IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON FOOD SUPPLIES AND ENVIRONMENT
As the world population continues to grow geometrically, great pressure is being placed on arable land, water, energy, and biological resources to provide an adequate supply of food while maintaining the integrity of our ecosystem. According to the World Bank and the United Nations, from 1 to 2 billion humans are now malnourished, indicating a combination of insufficient food, low incomes, and inadequate distribution of food. This is the largest number of hungry humans ever recorded in history. In China about 80 million are now malnourished and hungry. Based on current rates of increase, the world population is projected to double from roughly 6 billion to more than 12 billion in less than 50 years. As the world population expands, the food problem will become increasingly severe, conceivably with the numbers of malnourished reaching 3 billion.
Based on their evaluations of available natural resources, scientists of the Royal Society and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences have issued a joint statement reinforcing the concern about the growing imbalance between the world's population and the resources that support human lives.
Competition for water resources among individuals, regions, and countries and associated human activities is already occurring with the current world population. About 40 percent of the world's people live in regions that directly compete for shared water resources. In China where more than 300 cities already are short of water, these shortages are intensifying. Worldwide, water shortages are reflected in the per capita decline in irrigation used for food production in all regions of the world during the past twenty years. Water resources, critical for irrigation, are under great stress as populous cities, states, and countries require and withdraw more water from rivers, lakes, and aquifers every year. A major threat to maintaining future water supplies is the continuing over-draft of surface and ground water resources.
Fossil energy is another prime resource used for food production. Nearly 80 per cent of the world's fossil energy used each year is used by the developed countries, and part of it is expended in producing high animal protein diets. The intensive farming technologies of developed countries use massive amounts of fossil energy for fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and for machines as a substitute for human labor. In developing countries, fossil energy has been used primarily for fertilizers and irrigation to help maintain yields rather than to reduce human labor inputs.
Strategies for the future must be based first and foremost on the conservation and careful management of land, water, energy, and biological resources needed for food production. Our stewardship of world resources must change and the basic needs of people must be balanced with those resources that sustain human life. The conservation of these resources will require coordinated efforts and incentives from individuals and countries. Once these finite resources are exhausted they cannot be replaced by human technology. Further, more efficient and environmentally sound agricultural technologies must be developed and put into practice to support the continued productivity of agriculture.
Yet none of these measures will be sufficient to ensure adequate food supplies for future generations unless the growth in the human population is simultaneously curtailed. Several studies have confirmed that to maintain a relatively high standard of living, the optimum population should be less than 200 million for the U.S. and less than 2 billion for the world. This assumes that from now until an optimum population is achieved, strategies for the conservation of land, water, energy, and biological resources are successfully implemented and a sound, productive environment is protected.
