Introduction
The counter-claim that Lomborg makes that ‘more food is now produced per head of the world’s population than at any time in history; fewer people are starving’ is the truth and goes against the claim by ‘litany of environmental fears’ that ‘human population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat.’ It is true that with an increase in population and technological development to boost food production has led to an increase in the food supply in the world over. In response to historical texts, especially The Population Bomb by Dr. Ehrlich, there have been furthered pessimistic predictions about population explosion and how the same would affect the human race. Still, all those have proven to be misleading, only painting a gloomy picture about the human race. The clam that an exponential increase in the human population would make the human race extinct due to starvation is a facade as the opposite is true, as witnessed in the ever-increasing food production in the world over.
Exponential Increase in Food Production
The most authoritative humanitarian body globally, the United Nations, confirms that there has been a tremendous proliferation in farm production globally by 51% per person since 1961. The growth has led to an increase in daily food consumption per person from 1,932 calories in 1961 to 2,650 calories in 1998, and the trend is expected to continue to 3,020 calories by the year 2030. Such reveals that with an increase in population, there is bound to be realized a rise in food production globally (Crist, Mora & Engelman, 2017). The bigger the population, the higher the number of people engaged in food production, thereby elimination starvation and food scarcity in the world. An increase in food production hurts the rates of starvation wit starvation, dropping from 45% in 1949 to 18% in 2006 and growing smaller to 12% in 2010. With the same trend, prospective food shortage would be merely 6% by the year 2030 (Neher, 2018).
The decrease in rates of starvation aside, reduction in food prices also show a positive effect of population increase on food production. There has been a constant decrease in food prices since 1800 by more than 90% in 2000, the World Bank confirms. An exponential increase in the human population leads to exponential and not linear, food production (Golden, Allison, Cheung, et al., 2016). An increase in the human population has an internal check where the richer and wealthier people become, the fewer children they have hence reducing the amount of food requirement per house. There has been witnessed a considerable decrease in the rate of population decline from 2% in the 1960s to 1.26% in 2006 and expected to be 0.46% in 2050. With the stabilizing of the human population at 11 billion by the year 2100, food supply is likely to be in surplus, making starvation be a story of the past. Development of agricultural technology also has a positive impact on food production with more food produced from each hectare of land (Herrero, Thornton, Power, et al., 2017). Advancement of the same is bound to produce surplus food both to the present and future generation, eliminating the need to cultivate extra land, thereby reducing pressure on biodiversity.
Women’s Role in Food Production and Food Security
With the increasing attention and focus on female gender and equality, more women are engaging in economic activities, and more aggressively, agricultural production included. The result is higher food production. In developing countries, women produce half of the food consumed in the current era. Despite that time and energy that women put in cultivation, harvesting, processing, and preparation of food is rarely highlighted, they play a pivotal role in ensuring food security in the contemporary society (Herrero, Thornton, Power, et al., 2017). With continued enlightenment of women, there is bound to be realized better and more intense engagement of women in the formulation of food security policies and create more expanded space for them to engage in food security initiatives for the betterment of the population. Furthermore, women are increasingly being enlightened on food production and resource use to enable them to play a central, as opposed to peripheral, role in ensuring food security (Neher, 2018). As such, the high numbers of women in the contemporary world pose a brighter future in terms of food security.
Governments have continuously recognized the pivotal role women play in ensuring food security through the enactment of supportive social and economic policies and enlightening them on family planning services to keep population growth in check and tandem with food supply. Such initiatives by women and for women have helped to realize improvements in nutrition, better access health services, and education in general. Implementation of child health services and family planning mostly is aimed at reducing fertility rates to match the human population with food production (Crist, Mora & Engelman, 2017). This also allows women more time to engage in agricultural production hence realizes food security in the contemporary world. As such, an increase in population increases human ingenuity and strengthens women’s empowerment to ensure sustainable food safety for the growth and development of the population. It is, therefore, misleading to believe that an increase in the human population exposes the human race to extinction due to food scarcity.
Better Control of Natural Conditions
Statistics reveal that for the past seven hundred years, the rate of food supply exceeds that of population growth leading to surplus food supply; this is contrary to the claim that the growth of the human population leads to less and less food available for the human population. The human race has managed to control natural conditions conducive for food production, such as cloud seeding technologies and the use of greenhouses for food production. The result is that changes in climatic conditions have less damaging effects on food production hence ensuring sustainable food production in tandem with population increase. An increase in the human population has also enabled the generation of creative ideas and technological developments that provide sustainable food production. With diverse views on technological development, the human race has, at its disposal, various options for realizing food security (Neher, 2018). A population increase has also enabled governments to track rates of population increase, which has, in turn, helped them to track rates of population increase and made it possible to develop long term plans to ensure food security and maintain sustainable food production.
Commercialization of Agriculture
An increase in population has also led to the marketing of agriculture in contemporary society. As such, more and more people are encouraged to engage in agricultural activities for personal and professional development. There has been realized a shift of focus from white-collar jobs to blue-collar jobs as the latter are seen to be equally rewarding. Developing countries are increasingly adopting agriculture as a source of employment due to the decreasing employment opportunities owing to population explosion evident in most developing countries (Golden, Allison, Cheung, et al., 2016). Lack of employment opportunities and commercialization of agriculture has pushed more youths to seek employment in farms hence leading to an increase in agricultural production for the increasing population. It is, therefore, worth noting that an increase in population has a positive impact on agricultural output, contrary to the belief that population increase directly increases food insecurity.
Finally, land use has also improved with the increase in population. Intensive farming has been the interest of every farmer with an increase in the human population. In the current times, people use small pieces of land to plant different types of agricultural products, and more land has been put to use, this is contrary to the previous years when large pieces of land were left idle. The explosion of the human population has led to more effective use of land for agricultural purposes hence higher production.
Conclusion
It is factual that the claim that an increase in the human population has led to a decrease in the food supply is misleading. This is because such an increase has led to an exponential rise in food production as there are more people engaged in agricultural production and better application of technology for food production. Additionally, an increase in the human population has led more women to participate in agricultural production as a way of economic empowerment hence ensuring food security in the security (Herrero, Thornton, Power, et al., 2017). Third, better control of natural conditions allows for sustainable agricultural production to ensure food security amid an increase in population. Furthermore, the commercialization of agriculture and lack of employment opportunities due to population explosion is responsible for a tremendous increase in agricultural production to cater to the high population needs. In this manner, there is a need for society to nurture a positive mindset towards population increase and acknowledge its benefits on food security.
References
- Neher, D. (2018). Ecological sustainability in agricultural systems: definition and measurement. In Integrating sustainable agriculture, ecology, and environmental policy (pp. 51-61). Routledge.
- Golden, C. D., Allison, E. H., Cheung, W. W., Dey, M. M., Halpern, B. S., McCauley, D. J., … & Myers, S. S. (2016). Nutrition: Fall in fish catch threatens human health. Nature News, 534(7607), 317.
- Herrero, M., Thornton, P. K., Power, B., Bogard, J. R., Remans, R., Fritz, S., … & Watson, R. A. (2017). Farming and the geography of nutrient production for human use: a transdisciplinary analysis. The Lancet Planetary Health, 1(1), e33-e42.
- Crist, E., Mora, C., & Engelman, R. (2017). The interaction of human population, food production, and biodiversity protection. Science, 356(6335), 260-264.
