🚀 go-pugleaf

                             WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE

                                  Full House:
             Reassessing the Earth's Population Carrying Capacity

                       by Lester R. Brown and Hall Kane

                            worldwatch@igc.apc.org

******************************************************************

              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 DATABASE DISK

******************************************************************

     The data from all graphs and tables contained in this book, as well as
from those in all other Worldwatch publications, are available on diskette for
use with IBM-compatible computers.  This includes data from the State of the
World series of books, Vital Signs series of books, Worldwatch Papers, World
Watch magazine, and the Environmental Alert series of books.  The data are
formatted for use with spreadsheet software compatible with Lotus 1-2-3,
including Quattro Pro, Excel, SuperCalc, and many others.  Both 3 1/2 and 5
1/4 diskettes are supplied.  To order, send check or money order for $89, or
credit card number and expiration date (Visa and MasterCard only), to
Worldwatch Institute (see below or topic "Order and Subscription Information"
for ordering information).


******************************************************************

                        WORLDWATCH'S MISSION STATEMENT 

******************************************************************

     Worldwatch Institute is dedicated to fostering a sustainable society--one
in which human needs are met in ways that do not threaten the health of the
natural environment or future generations.  To this end, the Institute
conducts interdisciplinary research on emerging global issues, the results of
which are published and disseminated to decisionmakers, the media, and the
public.


For further information or to order any of our publications, please refer to
topic "Order and Subscription Information" or contact us at:
          Worldwatch Institute
          1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW, 
          Washington, DC  20036 
          Tel: 202/452-1999
          Fax: 202/296-7365 
          E-mail: wwpub@igc.apc.org


Jay
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------
"The market economy is replacing a complex organic
 environment with a simplified inorganic one, literally
 dissembling a biosphere that has supported humanity for
 countless millennia.  In the course of replacing the complex
 ecological relationships, on which all living things depend,
 with more elementary ones, capitalism is restoring the
 biosphere to a stage where it will be able to support only
 simpler forms of life. ... The earth will become incapable of
 supporting humanity itself." [Bookchin 1980:230-1]