population and food
"The United Nations projects that the global population, currently at 6 billion, will peak at about 10 billion in the next century and then stabilize or even decline."(popindex.Princeton.edu) A question immediately following the statement, can the Earth feed that many people? It is understood that even if food crops increase sufficiently, other renewable resources, including many fisheries and forests, are already under pressure. "Our food production doubled from 1961 to 1994, but there are still people who go hungry." (popindex.Princeton.edu) This is because the human population has increased more rapidly than the food production. One of the well-known economists Thomas Robert Malthus claimed that there was an imbalance between population growth and our ability to produce food. In his famous work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, his principle of population was based on three main points: population cannot increase without the means of subsistence; population invariable increases when the means of subsistence are available; and the superior power of population cannot be checked without producing misery or vice. When taking into account Malthus's principle of population it is evident that his fundamental analysis of popu
When the world population is examined, it is found that human population is increasing rapidly. Population growth has expanded greatly over the last 500 years, as larger numbers of people needed more food supplies and commodities from natural resources and agricultural activities, more and more people occupied bigger land spaces in big urban areas. Population growth in today's world, therefore, plays a vital role to changes in the land. It is also found that 90% of the world population growth is occurring in developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. "In the United States, the natural increase is about 0.6 percent a year, while the total population growth is around 1%."(fao.org.docrep/meeting/) The reason why developing countries like Africa and Latin America have a higher population growth because the majority of their population still under a low standard of living. The quality of life reached by traditional farming systems is low compared with that of modem western agricultural systems - short life span, low level of education, and absence of social services, etc. They need more children to work on the farm and earn extra income. Children are also born for the security of their parent age, as life expectancy is high. According to the1998 report of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United, studies have shown that overall, developing countries experienced higher output growth over 1994 to1998 than the developed countries. "The developing countries having experienced an increase in per capital food production represent 77% of the developing country population."(fao.org.docrep/meeting/X1729) However, some developing country regions like Africa South of Sahara, has suffered a decline in per capital terms over the 1994 to 1998 because of high rates of population growth. (fao.org/docrep/meeting/X1729e.htm#P874159) Even though Africa has increased food production, their population grows faster than their food production. The most productive and progressive agricultural systems are those of the industrialized countries, with slow or no population growth. While in many developing countries, agricultural production is kept with the rapid grow of population. What happened in Africa proves Malthus' theory is correct. He stated that there is a difference between the population growth and the food supply, population increases in geometric progression, and food supply increases in arithmetic progression. As a result, people in Africa starve because they have such a high population. Food aid is provided for the developing countries because food is unevenly distributed in those countries. It is estimated that more than 800 million people, most of them in developing countries, do not have enough food to meet their basic nutritional needs. (techreview.com/articles/nov95/Brown) It happens not just because of food shortages, but the fact is that food aid sometimes cannot reach the famine victims. There are many reasons for that, for example, food aid is sent to the military to support soldiers, or to the government who keeps the food for the black market. In order for food donations to reach famine victims, many sides have to work right. Port facilities must be adequate; warehousing must be sufficient to store the food safely until it can be distributed. The entire process must function smoothly in order to help the hungry people. "In the Ethiopian famines of the mid 1980s in a terrible civil war often used donated food as a weapon, preventing it from reaching starving people."(Ehrlich 80) Even if food aid is sent to
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2392
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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