Human Food - A World Problem

In last week's radio talk giving figures on U.S. agricultural exports and imports I referred briefly to the rapid increase in world population. According to the statisticians of the United Nations, world population totaled 3 billion 218 million (3,218,000,000) in mid-1963. The prediction is that world population will reach 6 billion by the year 2000 or almost twice the present number. World population is presently increasing at the rate of 2.2% annually. Whether or not population continues to increase at this rate it appears that a world food crisis is in the making.

The world land mass remains constant, world populations explodes. From whence will needed food come? What can the United States do about it? That is the problem of concern to the United States and of great importance to food deficit countries. The United States is sending much food abroad.

U.S. Food for Export

During the fiscal year ending July 1, 1965 the U.S. furnished 20% of the world's agricultural exports. The U.S. Department of Agriculture states that this took the output of 71 million acres of crop land. Exports accounted for over 1/2 of U.S. production of wheat, milled rice, dry edible peas and soybeans; over 40% of non-fat dry milk, tallow and hops; almost 1.3 of dried prunes and cotton seed; about 1/4 of the cotton, tobacco, raisins, grain sorghum and flax seed; and 1/6 of corn, barley, lard and dry edible beans.

We are told that about half of the present world population goes to bed hungry or are inadequately nourished. We are told that world population will double by the year 2000. If these predictions are correct, in order to take care of the increased need for suitable food it will require more than twice as much food as is now being produced.

In considering what U.S. farmers can do in increasing the supply of food we should also keep in mind that during the present fiscal year of record agriculture exports, we imported considerably over 1/2 as much as we exported. Our export import business in agricultural products totaled something over $10 billion dollars of which roughly 60% was for exports and 40% for imports. The U.S. is a large importer as well as exporter of agricultural products.

Future U.S. Agricultural Developments

Among the things that can be done to meet the probable increase in population it appears that the following will take place in U.S. agriculture:

• A gradual discontinuance of restrictions on production in order to provide food for our increasing population and an increasing amount of food for export.

• An increase in storage of food in order to have a sufficient supply in case of drought or other agricultural production trouble. In the last 72 years we have had three widespread crop reducing droughts in 1894, 1934 and 1936 and other bad years similar to 1947 when Iowa's corn crop was reduced one-half by a very wet spring followed by a hot, dry July and August. About one year out of six on the average during the past three-quarters of a century we have had serious crop reductions. History repeats and we should guard against what may happen.

• More emphasis on ways of preventing soil losses from water and wind erosion are needed. The fundamental U.S. farm policy should always be to maintain and increase the productivity of the soil. Farmers have made substantial progress but we still have a long ways yet to go in conserving and building soil productivity. We will need every farm and not just a part of them, in producing future food supplies. We are still using good land by millions of acres in urban sprawl in manufacturing, road building etc. as though the supply was inexhaustible. We need land for these purposes but we should use it wisely and economically.

• Experiment and research along all agricultural lines should be kept strong and increased.

• Extension - taking the results of research and experiment to all farmers is a must if we are to do our part in feeding hungry people and later on taking care of our own needs.

The principal reason for U.S. superiority in agricultural development appears to be the result of the Land Grant College plan in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture of first finding out what to do through experiment and research and then taking such information direct to each farmer by extension methods, no matter how small the farm.

We read about getting large amounts of additional food from the growing of food in and on water. Water grown food needs further exploration. If however water grown food is successful it lessens not a particle the need for the preservation and improvement of our land resource. At the rate U.S. population is growing sometime in the future we will need every resource to produce food for our own people.

Providing for Food Short Nations

Wherever there is famine in deficit food countries food should be supplied if possible. Food should be given to those unable to work or too young to work. But for those who are able to work some plan should be developed in which they can do constructive work to earn their food. Just giving able bodied people food without requiring them to work to earn it will probably make paupers out of them. They are generally back the next year for more.

Deficit food producing nation's should be required in return for any food given them to use the value of the food given in developing their own agricultural resources. In this way they could be encouraged to make an effort to supply their own needs.

It will be impossible for this country, no matter how hard we strive, to provide sufficient food for deficit food production countries for any considerable period of time - certainly not if the world population doubles by the year 2000. It should be taken into account too that the population of the U.S. is increasing in numbers as fast as or faster than the world population. Some day we will be hard pressed to supply our own people with well balanced efficient meals.

In order to meet their food needs, food short countries will be well advised to put into operation the plan that has made agricultural production in this country successful and and which now is one of our principal show cases of industrial progress. The plan of first finding out what to do through research and experiment and then taking such information direct to their farmers through extension methods has brought remarkable results.

There is much information we can give food deficit countries direct such for example as the control of insect pests, the use of fertilizers, animal disease control etc. But when it comes to land management and the best crops to grow on the land, that is something which after many years we are still hard at work on here in Iowa. It is something too about which we cannot tell them exactly what to do. Land management and what is best to produce will have to be developed in each country on the basis of local experiments and demonstrations.

Developing food production in food short countries will be a rather slow job. I recall the experience of an agricultural missionary friend of mine who went to Rhodesia in South Africa almost 60 years ago and worked for years to bring about better agricultural practices. It can not be done by sending specialists for two years or perhaps for five year and it may take longer. In the case of my missionary friend it took longer but in time the situation changed from one of poverty and sometimes starvation to one of plenty and with farm produce to sell. It can be done and is apparently the most effective way of providing additional food for food short countries.

Source: reproduced in its entirety from manuscript A-2081

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