combined.
The
PLAIN TRUTH November 1976
Even U.S. wheat productton stag–
gers befare such annual needs. The
total U.S. wheat crop in 1975 was
about 67 mtllion tons.
The answer to food deficits obvi–
ously lies not in perpetua! increases
of exports from food-rich to food–
poor countries. Large increases in
productlon are desperately needed
in the food-short developmg na–
tions themselves. lt is in these
lands, moreover, that over 80% of
the new mouths will be born in the
remamder of this century.
Dangerous Pattern in Third World
The worldwide food shortage did
not occur overnight. The supply–
demand scale has been tn pre–
carious balance for over a decade.
But this was not readily apparent
because of huge surpluses in the
United States and vast American
acreages held in reserve by being
kept out of production.
Today almost all readtly tilled
land
1n
North America ts in produc–
tton , and world food reserves have
plummeted from several months to
only a few weeks. Even these re–
serves assume an adequate world
food distnbution system which is, in
fact, sorely lacking.
During the past two decades, un–
usually good weather and ad–
vanced agricultura! technology
combined to produce record crop
surpluses in the advanced nations.
But in the developing world, a much
more critica! pattern emerged.
During the 1950s, food produc–
tion in the developing nations grew
about as rapidly or even more rap–
id ly than population. In the 1960s,
however, these nations experi–
enced an tncreasingly raptd popu–
lat ion growth coupled with a
slowing down in,... their rate of in–
crease in food production.
Overlooked by many is the fact
that political upheavals worldwide
during the same period and the end
of the colonial period in Africa and
elsewhere threw many areas that
were once self-supporting agricul–
turally into chronic food deficit pat–
terns from which a good portian
have never recovered.
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