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No World Food Shortage in the Offing
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14712 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1988 |
1,825 Words |
| Author
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John R. Block
John R. Block is president of the National-American Wholesale
Grocers' Association and a former U.S. secretary of
agriculture. |
It seems that doomsday talk is always in fashion. In the 1970s, Paul Ehrlich preached population Armageddon and Barry Commoner postulated environmental death. Despite dire predictions of a starving world and a dying ecosystem, the human race has somehow survived.
Such rumors of calamity did serve the purpose of sensitizing public opinion to issues that need attention. As a result, the environment is cleaner and a massive cleanup is under way. But some current doom-and-gloomers are predicting imminent world food shortages and mass starvation just around the corner, and the facts do not support their arguments. The current focus on this alleged issue serves no real purpose. Individuals such as World Watch's Lester Brown are way off the mark when they suggest that we are on the slippery slope to world hunger.
A sober analysis shows that world food production potential has not diminished. The current drop in production resulted from 50 million U.S. acres being idle although set aside and another 25 million idled due to the highly praised Conservation Reserve Program. Those factors plus the 1988 drought contributed to reduced production.
Even with the drought, analysts do not predict a shortage, because of large carryover stocks. Anticipated shortfalls, if any, will be met as the United States brings idled acres back into production and as other nations expand production in response to higher prices. Although world stocks may fall to 62 days' supply by year's end, this is still higher than during much of the 1970s. Of the 300 million U.S. acres idled in the last six years, 90 percent could have been used for grain production. Regarding
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