More People Mean More Famine - University of Washington
More People Mean More Famine
Robert J. Gray
24 November 1984
The Washington Post
(Copyright 1984)
At a time when the sub-Saharan region of Africa is experiencing a classic case of increased population growth outstripping agricultural production, it is ironic that Julian Simon is telling us that "Population Growth Can Be Good for Us" (Free for All, Nov. 10). Although government indifference in Ethiopia is partially to blame for the widespread famine, the fact remains that increased population growth, combined with serious land degradation practices and low rainfall, has brought about a crisis situation that will continue for years to come.
Many countries that must import food as well as those producing sufficient supplies for their own populations have instituted family planning programs. Even in China's case, where population growth exceeded food production for many years, stringent family planning programs have helped reverse the trend.
However, one of the greatest flaws in Simon's argument is the proposition that advances in technology will "somehow" override decreased food production from depleted resources. Land is a good case in point. For example, in the United States most of our good cropland is already in pro USDA report stated that 8 percent of our current cropland base should not be intensively cultivated at all because of severe erosion problems. Yet we continue to bring in additional land, most of which is highly erodible. Not even U.S. technology has been able to overcome the limited sustainability of highly erodible cropland.
Further, Simon contends that private suppliers are better resource developers, and questions whether the government should "intervene" in this process. The cost of developing additional farmland through irrigation and draining wetlands, as Simon advocates, is enormous and has rarely, if ever, been borne solely by the "private sector."
The quality of land and its food producing capacity are directly related to its ability to support its people. Eastern Africa has a great amount of fragile land subject to erosion, desertification and other problems of land degradation. Clearly, the ability of this land to support its population has failed. Simon would see this as an economic opportunity, but where has the private -- profit-making -- sector been in the crisis?
As costs of activating new agricultural land escalate, the price of food will be driven even farther beyond the reach of most poor people, both here and in other countries.
Simon says we should cry not with worry and sadness, but with enthusiasm and joy at the increasing number of people. In the case of Ethiopia, whose millions of starving people are struggling to eke out even a minimum subsistence from a limited and exhausted resource base, it is difficult to share this enthusiasm.
-- Robert J. Gray
The writer is director of policy development for the American Farmland Trust.
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