UN numbers down; more Africans than Europeans; food up
More Africans than Europeans
According to the UN’s World Popular ion Revision report, Africa’s population exceeded Europe’s for the first time in recorded history in 1996. The UN report estimated that Africa’s 1995 population of 719 million had climbed to 738 million in 1996, whereas Europe’s 1995 total of 728.2 million barely budged to 728.7 million in 1996.
A further indication of just how badly things are going for Europe, was the UN’s estimate that Europe’s population would top out at slightly over 729 million in the year 1999, and then steadily decline each year for the next 50 years. World Population Prospects: The 1996 Revision, 90-93; 24-5, 40-l].
World food production success
According to the Consultative Group on International Agriculture (CGIAR), a 25-year old organization which runs agricultural research centers around the world, huge increases in world food production are all set to occur as new super varieties of basic crops move from the laboratory into the fields.
In a conference held in Washington, DC the week prior to the World Food Summit in Rome, CGIAR announced that “Scientists are laying the foundations for a second global food production campaign that will exceed in scope the green revolution of the 1960s and l970s.”
Donald Winkelmann, CGIAR’s technical advisory committee chairman, “There is good news…there will be adequate food to feed the 8 billion people we expect in the world by 2025. The food will be produced and prices will continue to fall.” A CGIAR report documented some of the advances to be expected:
For Africa, a “super cassava” that can increase tenfold the yields of this basic, drought-resistant crop.
For Asia, a new breed of rice that will “produce 25 percent more grain on the same amount of land.” The new variety, now being developed at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, could “feed an additional 450 million people a year.”
In Peru, CGIAR’s International Potato Center has developed a genetically engineered potato that is resistant to tropical bacterial diseases and can be picked within 60 days of planting — a third of the time needed to grow potatoes in cooler climates.
In Mexico, CGIAR’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, is developing new varieties of maize genetically engineered to withstand drought and to grow in acidic soils.
For crops everywhere, CGIAR has been developing new varieties with genetically engineered genes which will be resistant to the insects, molds, and bacteria which now damage and substantially reduce grain harvests.
Typically, the good news was scarcely noticed! (Source: New Scientist, 9 November 1996, 6).
UN projections revisited
In the Global Monitor section of the January/February 1997 edition of PRI Review, data was presented from the recently released World Population Prospects report of the United Nation’s Population Division. In particular, it was pointed out that under the UN’s “low variant” population projection (in the opinion of this Review, for the reasons enumerated in that previous edition, the most likely of the three variants employed by the UN), total world population was headed for a major decline beginning about the year 2040.
The details of world population growth and decline over the next 50 years, according to the UN’s “low variant” projection, appear in accompanying table: (World Population Prospects: The 1996 Revision, The United Nations, Population Division, New York City, 38-9).
