Thought for Food Blog

Food for Thought...

Will an increase in food production result in a growth in the global population, leading to a populace beyond the Earth's carrying capacity and exacerbate global problems of poverty, starvation, and ecological destruction..?

This is essentially a Malthusian prediction about population growth: increases in productivity will stimulate further population growth, which eventually will outstrip the carrying capacity, resulting in a population crash from famine, poverty, disease, war, etc.

Global Population | IFIS Publishing

In a similar vein, in his book The Population Bomb (1968), Paul R. Ehrlich predicted that hundreds of millions would die from the effects of overpopulation in the 1970s and argued for compulsory birth regulation.

There are those who continue to maintain that these predictions ultimately will come to pass: they argue that Malthus and Ehrlich were mistaken only with their predictions of the time involved.

Are we then ill-advised to work towards increasing crop productivity and food production?

In an extreme example of this type of thinking, Garrett Hardin went so far as to argue in his paper, Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor, that we must employ ‘lifeboat ethics’ and not engage in helping the poor in order to save the world from environmental ruin.

There are at least three very strong arguments against these ideas.

First, analyses of food availability and productivity compared with population growth trends have shown unequivocally that improving living standards leads to lower birth rates and stabilising trends in population growth. Conversely, the nations with the highest rates of birth and population growth are those with the highest rates of poverty and starvation.

There is good evidence that increasing food production in developing countries, along with improving incomes, standards of living, and education (particularly for women), leads to declining birth rates and stabilising population dynamics.

Accordingly, the primary goal of the United Nations Millenium Development Goals Report (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2008) was to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty by working to obtain maximum crop yields and raise income. And for many whose principal form of income is agriculture, raising income depends primarily on maximising crop yields.

Second, future population estimates (not to mention existing populations) are not based on assumptions of increased food production. The reality is that we must find ways to lift approximately 1 billion people out of poverty today, and in addition, provide adequate food and water for 9 to 10 billion in 2050 and beyond.

With world grain stocks declining, accepting the premise that increasing food production will lead to overpopulation would likely condemn billions to starvation.

Finally, Hardin's ‘harsh ethics’, which makes the claim that condemning the poor to starvation is necessary to ensure the survival of some, presupposes that the human population has already reached or exceeded the Earth's carrying capacity. This assumption is likely to be deeply flawed, as it fails to acknowledge the human potential for innovation and problem-solving.

The Greek philosopher Plato argued that necessity is the mother of invention. Humans have faced and solved many critical problems throughout history and will continue to do so, motivated by necessity.

Innovation in science and technology can and will provide solutions to the world's biggest challenges out to 2050 and beyond.

Humans tend to look for easy solutions and often attempt to reduce problems to simple “either-or” answers. It is likely that the challenge of providing adequate food and water for the growing world population in an ecologically sustainable manner while dealing with and attempting to mitigate adverse effects of climate change will require complex, multifaceted solutions.

The scientific community can further help by educating the world's citizens to comprehend and be more comfortable with complex solutions. The focus of science should be on creating more with less, producing more food while assuring sustainability in the management of natural resources and using all appropriate scientific methods.

(Image Credit: http://www.gratisography.com/#urban)



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