Less & Less for More & More

Will Latin America's burgeoning population, as Pope Paul VI put it, find "enough bread at the banquet of life" in the future? Not unless a near miracle takes place, reports the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization. In the 13 Latin American countries on which the FAO keeps figures, a minimum intake of 2,200 calories a day is met in only eight--Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay. In the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala, the average is fewer than 2,200 calories per day v. a U.S. average of 3,100. More disturbing still, Latin America's food production is slipping behind its population growth--to the point where this year's projected per capita production will be 11% less than the prewar average.

Largely because so much of Latin America is mountainous, arid or tropical, less than 5% (v. 16% in the U.S.) of its more than 7,700,000 sq. mi. of land is under cultivation. Experts also cite antique farming methods. In Venezuela, primitive farms produce an average of two bushels of corn per acre, compared with 67 bushels on modern U.S. farms. Traditionally, holders of large estates do not cultivate more than necessary to earn an income suitable to their social status. But, as Bolivia and Mexico have discovered, land-reform programs that carve up productive estates into family-sized plots for often unskilled peasants generally lead to sharp drops in food output.

What is needed are cheap, long-term credits for the purchase of seed, fertilizers and equipment; and heavy investment in agricultural schools, roads, plus storage, market and irrigation facilities. The food-poor nations, concludes FAO Director B. R. Sen, must quadruple their output in the next 35 years "to give their vastly increased populations an adequate, though in no sense lavish diet."

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