WHAT TO DO: COSTLY CHOICES
The delegates attending the World Food Conference have little time to lose. With starvation threatening the planet's poorest inhabitants, nearly unparalleled acts of international cooperation are needed to prevent the Malthusian nightmare from becoming a reality. Scientific and technological means exist to feed all the hungry; but the money and the will may not. Precedents are not encouraging. This year three much ballyhooed international gatherings--the U.N. special session on raw materials, the Conference on the Law of the Seas held in Caracas and the World Population Conference in Bucharest--degenerated into forums for political posturing and adjourned without taking any significant action. For the Rome conference to accomplish more than the others, the so-called less developed countries (L.D.C.s) will have to resist the temptation to blame the world's ills on the former colonial powers and the U.S.
As their first priority, the delegates must approve a program to aid those who will face starvation during the next decade. In order to have supplies on hand for immediate aid to the victims of crop failures and natural disasters, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization will propose stockpiling national grain reserves as a "system of world food security." FAO officials expect this to ensure "that minimum food supplies are always available to those needing them on reasonable commercial terms or on grant terms." Because grain stocks are now so depleted, it will probably take at least five years to accumulate the 60 to 70 million tons (enough to feed about 300 million people for one year) that the FAO estimates the food security system will require.
The FAO proposal raises several questions that are as yet unanswered: Who will contribute to the reserve? Who will finance the storage and transport of the grain and who will control it? U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, whose views are crucial because no reserve system could function without major U.S. participation, worries that the existence of the surplus stocks could hang over the commercial market and depress the prices paid to farmers for their crops. His fear is based on the Government's experience handling the enormous U.S. grain surpluses during the 1950s and 1960s. American farmers commonly--and often bitterly--complain that the Government sold some of those stocks whenever grain prices moved up, thus denying farmers a higher return for their investment and work.
If the U.S. supports the food security system, it will probably insist on ironclad limitations preventing the reserves from being used for anything but emergency relief. Moreover, the U.S. will want all nations, including the Soviet Union and China, to share in the cost of maintaining the stockpile.
Less controversial is the FAO proposal for a kind of food early warning system, a centralized method for collecting worldwide facts on the types and quantities of crops planted, exports and imports, changes in weather and expected yields. If all nations cooperate--notably including the U.S.S.R. and China, which treat agricultural information as state secrets--approaching shortages can be spotted early and food-relief missions might avoid the delays that led to thousands of deaths during last year's aid efforts in Ethiopia and the Sahel.
Even though these measures would represent a rare example of international cooperation, they are mere palliatives. They can do no more than rush emergency aid to people once they have begun to hunger. In fact, such aid on a continuous basis could do more harm than good. Donated food often creates "two disincentive effects," notes the University of Chicago's D. Gale Johnson, a leading agricultural economist. It enables the recipient countries to go slow on agricultural development. It also keeps food prices so low in those countries that farmers are reluctant to bring new land under cultivation or invest in machinery, agrichemicals and modern techniques.
A more lasting remedy would be to encourage nations to adopt more efficient agricultural techniques to increase output. The Rome conference will be discussing measures to do just that. Some of the most necessary are:
CULTIVATE NEW LANDS. Man now farms only half of the earth's 7.8 billion potentially arable acres. Perhaps optimistically, FAO soil technicians reckon that the most promising unused lands are in:
> The Amazon River basin of northeast Brazil; >The savannahs of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil, where livestock could graze if plant varieties are bred that would thrive in the high-acid soil; > A broad band of 1.7 billion acres across Central Africa now infested with the debilitating tsetse fly; > Areas in Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia (notably Borneo and Sumatra) and the fertile but politically fragile Mekong River basin.
There is almost no virgin land in the world's two most populous nations, India and China. In the U.S., farmers are no longer paid to withhold any grain-producing land from cultivation and are tilling a total of 400 million acres. Even though the U.S. still has 264 million acres that could be farmed, they are now productive as pasture and timberland or are in such poor condition or location that a nearly prohibitive investment would be required to grow crops.
The obstacles are formidable. In the L.D.C.s, as well as the U.S., roads must be built to the new lands, irrigation systems installed, warehouses constructed, and the food distribution system expanded and modernized. Because much of the new land is of marginal quality, greater per-acre amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides would be required. Without proper weed killers, for instance, the yield of wheat, rice and corn can drop 20%.
One inexpensive and immediate step might be strict land-use policies to prevent good farm land from being taken out of production. In the U.S., 600,000 acres of fertile land are lost each year to the inroads of highways, shopping centers and housing developments. Farmers across the U.S. have been urging states to enact laws that encourage farmers not to sell their land for nonagricultural use.
USE MORE FERTILIZER. Each ton applied to an underdeveloped country's grain crops could increase the harvest by ten tons. Yet the worldwide shortage--expected to last about five more years even for developed nations--has made fertilizer too expensive for the L.D.C.s. One immediate answer might be the creation of some kind of fertilizer pool, which has been suggested both by the FAO and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It would contain fertilizer (or cash to buy fertilizer) contributed by the industrial and oil-possessing states. Needy developing countries could apply to the pool for outright grants of fertilizer or buy it at concessional rates.
The world must also expand its fertilizer productive capacity to meet the expected surge in demand by the end of the century--up at least 300% from the current estimated 80 million tons annually. Ideally, many of the new plants should be located in the L.D.C.s. However, the factories cost about $60 million each to build and are complicated to run. Because they use a great amount of energy, some of the plants in India are operating at barely 50% of capacity.
INCREASE THE SUPPLY OF WATER. From Central America to Asia, the main limit on the wider use of miracle seeds is the lack of water. The FAO estimates that global demand for water will expand 240% by the century's end, yet the easiest big dam-and-irrigation projects have already been completed. The only option may be to use available water more efficiently. For example, wheat yields more calories than rice from the same input of water; in terms of water, 1 Ib. of beef is 2,500% more expensive than 1 Ib. of bread.
IMPROVE FOOD DISTRIBUTION AND STORAGE. At least one-quarter of the world's food disappears between the field and the table. In many L.D.C.s, food is poorly warehoused and is easy prey for rats, insects, fungus and mildew. If the capital were available to upgrade transport systems, build concrete warehouses and modernize marketing methods, there could be a great increase in the food available for underdeveloped countries.
DEVELOP NEW VARIETIES OF CROPS. Of the nearly 80,000 edible species of plants, only about 50 are cultivated on a large scale. Scientists are trying to do for other grains what the miracle seeds did for wheat and rice. High-lysine corn (a hybrid whose soft kernel contains 66% more protein than regular hard-kernel corn) and Triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye used for livestock feed) are already in limited use. Research is under way in the U.S. to find high-yield strains of millet, barley and oats and to rearrange leaf configurations on plants to increase their photosynthetic efficiency and allow them to absorb more sunlight.
Development of new foods is a long, tedious process. Last year scientists at Purdue University bred a high-lysine variety of sorghum--but only after working on it for seven years and analyzing 10,000 varieties of the grain. It could be another ten years before that high-protein type will be ready for planting on commercial scale. After the new foods are developed, they sometimes do not satisfy local tastes. For example, residents of India were not satisfied with the soft-kernel, protein-rich, high-lysine corn, preferring their traditional flinty, hard corn. Cautions Economist Johnson: "Even very poor people have their likes and dislikes."
OPEN AGRICULTURE RESEARCH INSTITUTES IN THE L.D.C.s A half-century ago, farmers in industrial and underdeveloped nations alike were achieving grain yields of about 900 Ibs. per acre; today the L.D.C.s' yield averages 1,100 Ibs., v. 1,700 Ibs. in the developed nations. "There's no reason--from the standpoint of biology, climate and soils--why yields in the L.D.C.s should not be as high as or higher than those in industrialized countries," says Johnson. The gap can be narrowed by laboratories located in the L.D.C.s that would modify new plant varieties if they are found susceptible to local disease or insects. The labs could also determine which grains grow best in tropical topsoil and develop a soybean that thrives in nontemperate climate zones. Existing research institutes in underdeveloped lands lack money, staff and equipment.
Still other programs could boost food output--but in limited ways. Farmers in the tropics could be taught to plant more than one crop each year (rice in the rainy season, wheat when it is dry). Man could increasingly harvest the ocean for sources of protein. Breeding farms in coastal waters may be especially promising, but will fall far short of filling the world's growing food needs. "People once thought that the resources of the sea were infinite," observes David Wallace of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We now know that these estimates were erroneous."
The promise held out by most of these measures encourages occasional bursts of optimism. The National Academy of Sciences declared in 1971: "The natural resources available to present technology are sufficient for a vast improvement in the standard of living of all people who will inhabit the earth 20 or 30 years from now."
It is scientifically and technologically possible to feed a world population several times its present size. Yet this projection ignores two serious limitations: the huge cost and the problem of convincing citizens of wealthy nations that they must sacrifice to help those in poor countries.
To irrigate 57 millon extra acres of farm land (a 25% increase over the present irrigated acreage) would cost $3.5 billion annually for the next eleven years. To provide an FAO-requested agricultural development fund for the L.D.C.s would run another $5 billion annually. To expand fertilizer production to meet estimated demand would cost $8 billion each year until 1980 and $12 billion yearly after that. Most staggering is the price of bringing new land under cultivation. An approximate 10% increase in the world's arable land--adding 400 million acres--would cost at least $400 billion and might run $1 trillion or more.
Energy costs will also impede agricultural development. A study by U.S. Geophysicist John Steinhart and Biologist Carol Steinhart emphasizes that many proposed programs for underdeveloped areas would be energy extravagant. High-yield grains call for fertilizers and chemicals that require much energy to produce and sometimes to apply; even tiny irrigation pumps need diesel fuels. "Where is this energy to come from?" ask the Steinharts. "The nations with the most serious food problems are those with scant supplies of fossil fuels." Thus "we could end with solutions that are too expensive for the people who need them most."
The money and energy costs of increasing harvests in the L.D.C.s could strain the treasuries and banks of the industrial nations. To be sure, the world is spending an estimated $200 billion annually on arms; theoretically, that money could finance agricultural development programs. It is not likely, however, that nations are ready to start disarming. Even if they did, politicians would soon find their constituents clamoring that almost all the money saved on weapons be spent at home rather than abroad to help poor nations feed themselves. American Consumer Advocate Esther Peterson already questions the wisdom of providing food for hungry countries when the U.S. cost of living continues to climb. Of course, the oil-possessing nations could give and lend much more, but so far they have shared little of their new wealth with the poor, the weak and the hungry.
There are also environmental costs in boosting food production. While nutrient input is essential for obtaining greater yields, fertilizers drain off from farm fields and into water supplies. There they cause "blooms" of aquatic plants that turn lakes into swamps, destroying fresh-water supplies. Similarly, clearing and planting virgin areas ruins wildlife habitats and upsets the delicate balance of life.
During the past two decades, for example, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh cleared Himalayan foothills to make more room for crops. Without the forests, which act as great sponges that sop up and hold rainfall, the water rapidly ran off the slopes. The accelerated runoff caused disastrous floods over the past year. In cleared jungles in Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil, heavy rains quickly leached the nutrients from the thin layer of topsoil, rendering the land infertile within a year or two. (The trees had both anchored and nourished the soil.) In other cleared jungles, the sun burned out the soil's valuable organic content.
If the world's food supply were evenly divided among the planet's inhabitants, hunger might be curbed for several decades. But it is not likely that wealthy nations will reduce their living standards to help the L.D.C.s. For example, Americans will not eagerly reduce the 1.3 million tons of fertilizer they spread each year on lawns, golf courses and cemeteries; that amount would produce enough extra grain in the L.D.C.s to feed about 65 million people.
Some nations might be tempted to try emulating China, a country whose name was once synonymous with famine but which is now approaching self-sufficiency in food. The Chinese Communist leadership abolished peasants' private holdings and communalized all plots. Armies of laborers, often under harsh conditions, built irrigation systems, terraced farm lands in mountainous regions, food distribution networks and hundreds of small "backyard" fertilizer factories. All pretense of freedom disappeared, a price (at least in the eyes of the West) that may be too high for most L.D.C.s to pay.
Even the Chinese success is not complete. According to U.N. estimates, Chinese get only 91% of their caloric requirements; a major crop failure could trigger widespread hunger. At best, the Chinese are buying time during which population growth can be checked. Chinese families are encouraged to have no more than two children if they live in the city and three if they live in the countryside.
The number of mouths the world's farmers feed cannot increase indefinitely. Neither unprecedented generosity by the wealthy nations, nor maximum exploitation of known farming techniques, nor anticipated scientific breakthroughs can win what Rural Economies Expert Egbert deVries calls the "stork-farmer race." Unless the experts are underestimating the potential for new discoveries in food production, population control is the sine qua non for solving the problem of world hunger.
The programs discussed at the Food Conference could at best give the L.D.C.s some more time--but not much--to control their birth rates. To head off still more hunger in the meantime, they will need much help from wealthy nations. Such aid may become quite selective. In the West, there is increasing talk of triage,* a common-sense if callous concept that teaches that when resources are scarce, they must be used where they will do most good. Thus in the future, if the U.S. considers building a fertilizer plant or a research lab in a developing country, Washington will more carefully scrutinize what efforts that nation has taken to help itself. If the U.S. decides that the grant would simply go down the drain as a mere palliative because the recipient country was doing little to improve its food distribution or start a population control program, no help would be sent. This may be a brutal policy, but it is perhaps the only kind that can have any long-range impact. A triage approach could also demand political concessions. The U.S. may be roundly denounced for "imperialist arrogance," but Washington may feel no obligation to help countries that consistently and strongly opposed it. As Earl Butz told TIME: "Food is a weapon. It is now one of the principal tools in our negotiating kit."
Even the limited policy of triage, however, may be delayed until it is too late for millions of famished people. "It is going to take a tremendous disaster from famine before people come to grips with the population problem," warns Norman Borlaug, the prime mover of the Green Revolution. "The stage is set for such a situation right now." Indeed, in parts of Central America, in ten sub-Saharan nations and in some rural areas of India, the 20-year trend of declining death rates and infant mortality is being reversed. Death rates are rising. This, according to Malthus, is nature's brutal way of redressing the balance when population exceeds food supply--if man himself does not first redress it voluntarily.
* A military term (taken from the French word for selecting or sorting) that describes how limited medical supplies could be allocated on the battlefield. Under triage, first priority is given to the wounded who can make most use of the medicine--those capable of surviving because of treatment but who probably would not survive without it. Those so seriously injured that they cannot be saved have lowest priority.
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