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                               FULL HOUSE
               	    by Lester R. Brown and Hall Kane

          POPULATION OUTRUNNING THE EARTH'S CARRYING CAPACITY

     
Over the next 40 years, the world will face massive grain deficits in 
Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and China if populations grow as 
projected, the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based 
environmental research institute, said in a study released today.
     
     
                                  ---
     
The new book, "Full House: Reassessing the Earth's Population Carrying 
Capacity," by Lester R. Brown and Hal Kane, shows that the projected 
import deficits will dwarf exportable supplies, setting up fierce 
competition among importing countries and driving up world grain prices.
     
The authors present data showing that the world is moving into a new era. 
They observe that "From mid-century until recently, projected increases in 
the world fish catch and grain output were simple extrapolations of past 
trends. The past was a reliable guide to the future.  But in a world of 
limits, this is changing."
     
This study, funded by the Wallace Genetic Foundation, the Turner 
Foundation, and the McBride Family Fund, contains the first world food 
projections to take into account the recent leveling off in the world fish 
catch, the spreading scarcity of irrigation water in major food-producing 
regions, the projected heavy loss of cropland to industrialization in 
Asia, and the diminishing response of crop varieties to additional 
fertilizer use.
     
These projections are for business as usual.  They assume that population 
growth will continue on the medium-growth trajectory, producer prices will 
remain at the level of the early nineties, and soil erosion will continue.
     
The authors conclude that "food supply is the most immediate constraint on 
the earth's population carrying capacity."  They note that "the food sector 
is the first where human demands are colliding with some of the earth's 
limits: the capacity of oceanic fisheries to supply fish, the availability 
of fertile new land to plow, and the ability of the hydrological cycle to 
supply irrigation water."  The continuously rising demand for food is also 
pressing against the capacity of crop varieties to respond to ever greater 
applications of fertilizer.  As the yield response of available wheat, 
rice, and corn varieties to additional fertilizer diminishes, the rise in 
grain yield per hectare is slowing in all major grain-producing regions.  
With biotechnology neither providing nor promising any dramatic 
breakthrough in raising yields, there is little hope for restoring rapid 
growth in food output.
     
"The impact of these collisions will reverberate throughout the economy," 
say the authors.  "Many knew that this time would eventually come, but 
because no one knew exactly when or how it would happen, the food prospect 
was widely debated.  Now the constraints that are emerging simultaneously 
to slow the growth in food production are clearly visible."
     
"Full House" compares food and population projections for the next 40 
years with the trends of the last 40 years.  For example, between 1950 and 
1990 the world added 2.8 billion people, an average of 70 million a year. 
But between 1990 and 2030, it is projected to add 3.6 billion, or 90 
million a year.
     
For developing countries, the population gains ahead are potentially 
overwhelming.  Nigeria, which gained 55 million people from 1950 to 1990, 
is projected to add 191 million people during the next four decades. 
Ethiopia, which can no longer feed itself even when rainfall is good, is 
projected to add 106 million people by 2030--more than three times as many 
as during the last 40 years.  Iran faces increases of a similar magnitude.
     
Pakistan will add nearly three times as many people in the next four 
decades as during the last four.  Bangladesh and Egypt will each add 
almost twice as many people.  The largest absolute increase is slated for 
India: 590 million. China is second with 490 million.
     
Such population growth in a finite ecosystem raises questions about the 
earth's carrying capacity:  How long can the earth's natural support 
systems sustain such growth?  How many people can the earth support at a 
given level of consumption?
     
Whereas the seafood catch increased by 78 million tons from 1950 (22 
million tons) to 1989 (100 million tons), the authors are not counting on 
any growth in the catch from 1990 to 2030.  Marine biologists at the Food 
and Agriculture Organization report that all 17 of the major oceanic 
fisheries are being fished at or beyond capacity.  Nine are in a state of 
decline.
     
With grain output, the world added 1.15 billion tons between 1950 and 
1990, but with business-as-usual projections, the authors see the world 
adding only 369 million tons over the next four decades.  To put this in 
historical perspective, the annual increase from 1950 to 1984 was 30 
million tons. Between 1984 and 1992, it dropped to 12 million tons.  And 
these projections show it dropping further--to 9 million tons between now 
and 2030.
     
If this production scenario materializes and if population rises to 8.9 
billion in 2030 as projected, the grain supply per person for the world as 
a whole will drop to 240 kilograms, just 20 percent above the current 
consumption level in India of 200 kilograms.
     
The projected world grain harvest of 2.1 billion tons in 2030 could 
satisfy populations of different sizes, depending on consumption levels. 
At the U.S. consumption level of 800 kilograms per person per year, a 
harvest of 2 billion tons would sustain 2.5 billion people.  At the 
Italian consumption level of 400 kilograms, it could support 5 billion, 
roughly the 1990 world population.  And at the Indian level of 200 
kilograms, this harvest would support 10 billion people.  Although many 
people aspire to the U.S. diet, population growth is foreclosing that 
option for much of humanity.
     
Since 1984, grain output per person has fallen roughly 1 percent per year. 
Since 1989, the seafood catch per person has fallen by 2 percent per year. 
At a time when U.N. estimates show nearly 900 million people are already 
hungry, the prospect of further declines in food consumption is not a 
pleasant prospect.  Even now, the food needs of the 90 million added each 
year can be satisfied only by reducing consumption among those already 
here.
     
Brown and Kane say that "With fishers and farmers no longer able to expand 
output fast enough to keep up with population growth, it is time to 
reassess population policy.  New information on the carrying capacity of 
both land and oceanic food systems argues for a basic rethinking of 
national population policies, an accelerated international response to 
fill unmet family planning needs, and a recasting of development 
strategies to address the underlying causes of high fertility."
     
In April 1994, the United Nations Population Fund, the U.N. agency 
responsible for population and family planning, put forth a bold proposal 
to stabilize world population at 7.8 billion by the year 2050.  Among 
other things, the plan calls for quadrupling funding for international 
family planning assistance programs, pushing the total to $4.4 billion by 
2000.
     
The program is broad-based, involving changes in the role of women and the 
expansion of family planning services to include both the 120 million 
couples who want to use family planning services but cannot get them and 
an additional 230 million couples who would need to plan their families if 
population is to stabilize at the 7.8 billion level.
     
The Fund's World Plan of Action calls for providing universal primary 
education for both girls and boys and making secondary education available 
to at least half of all girls.  If implemented, this program would move the 
world onto a low-growth demographic path where population would rise from 
today's 5.5 billion to 7.27 billion in 2015 and stabilize at 7.8 billion in 
2050.
     
In addition to the proposed increase in expenditures on family planning 
and primary education, Full House includes recommended expenditures on 
reforestation, soil conservation, and agricultural and forestry research, 
rounding out a global food security budget.  Starting at $24 billion in 
1996, the total budget increases to nearly $60 billion in the year 2000, 
then levels off.  The expenditures on agricultural research would entail 
an abrupt reversal of the decline underway in the last few years.
     
With the rise in grain yields now slowing and the yield of oceanic 
fisheries and rangelands unlikely to increase much, if at all, there is an 
urgent need for national assessments of carrying capacity.  Otherwise, 
there is a real risk that countries will blindly overrun their ability to 
grow food, developing massive deficits that will collectively exceed the 
world's exportable supplies.
     
Simultaneously there is a need for a global assessment of the long-term 
food prospect; otherwise, countries facing import deficits will not know 
whether there will be enough exports to cover them.
     
The authors conclude that "food security will replace military security as 
the principal preoccupation of national governments in the years ahead. 
Despite tight budgets," they say, "the resources are available to reverse 
the deteriorating relationship between ourselves and the natural systems 
and resources on which we depend.  Even though the Cold War is over, the 
world is still spending close to $700 billion for military purposes, much 
of it designed to deal with threats that have long since disappeared."
     
Seldom has the world faced an unfolding emergency whose dimensions are as 
clear as the growing imbalance between food and people.  The new 
information on the earth's carrying capacity brings with it a 
responsibility to educate and to act that, until recently, did not exist. 
A massive global environmental education effort, one in which the 
communications media is heavily involved, may be the only way to bring 
about the needed transformation in the time available.
     
     
                                 --END--
     
     
"Full House," published in 1994, is available in paperback for $8.95 ($6.95 
for 2-4 copies; $5.95 for 5+ copies) or hardcover for $19.95 plus $3.00 
shipping and handling per order from Worldwatch (see below or topic "Order 
and Subscription Information" for ordering information). 
Worldwatch@igc.apc.org